This isn’t exactly a defense. Yes, we’re not surprised by Huckabees religious nuttery, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nuttery.
I’d say that in more practical terms, lawyers present more issues in regards to whether they are fit to be leaders than Baptist ministers. We’ve just gotten used to lawyers, who have pretty much created the political situation that exists. But that doesn’t make them any less problematic. you just get a different sort of problematic when it comes to electing former clergy.
Electing clergy (or equivalent) created the political situations of the middle ages, so I think lawyers have a better track record.
sure, if we elected mostly clergy and they were all from the same religion. Given the dominance of lawyers in politics, we should be more concerned about avoiding their poisonous influence.
There are lots of “poisonous influences”, and I think the clergy is one of the worst. Collectively lawyers might have more influence on politics today, but I’d still prefer to elect another lawyer than a preacher.
And it’s all about the issues, anyway – Huckabee is a nutbar fantasist. There’s no way I can possibly support a nutbar fantasist.
Sounds like a fraternity hazing or something. Was all that actually legal back then?
I would prioritize adherence to the law, personally. Lawyers have a problem with that.
Besides, I think the word you’re looking for is “inappropriate”, not poisonous. A morally upright man of faith might be inappropriate for the office, but hardly a poisonous influence. Huck isn’t going to start a crusade to kill or convert the unbelievers. Lawyers will, however, consider the law an obstacle to their ambitions, and continue to seek ways to subvert it or ignore it if they can. They are trained to be disingenous and present arguments they know to be false in order to “win”.
Well…I guess it’s true that if nobody else was running, Huckabee would have a pretty good chance of winning. But part of getting elected is being able to beat other candidates who are also trying to get elected. And Huckabee hasn’t been able to do that in a presidential campaign. As you note, he got beat by two different candidates who themselves got beat. So Huckabee’s apparently down in the third or fourth tier of electability.
His problem is that he only appeals to evangelicals. But with the GOP becoming an increasingly blue collar/middle class party, his brand of economic populism could make him more formidable this time around. It’s also been said that Citizens United helps a candidate like him who doesn’t like to raise money and isn’t very good at it. He can just do his talking thing and let third parties campaign on his behalf.
So the Republican Party is now the party of blue-collar working class and middle class? Have they been told of this blessing that has befallen them?
That’s the part of the base that controls the party now. I bet Democrats wish their party was controlled by blue collar voters.
I guess the fact that almost all the rust belt states that Democrats keep winning in Presidential elections slipped past your keen eyes.
Who said anything about what voters Democrats win? I"m talking about which voters control the party. The Democrats are controlled by their richest members, the Hollywood folks, the Wall Street folks. The upside is that it seems to give Democrats the best of both worlds: party of the working man + the sophisticated party of science and cultural liberalism. That’s not sustainable in the long run though. You can be the party of the rubes or the party of the elite. And my side is winning the rubes a little more in every election.
The Democrats are no more controlled by their richest members (and the like) than Republicans are – which is to say that they’re both partially controlled by their richest members. The Republicans are also partially controlled by their base, which is full of people with batshit wingnut beliefs – truly crazy end-of-the-world nonsense. There is no equivalent controlling faction in the Democratic party – their partially-controlling base doesn’t have such batshit wingnuttery in any significant sense.
I’m not sure if Huckabee is a “morally upright” man of faith, but even if he is, his rhetoric on homosexuality is of the same type of paranoia (and false accusations) that have preceded past crackdowns focused on specific minorities. Luckily for gays and for America, I don’t think more than 10 or 20 percent actually want to “crack down” on gay people.
So no, I believe he would, in fact, be a “poisonous influence” – a very poisonous influence.
Plus more of his christian stuff. Not all of us conservatives are religious. I’m more concerned what the U.S. constitution says than the bible!
George Will does not like this guy. He wrote a pretty scathing review published in the SJ Merc today. I assume it’s syndicated across most major newspapers.
Tell you what, I’ll go way out on the limb, here. If it can be shown that the “dietary supplement” he was shilling for actually cures, or even has a definite positive effect on, diabetes…I’ll fucking vote for him!
Failing that, fuck him and the horse upon in which he rode.
Dude, if you ever want to get better at critical thinking, you might want to avoid sweeping overgeneralizations.