As one of the more political animals i know i suppose i should care more about Iowa and the impending NH... but so far I'm just not feeling it. 4 years ago i cared - i REALLY cared... now i'm more resigned. BUT...
There is a confluence that i am loving about all of this...
Huckabee goes from 4% in Iowa to 34% in Iowa after he runs a 'Chuck Norris Approves of this message' ad.
Obama goes from 3rd to first after Oprah comes to Iowa and draws 60,000 in midnight rallies...
This brings me to a quote from Richard Morgan's Thirteen - a quote i like to paraphrase, extend, and parrot - because after my experience with the Clark campaign, paying very close attention to the bands of political thought that run laterally across the country... seeing this development really puts two and two together for me...
"That wasn't it, Tom. None of it was. America split up over a vision of what strength is. Male power versus female negotiation. Force versus knowledge, dominance versus tolerance, simple versus complex. Faith and Flag and patriot Song stacked up against the New Math, which, let's face it, no one outside quantum specialists really understands, Cooperation Theory and the New International Order. And until Project Lawman came along, every factor on the table was pointing toward a future so feminized, it's just downright un-American." ... "Now, think about the situation the way it was back then, the sinking ship of heartland masculinity, bogged down abroad in complexities it can't understand, failed by its military technology and its own young men. And then you put these new, big, kick-ass motherfuckers into American uniforms, you call them the Lawmen, and suddenly they're winning. No one really knows exactly where they've come from all of a sudden, there's a lot of deniability going around, but who ever gave a shit about that? What counts is that these guys are American soldiers, they're fighting for us, and for once they're carrying the battle. You just sit there a moment, Tom, and you think what effect that had in all those little towns you just flew over to get here."
This is it... ideas and hope and optimism and Oprah vs fire and brimstone (literally and figuratively) outgrouping and Chuck Norris. It's the difference between nuanced foreign policy, complex systems, and tolerance and greed, bigotry, and simplicity wrapped into a 'hey, i like that guy, he's kinda nice' package.
They're two very different visions of what it is to be american - and christian - and this is where we find out whether old glory stands for all those ideals or is just another rag with which we can wipe our collective asses.
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