With Congress out on spring break it is now silly season. The press will revert to meta issues with a vengeance. This morning it seems to be all about the quarterly earnings of the various Democratic candidates. Well, that and the fact that Tom Tancredo is going to run for President. And I think that Tancredo will add a valuable voice to the Republican primaries…for the Democrats.
I do, occasionally, try to envision how the debates will look in late 2007 and early 2008. And the Republican ones are shaping up to be quite a spectacle. Off on the right we’ll see former chairman of the House Armed Services committee, Duncan Hunter of California. He’s most famous for suggesting that it is okay to torture people if you also serve them orange glazed chicken and rice pilaf. Next to him is Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who poses as a pious man that is concerned about our mission in Iraq, but who, in reality, is a big-time oil and gas man and member of the Board of Trustees of the American-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Next to him is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who just the other day made an interesting point:
“If Republicans in this election vote in such a way as to say a candidate’s personal life and personal conduct in office doesn’t matter, then a lot of Christian evangelical leaders owe Bill Clinton a public apology.”
That was a shot at another Republican candidate, former New York City mayor Rudolph Guiliani. Guiliani is most famous for his performance on 9/11. But before that he was most famous for cheating on his wife so flagrantly that she had to complain publicly about the mistress being brought into Gracie Mansion. Soon he will be most famous for not only hiring a man he knew to be mob connected as his police commissioner, but actually recommending him for the position of Director of Homeland Security.
Tommy Thompson, formerly Governor of Wisconsin and Director of the Department of Health and Human Services, is throwing his hat in the ring, too. He’s a little charisma-challenged, but at least he isn’t a snakeoil-salesman, xenophobe, advocate of torture, or a well known adulterer.
And then there is brave, brave, brave Sir John McCain…the Gang of 500’s choice. Unfortunately, the base of the Republican party hates him and he polling double digits behind Guiliani.
When these clowns get together it should make for quite a depressing display. One thing is certain. They are going to savage Guiliani on his moral character and his support of reproductive and gay rights, and his support for gun control.
If I had to vote for one of these losers, I’d vote for Tommy Thompson. But I doubt he’ll catch fire.
It remains to be seen whether Chuck Hagel and/or Fred Thompson will get into the race. I’m very disappointed that Fred Thompson is the leader of the Scooter Libby defense fund. That despicable decision destroys any respect I ever had for him. But, up against this slate of candidates, he stands head and shoulders about the field and should, in a sane world, win the nomination in a walk. Hagel is also a serious and thoughtful candidate. But he’ll probably find it difficult to win as an anti-war, anti-Bush candidate.
But, who knows? Who would have thought that Republicans would be overwhelmingly supporting a pro-choice candidate at this point? Perhaps things have changed more than we know.