Article VI Blog

Man it's thin today…

All I got is a really interesting post from Charles Mitchell at EFM about how Evangelicals seem in political disarray, something we have contended here for a while:

So, looking at the whole picture here, we're squabbling among ourselves, we're disappointed in the Republicans, and in the meantime the Democrats are picking off whomever they can.

I must admit that I see a serious problem at the core of this–and quite frankly, it's not that the GOP candidates stink. It's the way we have put absolutely inordinate faith in politics. Put another way, it's not the speck in their eyes–it's the log in our own.

Amen to that.

But it raises some interesting questions…

Just about the time of the Ames straw poll The Question went from being the hottest political discussion out there to almost completely off the radar amongst the serious. Sure, it shows up from time-to-time, but things have just gotten dull around here. I'm wondering why that is.

Well, for one thing, The Question is less speculative and the data is not coming out as people hoped. In straw poll after straw poll Romney is coming out the winner, so if they are any measure, and they are the best we have at the moment, apparently The Question is not a question at all.

But if that was the whole case I wonder why no one is writing about that. A lot of people are looking to discount the straw polls, but when they do, they no longer bring up The Question. I would think if they had been legitimately interested in The Question as question, they would be willing to start drawing conclusions based on the data received.

Rather I wonder if the Ames straw poll, as a marker of the transition from fund-raising to campaigning, put the punditry into "serious" mode and they realized The Question was an issue for the silly season and not the real deal campaign. And if that is true, is that not an implicit admission that The Question is a somehow "illegitimate" consideration? And if it is so illegitimate why do we engage it to begin with?

Here's what really bothers me: This season's "harmless" speculation discussed when things are silly often becomes next season's serious concern. The mere discussion, even in pure speculation, legitimizes the discussion when things are more serious, if not this cycle, then the next.

This is where the exchange between Hugh Hewitt and Jim Geraghty a couple of months ago, along with our commentary, see especially here and here, matters. By legitimizing the issue through seemingly serious discussion we give heed to those that are bigots, insignificant though they increasingly appear to be. By considering their viewpoint instead of denouncing it, it gains traction.

If indeed The Question is not so much of a question then there needs to be a raft of articles declaring it such, just as there were innumerable, and loud, articles declaring it everything from unclearable hurdle, to "concern." Where are the pieces announcing the Republican voters as smarter than we figured? Where are the mea culpas?

Or is The Question "going underground"? No longer a matter of serious discussion, has it become the ephemeral stuff of viral emails and rapidly disappearing YouTube postings? Lowell and I are too clearly identified for our stances here for such drivel to ever make its way to our inbox. And if it has gone underground, why is that not being reported and denounced? Is that not just as much a tacit acceptance of the bigotry as the prior outloud discussions?

Hugh Hewitt concluded his book by saying that Romney's Mormon problem was real. If it is, why has the coverage dried up? Has the punditry caved to the bigotry as inevitable? If so, shame on them. If the Mormon problem is not real, Mitt Romney, and more importantly the average Republican voter, is owed one huge punditry apology. I'm still waiting.

LOWELL: You might be waiting a long time, John. News reporters will say, "The question was asked, the subject came up, and so we reported on it. No apology is due." Among the punditry so very few of them actually gave careful thought to the question that I don't think it will even occur to them to revisit the issue, let alone to say, "You know, I was wrong about that after all." Some of the more thoughtful ones might say something along those lines. Robert Novak, for example; maybe John Podhoretz. I still have faith in Geraghty, too. It will be interesting to see . . . .

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