Things Get Interestinger

OH MY DARLING
Hope's Second Son has made a serious run in the polls lately as Romney and Giuliani battle it out for the "sole" of the Republican party, not so heavy Huckabee is aiming for the soul.

Certainly, among Mitt the Mormon and Rudy Cafeteria Catholic, there is room for the Evangelicals to make a little noise with Mike. A honest to goodness Southern Baptist evangelical sporting family values and some compassion for the poor and working class, folks who seem to be ignored by the Massachusetts Millionaire and the Wizard of 9/11. So there's a surge, particularly in Iowa and perhaps more importantly a real state, South Carolina.

On the surface, there is certainly somethings to like about Huckabee and as long as his candidacy was a joke, no one wanted to touch the rock and roll playing weight loss champ with a heart of gold. Now certainly Rudy is looking in his rear view mirror ready to unleash his attack dogs and rush Huckabee off into the Pat Robertson bin of Presidential campaign history. As the pendulum begins to swing towards the middle of the Republican party, his support of creationism and his other fundamentalist views may darken his chances. In addition, the requisite "willie hortoning" of any Governor that has had to make a difficult decision looms towards his ultimate and early defeat.

It's an interesting play for the other front runners in this campaign, hard to run to the right on family values issues, need to knock out the uprising without making the supporters of the uprising stay home in November, willing to sit out when a northeastern candidate "beats up on the bumpkin". Both of the Yankee candidates will be a tough sale in the southern primaries against a military veteran like McCain, an upstart celebrity from Tennessee and a Southern Baptist preacher in the race together splintering the vote.

The Republican establishment is in an uproar. With some pundits comparing him to Howard Dean in his ill-fated surge in 2004 and others saying a Huckabee nomination is political suicide. The National Review, the standard bearer of the somewhat reasonable right has gone as far as to endorse Mitt Romney, in hopes of gathering another CEO/MBA presidential candidate, outside of the more populist campaign of Huckabee, wacky tornado money machine Ron Paul or urban yahoo Rudy Giuliani. Mitt then attacks Huckabee for breaking Ronald Reagan's eleventh commandment, criticizing another Republican. C'mon he was attacking President Bush's Iraq policy, haven't we come to grips with that yet?

The die is cast. This is one strange rodeo.
SANCTUARY MANSION
I have just become morbidly interested in politics. It's like watching a car wreck or bar fight, you just can help it even if it's embarrassing to be that voyeuristic. As a student of history, I venerate the great American leaders such as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. Great users of language like Paine, FDR, King, and Sorenson have helped to fuel the energy of leadership in our land and create the country we have to day. This list is certainly not comprehensive but we certainly have an embarrassing poverty of leadership and language today, restricted to the bumper sticker, slogan, and soundbite of the 24 hour news cycle.

Occasionally, a very witty phrase will come out, the "great right wing conspiracy' is certainly an example and recently what I feel is a powerful attack, Mayor Giuliani asserted that the work done on Governor Romney's home by undocumented workers made it a "sanctuary mansion." In two words, Rudy managed to play the class card and the race card simultaneously, creating an image of dozens of brown skinned employees scaling the fence of a multi-millionaire's mansion with the owner of the manse showing little concern for his own security. Certainly how could the security of the nation be entrusted to a man who hires a company that hires Guatemalan immigrants to rake and leaf blow his property?

The mansion piece is a bit more interesting, especially coming from someone who lives in a multimillion dollar apartment in Manhattan himself, certainly the hard working voters who rake their own lawns and paint their own homes wince at the well groomed CEO who can afford to pay low wages at the expense of jobs for legal residents. The class card deftly played by Ridiculous Rudy.

It a brilliant piece of political theater, these mediocre leaders biting at each other over trivial issues, creating personal attacks that seem to manifest themselves as metaphor for future greater evil. The mental picture of the White House becoming the final scene of Scarface, with a slobbering, freaked out Mitt Romney firing automatic weapons, OK that's just silly.

GRUMPIER OLD MEN
Wow, so the lefty netroots really had to go and piss Lieberman off. Today, in a Joementum building extravaganza, Lieberman endorsed John McCain for President of the United States. Wait, 2000 Democratic VP candidate endorses a Republican, OK not so weird. Let me say this, I don't agree with Joe alot but I respect him. He is not beholden to anyone and will drive right off the reservation to prove it.

McCain quickly picked up the endorsement, stating, "wow, compared to this guy I look like Bruce Jenner!" (okay he didn't but that would have been awesome). McCain also picked up the Des Moines Register and Boston Globe endorsements, so those reading Republicans supporting the maverick senator suddenly got a blast of good news.

Now, I like McCain and Lieberman, both a little conservative for my blood, but at least they have conviction unlike many of the stay and sway members of both parties. Lieberman for all his saber rattling around the Global War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is generally fairly liberal around guns and gays, two issues that would make him a liberal freak in many of the Red States.

Endorsements like this make the Angry Middle a little giddy, for a lifelong Democrat who wishes that both parties would crumble into ash, allowing real leadership to rise from the ashes.

NEXT WEEK: In No Real Surprise, the Angry Middle endorses a Republican and Democratic Candidate!