COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM ON CRACK

Doug J:

As I've said for a while, I think Republicans are going to nominate some guy who the Village thinks of as serious. It could be an affable himbo (Thune), it could be a GOP daddy (Barbour, Daniels, Gingrich), or it could be some combination of the two (Romney, Pawlenty). Whoever it is, we’ll hear a lot about Burkean reserve and Hamiltonian whatever-it-is-that-David-Brooks-thinks-Alexander-Hamilton-had, and so on....

But we're not going to get a freak like Palin or Bolton, I'm afraid. Cain and Santorum may provide some comic relief, but what they have to offer us, that's as good as it's gonna get.

I still think Palin could get the nomination, but the longer I look, the more I start thinking that it's going to be Huckabee.

Without a lot of flash or Palinesque look-at-me! histrionics, he's branded himself as an "Obamacare" opponent with his "Repeal It Now" ads, he's given the Christian right some of the attention they've been craving and haven't been getting lately with his Christian Zionist pronouncements on Israel ... and yet the mainstream non-wingnut press still thinks of him as different from all those other extreme, divisive Republicans, because he, um, supports music education in the schools, or something like that. (Too bad he's a lot less supportive of teaching evolution.) If I'm right about this, I guess Doug is right -- it'll be someone the insiders think of as serious. However, Huckabee is in many ways the most extreme candidate the insiders think of as serious.

(I'm not sure I agree with Doug that this New York Times piece on Sarah Palin -- the one I flagged on Friday -- is a sign that the Village is taking Palin seriously. However, I think the Villagers are hell-bent on giving her as many do-overs as necessary so that they can take her seriously. Alas for them, she doesn't give a crap about their opinion, except to the extent that she can use it to mock them.)