Among the Republican candidates, Mr. Huckabee is also as culturally un-Bush as you can get. He constantly reminds voters that he did not go to an Ivy League school and that his plain values derived from a bona fide blue-collar upbringing, as opposed to, say, clearing brush on a vacation “ranch” bought with oil money attained with family connections. “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off,” he told Mr. Leno, in a nifty reminder of Mr. Romney’s corporate history as a Bush-style, Harvard-minted M.B.A.
It’s such populist Huckabee sentiments that are already driving the Republican empire to strike back. The party that has milked religious conservatives for votes for two decades is traumatized by the prospect that one of that ilk might actually become its standard-bearer. Especially if the candidate in question is a preacher who bashes Wall Street and hedge-fund managers and threatens to take a Christian attitude toward those too poor to benefit from the Bush tax cuts.
It has always been an irony of the Republican party that while they superficially embrace middle America and preach the gospel of hard work as the key to wealth, they are incredible snobs.
As for the other candidates, McCain, like Edwards, is a man without a constituency. He's not really a man of his party and yet he's compromised his outsider standing as the straight-talker.
Giuliani's candidacy has been aptly summarized as a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else that needs to be said.
Thompson at this stage seems to be a footnote. I never understood his appeal anyway.
Ron Paul is the candidate for blogging libertarians and no one else. If you want to get page views on your political web site, write something negative about him and see what happens.
Finally, Mitt Romney is the money candidate for the Republicans, and like HR Clinton, needs the establishment to throw its collective weight behind him to get through the primaries. He certainly can't win based on his empty suit of ever shifting positions.
Overall, the primary season is where the political establishment seeks to inspire and contain the the hopes and fears of its own people. Politics requires idealistic, motivated people who can be tamed in time to elect the party favorite.
