SomeMusings.com

The 2008 Presidential election has begun in earnest. Yes, I am going to rant about it. If this isn’t your cup of tea, then click here for a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. For everyone else. . .

The biggest story today is Obama and Huckabee winning their respective Iowa caucuses. This is an admittedly tiny part of the US election, but the media’s impassioned insistence that Iowa is a “microcosm of the nation” and people’s unjustifiable tendency to only vote for “winners” combine to make Iowa of far larger import than reason would have one believe.

Sadly, that media’s claim is as implausible as it is impassioned. The Iowa “microcosm” is as much representative of voters nationwide as voters nationwide are 95% white, are disproportionately protestant, are not serving overseas, are unable to vote by absentee ballot for any other reason, have absolutely no inflexible responsibilities from 6:30 to 8:30 on a given Thursday night, and are residents of Iowa.

For the record, I don’t particularly have anything against Obama. He seems respectable enough. As far as I’m concerned he has that all-important quality of not-being-Hillary-or-Edwards that other Democratic frontrunners (particularly Hillary and Edwards) seem to be so desperately missing. Depending on whom he runs against, and whether or not he continues his so far successful strategy of not sharing anything substantial, he might just get my vote.

Huckabee’s surge strikes me as slightly surprising. Isn’t this the man who’s initial success was attributed to an endorsement by that spiritually fundamental born-again and culturally resurrected has-been Chuck Norris?

It’s hard to deny that Huckabee has a great sense of humor. And, when confronted by a harsh media critic, he knows how to handle himself. I was particularly amused by how he handled his archrival Mitt Romney’s attack ads. Shortly before 2007 ground to an end, Mike Huckabee called for a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

Standing before a custom-made banner that definitively and repeatedly declared “Enough is Enough” and amid ardent placards decrying the record and character of William Mitt Romney, Huckabee strode on stage and declared that he was better than your average mud-slinging politician.

“If I were to continue this strategy — which is not, personally, what I feel in my heart is the right thing to do — it’s not what I really want to do — if you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what has it profited you? And ultimately for me that became the issue — that it’s not worth it.”

A rather slow set-up, I admit, but, after distancing himself from the second-grade bile that he was too proud to participate in, but not to proud to surround himself with, Huckabee dropped the punch-line.

“I know that some of you are saying,” he told the press room full of cameras and experienced media, “‘Did you really have an ad?’ Well, I want to show you the ad. I want you to find out exactly what we are doing.”

The room erupted in laughter. They laughed in face.

You see, he’s just trying to have his cake, and go on a cake-free diet at the same time.

In the words of O.J. Simpson, he didn’t attack Mitt Romney’s integrity, but, if he did, he’s told us how he would have done it.

And, in the words of John Kerry, he was actually for the attack ad before he was against it.

I’m not disgusted because Michael Huckabee is a fake, two-timing liar. He is, after all, a politician. Such things are to be expected. What disgusts me about Michael Huckabee is that he is your average politician coated with a thin veneer of holier-than-thou, I’m-here-to-do-the-Lord’s-Work calmness. This is the same Christianity that tells him to fly in the face of both common sense and science when he declares that homosexuality is a choice and that he, if pressed, belief in evolution is a dangerous sin.

I have no problem with a baptist preacher, but there’s something inherently phony about a man who, unless they use a different bible in Arkansas, quotes Jesus of Nazareth when he says to “love your enemy” and then gives graphic detail on how his enemies should commit suicide. I’m not overly disappointed by reports of Mike Huckabee’s corruption in Arkansas, but when the media seems ignorant of the consensus and paints the the culprit as a compassionate man of character, I get fucking upset.

But, then again, I’m from a microcosm of my own. I hail from that tech-savvy generation that is not going to be running things for a bit longer than I’m comfortable with. Not to speak for an entire generation, but we know how to think critically. We know how to be frugal. We know how to twitter. We know how to digg. We watched big government kill 21 children in Waco, Texas. We watched big government screw us on Iraq. I’m from Louisiana. I got a first-hand look at big government screwing us after Katrina. Unlike the “microcosm” of Iowa, we care about the constitution, and we care about limited government. If we had it our way, it would be Ron Paul vs. Dennis Kucinich in November.

It’s too bad that the media doesn’t care about our microcosm.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to scream curse words with my little brothers. They don’t usually hear me speaking that way, but, then again, at this point they’re probably wondering if I know any curse words at all.

In conclusion, Mike Huckabee’s winning and SHIT, DAMN, CUNT, TITS, FUCKABEE.