The Reassuring Old-Line

by digby

Was everyone suitably impressed with all the manly, man’s-man, manliness of the Republican field? You should be.

OLBERMANN: Let’s just sit here a moment more as we watch this. And this touches on the idea of regal qualities that were not seen in South Carolina. This is the prosession, this is the parade, these are tonight’s debaters. The ten candidates, filing out, just in fact to our right. We can see them from where we are seated. There is a coronation quality that just was not present in South Carolina.

FINEMAN: Keith, if you look at that picture and took away all of the writing and all of the words, and just had the image, could the American people tell that those were Republicans? I think the answer is yes. There is a hierarchical, there is, dare I say it, male, there is an old-line quality to them that some voters, indeed a lot of voters, find reassuring. And this is something that the Democrats need to understand. The Democrats are the “we are family” party, which is great, but this is the other side of the conversation and this is their home here. We really are in Reagan country.

It’s true. Every last one of them had a penis while the Democrats produced at least one last week who failed to show up with one. Well, sort of. Here’s how Matthews phrased a question about Hillary Clinton to the mighty Republican sausage fest without ever mentioning her name:

“Let me ask you about something else that might be a negative in the upcoming campaign. Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the white house?”

Whew, talk about making those Republicans sweat with the hard questions! His show’s not called Hardball for nothin’. But I’m not sure I really understand why this would be such a negative. I know the Democrats “need to understand” that this stupid “we are family” claptrap has got to go, but surely the public would actually feel “reassured” that there would be one very notable, and highly regarded, white male in the white house, right? On the other hand, it’s a fine way of turning Senator Clinton into an irrelevance in her own campaign. (Very deftly done, Tweety.)

But the “old guard” that so many people find reassuring isn’t just male, is it? The Democrats had a couple of other inappropriate people on that stage last week — a brown one and a black one. (Yet another example of that ridiculous “we are family” stuff.)

I think the Democrats know very well what “the other half of the conversation” is, don’t you?

I, for one, found it extremely “reassuring” that only three out of ten of the Republican candidates for president don’t believe in evolution. And only nine out of ten said it would be a good day if Roe v Wade were repealed. Hey, it could have been worse.

Oh, and what was all that crap about a national ID card being only for foreigners? Huh?

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