From Huntsman to Paul

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has finally done it: he scored a perfect "0" yesterday in the Values Voter Summit's straw poll.

Hunstman's 1 percent popularity among the GOP base was, it seems, too much of a strain.

Is it mathematically possible to do three times better than zero? Only if one is a really, really Big Idea man, who came in at 3 percent, which nonetheless was only 1 point behind the inevitable GOP nominee's percentage of 4. Doubtless, Newt will now start claiming that he's running about even with Mitt. 

Somebody by the name of "Santorum" scored 16 percent in the straw poll (hence the premise is proved: 16 times zero is indeed zero), which was precisely twice the percentage racked up by both one-time GOP frontrunners, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. Oh, how the flighty have fallen.

Which brings us into the home stretch, where famed political philosopher Herman Cain thumped, with a resounding 23 percent of the vote, nearly all his competitors.

Yet Ron Paul he thumped not, for Ron Paul, with 37 percent, won the blue at the blood-red Values Voter Summit. 

What does it all mean? How are we to interpret these highest of irregularities?

Let us allow one of the VVS' prime speakers to answer those questions. Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, has, from time to time, dropped such pearls as this one: that "The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion" only. And yesterday, at the Summit, Mr. Fischer's values shone: homosexuality, said he, is a "threat to public health"; Islam is a "religion of war and violence and death"; and, naturally, evolution is a "bankrupt theory."

Did that paragraph answer either of my two questions? Of course not. I just wanted to quote Bryan Fischer.

Comments

[ronalda]

How could you leave out what was Mr. Fischer's best contribution to our political discourse - that Mormonism is a cult. This is Mitt's biggest problem with the wing of the Republican Party that will decide the primaries. I can't wait for the debate when Perry calls on Mitt to "show us your underwear!".

[CK MacLeod]

Whenever I bemoan my outcast fate, I think about some former friends and colleagues of mine who identify with the conservative movement, and who hack, hack, hack away at justifying the movement or taking down its opponents in virtual print. I take some pleasure in knowing what they really think, but must keep themselves from saying, about the typical denizens of the VVS. I wonder how much the excesses and deficiencies in their critique of the left results from the workings of repression, sublimation, projection, and transference - disgust and embarrassment being shifted onto the political adversary when much of it originates in reactions to the political ally.

[Skip Kapur]

Mr. Carpenter,

you are terrific!

Skip Kapur