Republican Future
It's way too early to predict how the 2008 presidential election will turn out. But, looking at the horizon, the Republicans do seem to have a serious problem: each major candidate has (at least) one major flaw that has nothing to do with politics.
Rudy Giuliani He's been married three times and has an embarrassing personal life that can easily be used against him, even by Hillary Clinton.
John McCain He'd be 72 by the election, the oldest first-termer ever. The job ages even the most vigorous men, so do we want a guy who'll be 80 if he makes it two terms?
Mitt Romney He's a Mormon. It shouldn't matter, but a lot of Americans in a recent poll said they wouldn't vote for one. (It's still worse to be gay or an atheist.)
Fred Thompson He's got lymphoma. Remission or not, a lot of voters will wonder if he'll make it four or eight more years.
Every candidate who ever ran has flaws, but can Republicans be happy with this slate?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:16 AM
2 Comments:
Why should Mormonism or any other -ism not matter? If a candidate has adopted a delusion that is ouside the mainstream delusions, shouldn't we discuss it? Why do we defer to strange beliefs on the ground that they are religious? We are willing to go after Romney on his beliefs in taxes hurting rather than helping and whether low wage immigrants should be amnestied but not whether the Angel Moroni was right when he said that there was a giant civilization in North America for which there is no archeological record. This "respect" for faith of newfangled beliefs like Mormonisn is just a gambit by mainstream religions to cover up their own shady origins.
We can let a candidate's religion effect our vote if we wish--the point here is most people don't care if you're a mainstream Christian or Jew, but plenty care if you're a Mormon. This doesn't really make any sense, since Mormons in general, and Romney in particular, don't let their private religious beliefs effect their policies any more than other Christians do. Furthermore, Romney has a public record to go on, so we can see how he'll govern, and what he favors--his religion, if it has any effect, is already figured into that.
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