Who's who among the Republican candidates
- From: "Joe S." <noone@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:42:36 -0500
Romney: The CEO Republican. The multimillionaire whose interest is an
America secured for the financial goals of multimillionaires. The problems
of the little people are nothing: give them a little verbal bread, by
appealing to a few of their baser instincts (Guantanamo good! Terrorism bad!
Torture good!), and the Republican party leadership can play the public like
puppets on strings. Romney stands out for being the Republican whose social
and foreign policy stances are most transparently a put-on, someone who
seems happy to drift along saying pretty much whatever the staffers say he
should say if it allows him to move on without incident.
Huckabee: The Religious Republican. The perfect embodiment of true
Republican religion; sings to the majesty of a Jesus that has been
painstakingly repainted in the Republicans' own image, scrubbed of
inconvenient tendencies towards compassion. Huckabee does not know if Jesus
would support the death penalty. He does not know if torture is
anti-Christian enough to really make a big fuss over. He considers himself
the most Christian candidate, but mere self-proclaimed knowledge of the Holy
Will of God is not sufficient enough to go against the Republican edicts
against the poor and sick that define his party. Republicanism is a stronger
religion, on that stage, than Christianity will ever be, and Reagan a more
heralded messiah: when it comes to Huckabee facing the phalanx of fervently
"religious" Republican voters that will oppose him if he steps too
carelessly on their own agendas, Jesus will have to make do as usual with a
bit of vapid praise and little else.
Giuliani: The Crime Boss Republican. Giuliani's primary motivation in
government has always been the consolidation of his own power, the use of
that power to retaliate against his enemies, and, apparently, Herculean
efforts to organize his city around best satisfying his own desires and
needs and genitalia. And all of it sold to the public under constant
assertions of danger, of terror, and imminent death if his edicts are
questioned. He represents mafia don Republicanism, as perfected by Karl
Rove, DeLay, Cheney and countless others, and is the most craven issuer of
the bluntly stated threat: let me and my Republican associates and my
Republican petty whims go unimpeded, or something will happen to you or your
family.
Tancredo/Hunter: The Bigots. Nativism and racism writ large; the "Southern
Strategy" recast to draw from and stoke fear, resentment and loathing not
against black Americans, now protected too well for such rank hatreds to be
openly expressed, but against brown Americans. Bigotry against minorities is
still perfectly acceptable and, in fact, craved by the Republican base --
the targets, however, have had to shift as each previously assaulted group
has won their own civil rights. So now the attack moves to gay Americans,
yes, but most especially to Hispanics, thinly veiled under pretenses of
rampant and dangerous "illegality." Gotta have someone to hate. Gotta have
have some group, somewhere, that supposedly threatens the very social fabric
of America by having the audacity to wish to be treated as human. What if
(insert group here) moves next door, or marries your daughter, or gets on
the same elevator as you? How many American laws must be changed or created
or ignored, in order to prevent such a terror from happening?
Thompson: The Vacuum-Packed Professional Republican. Chosen by name alone,
not skill, and specifically picked to be well known and inoffensive with no
particular record, agenda, skills, or ideas that might get in the way. The
goal of the handpicked vacuum packed Republican, whether it be Fred
Thompson, Arnold Schwartzenegger, or anyone else, is for their name to
quickly provide enough boost to make their actual statements and positions
irrelevant. Unfortunately for his party backers, Thompson has proved to have
the political vibrancy of a dead halibut, thus defeating himself handily in
his only area of purported accomplishment.
Ron Paul: The To Hell With The Rest Of You Republican. The rejector of the
base premises of government itself. Paul represents the large portion of the
Republican party that condemns the very notion that government should have a
role in bettering the health, education, or welfare of its citizens. Under
the Republican faux-libertarianism that finds its current crown princes in
figures like Grover Norquist and Ron Paul, government can indeed be ably
used as an enforcing tool of bigotry, but not of tolerance; government can
indeed be used as a valid tool of industry against citizenry, but not the
reverse; government, most of all, is a failure by its mere existence --
unless it serves their own thinly drawn purposes, of course. It is the
shallowest and most crass interpretation possible of societal good and,
indeed, of civilization, which goes to explain why it is so popular among
certain groups.
.
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