Thought I’d start a separate discussion based on a subthread back on the post about Nikki Haley on the cover of Newsweek.
Phillip, reaching for the bright side of the national MSM’s superficial coronation of Nikki because she’s an Indian-American woman, wrote:
Maybe this is all for a larger good. Even if I disagree with almost everything Haley or Tim Scott stand for, if this means the GOP is now abandoning the “Southern Strategy” of the Helms-Thurmond-Atwater variety, that can only be a healthy thing, for the party and for the country (and region).
Another way of putting it is that soon, racists and bigots in the South will have no one to vote for. That can only mean there’s fewer and fewer of them, and that, electorally speaking, they matter less and less.
And Kathryn chimed in, “Nice thought, Phillip–from your mouth to our ears!”
This little burst of liberal feelgoodism set me off in a way that again illustrates how impatient I am with both liberals and conservatives, even when they are respected friends such as Phillip and Kathryn:
Nice thought, but it hardly makes up for the hard reality. I’m moved to quote the last line of The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
You want to hear a dark spin on Phillip’s rosy scenario? It’s all well and good for racism to have nowhere to go, and it’s fine for you to moralize about those awful racist Republicans becoming better. But here’s the other side of that: Maybe after she’s elected and we have another four, if not eight, years of Mark Sanford largely because the national media couldn’t see past being thrilled over an Indian-American woman, liberals in South Carolina (liberals elsewhere won’t notice because they don’t give a damn about SC, except as a source of their occasional amusement) will think, “Maybe this identity politics thing isn’t such a wonderful thing after all.”
Now that would be tremendous. But you know what? I’ve waited through too many 4-year chunks of wasted time in South Carolina to go through another such period just so that Republicans can be more ideologically correct and Democrats can wise up a little. It’s not worth it. Change these things about the parties, and other objectionable idiosyncrasies will simply expand to take their places, because parties are schools for foolishness.
This positive name recognition in Newsweek and elsewhere, which doesn’t go more than a micrometer deep (an Indian-American woman! in the South! Swoon. End of story) is going to make her unstoppable — until the narrative changes in some way.
If the South Carolina MSM will do its job and ask the hard questions (OK, Ms. Transparency, where are those PUBLIC e-mails, which you are hiding behind a special exemption from FOI laws that lawmakers carved out for themselves? Any more $40,000 deals to buy your “good contacts” that you haven’t seen fit to disclose?), maybe the national media, the media that people in SC are much more pervasively exposed to, will notice. Maybe. Maybe. Isn’t it pretty to think so?
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Look, the Southern Strategy cannot work if there are black Republican candidates (and Nikki isn’t black, btw–at least not outside the UK). Neither I nor Phillip said it was a panacea–it’s just a bright spot-a silver lining in a very dark cloud heading our way — I assure you that neither I nor, if I may speak for Phillip, Phillip think that Nikki Haley is a good thing nor are we going to vote for her to end racism or for any other reason. It’s just like saying, when your outdoor event gets rained out, “Well, we needed the rain.”
While I agree the MSM obsesses over the superficial, at the end of the day voters will evaluate the candidates based on what they perceive as their stand on the issues. What’s frustrating is trying to actually figure out what candidates will do. They don’t always follow their campaign rhetoric.
Brad endorsed Sanford on the government restructuring issue. While I’m not sure Sanford was as vocal on that as he was on the libertarian stuff he eventually pushed, there’s no doubt he did stump for that in 1992. Then he pretty much dropped it.
As for me, I get discouraged over and over again by politicians. Jim Hodges was a huge disappointment. I rate him as my least favorite politician of all time. (That’s right folks, liberal bud rates a Democrat as the worst). I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 believing there was no difference between Bush and Gore. And then there is Obama, who has done some good stuff with healthcare and the stimulus, but has nevertheless frustrated me with his own brand of imperialism (Afghanistan). Worse, he pushes for more off-shore drilling just days before the BP disaster.
By all accounts Ms. Haley will be far more to the right than I’d like she may turn out to be far less of an extremist than she portrays herself to be. History tells us that politicians are unpredictiable. Let’s hope that’s the case here. At the end of the day perhaps a bit of diversity in the GOP could actually help the state overall. Time will tell.
bud–do you still believe there’s no difference between Gore and Bush? I mean, would we have had the easy oil industry regulation from Inconveniently Truthful Gore?
Brad, I’m sensing the implication from you that “identity politics” was something mostly played by liberals and/or Dems, and that we’re getting a taste of our own medicine, or something to that effect in the Haley example. But “identity politics” cuts in multiple directions, and has been “played,” to whatever extent it has, by both parties, both ends of the political spectrum.
Just to illustrate by the most obvious example, African-Americans have voted in overwhelming numbers for Democrats in the last 40 years primarily because they were given clear signals that they were no longer welcome in the party of Lincoln, especially in the South: by policy, by signal (Reagan announcing in Philadelphia, MS, for example), by general context (GOP conventions a sea of white homogeneity).
Responsibility for identity politics in that case rests with both parties, the GOP for mostly pushing away with rare exception, the Dems for “pandering,” if you call leading the way on basic human civil rights “pandering.” (Though it has not been healthy for our society for one party to take for granted a particular minority’s vote “en bloc.”)
If the GOP is changing its message to focus more on its traditional small-government conservative roots, then we may be approaching the time when identity politics is on the wane. Issues like how much government is healthy, how much taxation is too much, how interventionist or not should we be in the world, these issues could eventually be more debated across racial/ethnic lines than they have ever been. Ultimately it has to be, as there soon will be no “majority” race in the US.
I understand your frustration that in the short term this might lead to another four or eight years of governmental gridlock in SC. But while you’re thinking in terms of 4 or 8 years, I’m discussing this in terms of 40 years, or really 240, because we’ve never really had a time when minority groups did not line up as a block on one or the other side of partisan politics.
Look at it this way: this day was going to come eventually, when demographics would force the GOP to be more welcoming, to open its tent wider. As that day is slowly arriving, it was going to be an unavoidably big deal. Though I oppose their policies vigorously, I’m not going to deny that Nikki Haley and Tim Scott as GOP candidates in SC are a big deal. They are a big deal, in the large view of history and the South in particular.
Kathryn, I thought my point was obvious but maybe not. When I went into the voting both in November 2000 I was of the belief that Bush and Gore would probably not be very different once in the White House. I actually believed all that “compassionate conservative” crap that Bush espoused. Plus I did find some of the nutty stories about Gore disturbing. (He invented the internet?). On balance my liberal tendancies were offset by a (false) belief that Bush was maybe a bit more rational. So I voted for Ralph Nader, the only candidate who opposed the death penalty.
Now, with the perspective of 20-20 hindsight, it is apparent just how completely wrong I was. Bush simply did not behave the way his campaign claimed he would. I ultimately came to despise the man and his mendacious way of governing.
Those people who claim that liberals hated Bush because of the craziness of the 2000 election did not have me in mind. I was rather amused by the process and certainly did not immediately hate the man. Only in the fullness of time did my opinion of Bush come to be what it is now.
Two things: “white (English and Scotch-Irish)” The Midlands were largely settled by Germans and Swiss–your Shealys, Shumperts, Koons, Shulers…why we have a Lutheran Seminary here.
And only *some* liberals embrace identity politics, and those are fairly Old School. Do I believe a “wise Latina” brings something interesting to the table–sure–diversity is a great thing, but I would only vote for one if she were the best candidate overall. Clarence Thomas may be black, but he doesn’t seem to bring anything but resentment to the table because of it. Diversity is a value worth considering to this liberal, but hardly the only one.
—and didn’t you give props to Sheheen about a month ago because he’s Roman Catholic?
@bud–Gore never said he invented the internet. Never.
And I think the Democrats didn’t “hate” Bush because he stole the election–it was how he behaved immediately afterward that gave us heartburn–the entitlement….
You’re missing my point, Phillip. I’ve written regularly about the nasty things Republicans have done with race.
But I call that “racism,” or the exploitation of racism — which I think probably better describes what most Republicans were doing when they were building up the White Man’s Party in the South.
No, when I say “identity politics,” I’m speaking of something else entirely. If you think I’m using the term incorrectly, please suggest another one. But my definition is this: It’s the practice of supporting someone on the basis of a superficial or irrelevant identification — based on shared membership in what Vonnegut called a “granfalloon.”
I do NOT consider it progress that Nikki Haley is popular in the GOP. I thought it was awful that some throwbacks tried using her ethnicity against her when she first ran, and wrote a column about it at the time. But that was a distraction. And of course it had nothing to do with this country’s narrative of race. She’s merely perceived as “foreign” in a state accustomed to dealing with only two groups — black (West African) and white (English and Scotch-Irish). Jake calling her a “raghead” was a bizarre, and linguistically confusing (I think he actually meant to call her and Obama “wogs,” but he probably doesn’t know that word) distraction, not the persistent backward pull of our history.
Tim Scott’s nomination over a son of Strom Thurmond is different — an important milestone to note. But that’s it. Tremendous, ironic footnote, as in “We couldn’t have imagined this 60 years ago,” but it’s not like we changed overnight or something.
Anyway, back to my definition. “Identity politics,” to me, indicates embracing the nominations of Scott and Nikki as GOOD things merely because of color and ethnicity. And I do not buy into that. I know that Nikki’s nomination is unquestionably a bad thing, and her family background doesn’t change that. I look at her this days, I see Mark Sanford with an added Tea Party taint. I don’t see some wonderful tale of progress.
Whether Tim Scott beating Paul Thurmond was a good thing, I don’t know. I’ve never met either of them and didn’t follow that race. I have no idea which of them would be a better congressman. And I’m certainly not going to be persuaded that Scott is better because he has darker skin.
Do I like saying to the nation, as I did on NPR, “Hey, a black man beat the son of Strom Thurmond, that’s remarkable” (I may even have called it “tremendous;” I don’t recall)? Yeah. I like to take opportunities to change national perceptions of South Carolina. And it’s sort of nice to see headlines such as this one. Had I had to make a decision between those two guys, though, I don’t know whom I would have picked. I certainly wouldn’t have endorsed Scott just because he was the black guy. And I would have had problems with his Tea Party leanings. (Which Thurmond may share; I don’t know.) His being backed by the Sarah Palins of the world would have tended to negate any residual fuzzy feelings I may have had about historic progress, had I been making an endorsement decision.
Also, note that Scott won as a guy shrugging off identity politics. He won as a guy who once co-chaired Strom’s re-election campaign. He won as a guy who didn’t want his race noted. Which I, personally, find appealing, as do a lot of conservatives whom you may want to dismiss as racists. I understand those people to a great extent, because I share their distaste for politics that are ABOUT race and gender. A lot of liberals get furious when Republicans talk about color-blindness and quote MLK about “content of their character,” but I believe they’re right to embrace those concepts.
I certainly do. And that’s why I make my decisions about candidates on other considerations, considerations that are relevant to the job they would do in office. And on my standards, Nikki flunks. About Tim Scott, my jury is still out.
Anyway, to get back to my point. Since liberals, unlike me (and a lot of conservatives), DO embrace identity politics as I define the term, it is particularly ironic that they are falling victim to the media’s fascination with such. That, by the way, is one of the reasons conservatives regard the media as “liberal:” they go into raptures over themes touching on race and gender. Why? Because those superficial considerations are EASY to communicate, and they think there is nothing “political” in getting excited about the first this or that — and getting so excited that considerations of substance are pushed aside.
So it is deeply ironic to see the national media, because of that tendency, elevating a candidate who is a liberal democrat’s nightmare. And I hope against hope that liberals will learn something from it. But I’m not holding my breath.
Bud, we’re talking mere liberals here. People who voted for Ralph Nader are in a different category.
And I don’t KNOW it was because of the Long Count that they hated him. I just know they did, and it was very marked and noticeable. Up until that time I had sort of thought the way Republicans reacted to Clinton from the moment he was elected was some sort of GOP pathology. Then I saw Democrats doing the same thing to Bush. And mind you, this was well before 9/11, when Bush was pushing his education legislation and medicare drug coverage along with Ted Kennedy. I’ve mentioned this before and had Democrats say “NO, it wasn’t before 9/11,” but I remember distinctly that it was. Ask Mike Fitts, because I would ask him, as a designated liberal on the board (a New Republic liberal as opposed to a Mother Jones liberal, a distinction I appreciated), to explain it to me. And he really couldn’t, because it was visceral and not subject to rational explanation. (And Mike, to my memory, didn’t feel that way — I was just looking to him to explain to me why others did.)
I also remember distinctly that right AFTER 9/11, all that hostility went underground as the nation pulled together briefly. (That’s one of the ways I know it preceded 9/11, because I remember it receding then.) And then I remember distinctly when it came back later. And that was well before we went into Iraq. The Iraq invasion just added intensity, and provided a new rationale — after that, the liberal narrative was that their hatred of Bush STEMMED from Iraq, but that simply doesn’t square with my observations over time. There was a gut reaction against him from the beginning that was unlike anything I’d seen since Nixon, and it was different from Nixon because the times were different.
Kathryn — Al’s problem was that he always came across as a guy who would claim he invented the Internet. That’s why that misrepresentation of what he actually said stuck.
Al was always that way — the wonk in the room who would explain policy stuff in detail, and be slightly off-putting in the way he did it. Personally, I appreciated the quality, but I saw how it turned others off. I particularly remember one time in the early 80s when he explained to me, by sketching and diagramming on a legal pad, why MIRVs made nukes SO much more of a threat to human existence, by exponentially increasing the potential for destruction that could not be stopped or countered. I appreciated it, but it was geeky and a bit “look at me and how smart I am.”
And I think Bud’s describing that very real quality, rather than citing a direct quote.
And Phillip, before you celebrate Tim Scott too much, check out this invitation I got from Karen Floyd:
You are cordially invited by
Representative Tim Scott
And SCGOP Chairman Karen Floyd
To a reception featuring special guest
Newt Gingrich
Former Speaker of the US House of
Representatives
Friday, July 9th, 2010
3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Tristan Restaurant
55 South Market Street
Charleston, SC
Event Sponsor
$2,000
Individual Tickets
$500
Gore was a tool, Bush was a fool.
Yeah, everybody wanted to have a beer with W–how’d that work out?
Here’s what I think about the voting machines as a cause of Greene’s election:
Anton Gunn, who is a savvy, thoughtful guy who would never back an unknown just because he thought it was “the black guy,” nevertheless had a number of relatives who did just that. In support of the “Greene equals black” thesis, he rattled off to me recently five or six people closely related to him who had — knowing nothing about either candidate — picked “Greene” because it sounded black. Identity politics.
Anton had another theory, which is sort of an elaboration on one of my own: That the voters who picked him thought Alvin was Al Green and that Vic was Lou Rawls — and they knew Lou Rawls was dead, so they voted for the live one.
Yes, he was joking about that. But he was serious about the other.
And it makes a lot more sense to me than the “machines did it” theory. If the machines were screwy, why did most of the other races come out just as predicted? Why did Rawl do better in his home county, just as you would expect? It just doesn’t add up.
Look, some black people will vote for the black candidate solely for that reason, and some white people will vote for the white candidate for that reason–neither race or party or political persuasion have a lock on stupid. That doesn’t mean Phillip’s point isn’t a very good one–that maybe we can and will move past this. That’s not pie-in-the-sky—with Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, it’s very real, and one bright spot in the otherwise depressing world of SC politics.
It’s newsworthy when people otherwise not disposed to voting for a different race/sex do so.
And Kathryn — SURELY you know that I’m joking if I suggest you vote for Sheheen because he and I go to the same church. Right? I mean, for me, it shows shared values (in a way that skin color or gender do not), so in that sense I see it as a positive. But it’s merely one sign of shared values. There are plenty of Catholics I would not support. John Kerry’s catholicism leaves me unmoved. So does Nancy Pelosi’s. I like Joe Biden, but my liking of him is unrelated to his catholicism.
Now, pursuing your theme, I like Joe Riley’s catholicism, and it’s closely tied up with who he is in my eyes(in a way it is not with Kerry, Pelosi and Biden). But Joe Riley would still be my favorite SC politician if he were Sikh. He’s just got so much else going for him. But I do like that he’s Catholic, and serious about it. Sort of the way I like that Joe Lieberman is serious about being Jewish. It’s endearing, and for me speaks to character.
So… on the one hand, I like people being Catholic if I think they’re living it. But it’s not a lock for my vote. And if it were, I would submit that that is ENTIRELY different from something so incidental as skin color or gender. I truly think it’s wrong-headed to vote for someone because they’re black or white or male or female. And that’s different from voting for someone because of their beliefs or philosophy or attitudes.
Unfortunately, too many people assume (either to the candidate’s credit or detriment) that race or gender implies certain philosophical or attitudinal traits. And while there may be something to that when you’re talking gender (but not enough to it for me to think it’s good to back a woman simply because she’s a woman), attaching such importance to skin color is very objectionable to me.
Also — note that for me, being Catholic is a statement of belief, not an accident of birth like race and gender. I’m a convert.
I think a lot of black and Latino/a people would suggest that their skin color has a whole lot to do with how they’ve experienced the world and thus shaped their attitudes and beliefs….and a lot of women–obviously not all, but a lot, especially those my age and older, have been shaped a great deal by their gender—even Sarah Palin, and especially Sarah Palin, has experienced the world differently because she is female–do we think a male Sarah Palin–1st term governor with spotty academics and no other apparent qualifications could exist?
I know I have a lot of sympathy for Hillary (but not enough to vote for her) because I know what it’s like to be the highly educated half of a marriage where the other half’s career takes precedence, and what it was like to be a woman lawyer back in the 80s, and what it was like to be a smart girl in the 60s and 70s. Fortunately, I don’t know what it’s like to be publicly humiliated by my husband, nor to be cheated on even privately, but a lot of women do, and they identify with Hillary or reject her because of it, just like a lot of McCain voters have military experiences.
As a T, you think (you can say that again–*think*) the only valid reason to vote for someone is his or her policy positions and likely efficacy in effecting them. Many of us, perhaps the Fs among us, think that a candidate’s depth of understanding of people and perceived character are at least as important.It’s truly a Gestalt thing for us–which doesn’t mean we just pull the lever (or press the buttons) for someone because he or she looks like us–it’s a lot more complex than that.
How does John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi differ from “good” Catholics? It’s true they pick and choose which right to life tenant to support? Kerry and Peloci adhere to the right to life aspect by opposing optional wars yet conclude that opposition to abortion is limited to their individual circumstances. Other Catholics are perfectly ok with dropping napalm and cluster bombs on children yet adamently oppose maternal decision making when it comes to pregnancy. If you’re going to be pro life you have to go all the way. That means opposing ALL abortions AND all optional wars.
Brad, could you be endeared to a devout atheist or agnostic?
Gore never said he invented the internet. Never.
I know. He made a perfectly reasonable claim that in his capacity as a senator he helped foster the environment that made the internet possible. Even Newt Gingrich acknowledged as much. The spin machine in 2000 caught me off guard.
As for 2000 Nader voters, I haven’t talked to a single one who did anything else BUT vote for John Kerry in 2004. I have yet to find one that voted for Bush, Nader or did not vote at all. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that was so badly fooled.
Yes. In fact, I’m VERY close to people who fit that description. Some of my oldest friends are atheists, as is a very close and beloved member of my family.
One of the things about having a large family is that you learn to accept the unacceptable in people you love. Or else you can’t love people. To love another is to compromise. To love a family is compromise to the nth power.
For that reason, I do confess to one demographic prejudice that is akin to what women and minorities say is their reason for backing members of their granfalloons: I tend to give extra points to married people with kids — especially if their kids are teenagers or older. If they’ve been through that, they’ve learned lessons that single or childless people tend never to learn — about working with people no matter what, about understanding that you can’t really control the world, but HAVE to work with people who see things differently (and a parent’s and a child’s view of what is a good idea can vary as sharply as any two people’s).
But that doesn’t close my eyes. I don’t ASSUME that married people with kids have learned those lessons, or that single, childless people have not. Exceptions abound. Lindsey Graham, for instance, evinces the kinds of qualities that I think being married and having kids bring out in someone. I think there were early experiences with helping his sister when they lost their parents, or something like that, that imbued him with those qualities; I don’t know. And there are married people with kids who seem to have learned nothing about accommodating and working with the world. Mark Sanford fit that description, before he walked away from his family (because of that very lack, I believe — he was incapable of putting his family ahead of what HE wanted, which is a prerequisite to developing the positive traits I’m talking about).
Being a family man or woman is simply an indicator of a likelihood of greater maturity, but no means a perfect one.
Well, we could go around in circles on this endlessly, but I just have to take issue with your statement that the slurs against Haley (by Knotts and earlier in 2004) have “nothing to do with this country’s narrative of race.” and also your statement that “she’s merely perceived as ‘foreign’ in a state accustomed to dealing with only two groups — black (West African) and white (English and Scotch-Irish).”
I went back and read your 2004 column for context. Sure, the not part of the tragic legacy of our particular black-white history, especially in the South, but to say she’s perceived as “foreign” (by those who care about such things) is naive, I think. Those 2004 slanderers or Jake Knotts weren’t talking about somebody from Denmark or Luxembourg, after all. Ms. Haley has darker skin and more importantly as regards prejudice here in the South, she was born into a non-Christian religion. Racists don’t worry about things like “linguistic confusion.” Black, Indian, Muslim, Sikh, it’s all the same thing to them. The suspicion of the “other” is very much a part of our country’s narrative of race, which is a story infinitely more complex than just black-and-white, even here in the South (and if you question whether that is true, just stop and think about how the immigration issue plays down here).
sorry, my second sentence second paragraph should say “the campaign of slurs against Haley were not part” etc., and also meant to challenge the assertion that she’s perceived as MERELY foreign, etc.
but what about bud’s assertion that you are judging the Catholicism of Pelosi and Kerry based on their stance on abortion rights–single issue….
The seem, superficially at least (and that’s all I can know, lacking the means to plumb their souls), to be cultural Catholics, not Catholics by belief. As a convert, I’m the opposite. I grew up Protestant. I don’t know how to say a Rosary and I learned to cross myself by imitating Latino ballplayers and mafiosos in the movies. (Which a cradle Catholic could tell by watching me.)
I think a lot of the cultural, mysterious stuff about the church is just plain weird, like devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Those statues are freaky. At the same time, I heartily approve of crucifixes as opposed to the sanitized clear cross of Protestants, because I think we should be conscious of Christ’s suffering (just not in a weird, fetishistic way like Mel Gibson).
But as disconnected as I may be from a lot of the cultural stuff, I do believe in this things that the Church stands for.
Now, as to that, to answer Bud’s point: The Church’s opposition to some US military ventures is problematic for me. Perhaps I’m culturally stuck in the Age of Chivalry — the idea of going out like knights to right wrongs has great appeal to me, and that causes me to be somewhat more likely to see a war as a Just War than some other Catholics.
And if it’s a Just War (and that’s the distinction I use, Just or Unjust, not Bud’s Optional or Necessary), then it fits within the overall arch of respect for life.
Abortion does not, and capital punishment does not. Although I can certainly understand the arguments of those who say they support the death penalty for murder because they DO revere life, and believe that the taking of life is the one thing that is so beyond the pale that it means that person’s life is forfeit. I just don’t agree with them. (The arguments in favor of abortion that attempt to cite respect for the dignity of life — “quality” of life and such — are far less persuasive. One simply cannot justify taking a child’s life before he or she is even born on the assumption that he or she will have a rotten life, but I’ve heard some make that argument.)
I enjoyed this terrific discussion.
And Brad, I’ll vote for a person because they are Catholic. It’s an identity thing. Although I don’t believe the Church recognizes it must change (hide pedophiles, but no married priests because of a one liner uttered by a guy who never met Jesus? I better not get started on that) the rituals and lineage back to the apostles are compelling reasons for me to die a Catholic.
My sister recounted just this weekend an incident where a schoolmate in high school slapped her and admitted it was because my sister was Catholic. That was the South (15 miles from Bennettsville) in the 60’s and 70’s. My mix of Irish Catholic on one side of the family tree and Scots-Irish on the other led to an average of a fight a week for me.
Narratives about “the other” or not, the primary problem with Ms. Haley is that as governor she would hurt, rather than help, the most vulnerable people of our state. That is the bargain she has made to overcome any concerns about her slightly-darker-than-an-average-Myrtle-Beach-tan skin.
I guess I got lost to the Religious Identity thing when I learned Rehnquist was a Lutheran(albeit, if I am correct, a Missouri Synod one). (So’s Fritz H., but he’s a Good Lutheran.)
Phillip– Precisely! I doubt too many Right Wing people were concerned that Arnold S was Austrian!
Arnold’s not really right-wing. He’s the guy who did a climate-change deal with Tony Blair when Bush wouldn’t… Arnold’s a pragmatist.
I, too, enjoyed the discussion. Thanks!
But despite his furrin roots, not a single Right-Winger blinked, I believe.
After all, Austria is the original Vaterland.
“going out like knights to right wrongs,” eh?….
…or tilting at windmills?
I am Methodist and I don’t feel any compunction to vote for Haley on that basis. Could be that my feeling on this is colored by the paltry amount Haley gave to charity according to The State’s 40 things article. Would it be different if I felt like she was a good Methodist…or showed spiritual integrity to any faith, for that matter? I don’t know. It’s possible.