by Greg Mayer
Over at Secular Right, Razib Khan asks if adherence to creationism has become a litmus test for Republican presidential candidates.
[I]t looks like 3 of the front-runners for the G.O.P. nomination are rather frank Creationists (Palin, Huckabee and Pawlenty). I’m skeptical about any of these as likely candidates (i.e., if you had to make a bet you’re going to be surprised), but if you keep adding individuals to the list it seems likely that we’re looking at a serious probability that the G.O.P. nominee in 2012 will be a Creationist.
Pawlenty was once thought of as a possibly moderate sort of Republican: no more. It is gob-smacking to think that the President of the United States could be someone who thinks, as Richard Dawkins put it, that the universe came into existence after the domestication of the dog. That’s the problem with a two party system: when inevitably the people, through the hubris, boredom, or familiarity of the ruling party become disenchanted with it, the other party takes power, no matter how narrow, bizarre, and dysfunctional it has become.
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)
Presumably Romney’s in the running, and of course it’s very very early. Somehow, voting Romney for the sake of sanity doesn’t truly convince…
That’s a disappointment with Pawlenty, though. He did appear fairly reasonable, once, but people who suppose that the kind of “thinking” that would be properly considered to be unjust in the courts is really quite fine when we’re doing science, are utterly untrustworthy in positions of power.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Don’t forget about Bobby Jindal. This guy is as dumb as Palin, but with a penis and darker skin.
I would like to see Jindal as the candidate. His Creationist cred is stronger than the others, since he actually signed Creationist legislation into law, and he is an exorcist!
What?
Romney is nothing but a pandering carpetbagger snake oil salesman.
Nearly all of the GOP has sunk to new depths. They are out of touch with the world and no longer live in reality.
Hardly any of their representatives in congress care one iota about the people of the US.
Hope for Huntsman…
I think Romney has his work cut out for him. Whether it’s true or not he comes off as saying what he needs to say to be popular. i.e. as a flipflopper. He’s very bad at handling his public image and so comes off like a guy trying too hard to be liked and without core values.
Huntsman appears to lack this and has both competency and core values. However they are values the Palin crowd doesn’t like. (i.e. they see him as too moderate especially on social issues) Huntsman definitely seems further along on the libertarian spectrum than the social conservative spectrum. And, like Romney, values science.
“Romney is nothing but a pandering carpetbagger snake oil salesman”
How is this any different from any political candidate in the past century?
This guy is as dumb as Palin, but with a penis and darker skin.
no, he’s not dumb. in fact, he has a degree in biology from brown university at a time when that degree was heavily larded with courses on evolution. he was smart enough to be accepted to harvard medical school, though he decided to do the rhodes scholar route. dumb? no. evil. perhaps 🙂
And Dubya went to Yale, yet he is as dumb as a box of hammers…
I must disagree with the esteemed Razib. I have a degree in Art History and during my studies, I was subjected to, and forced to, regurgitate the writings of Foucault, Derrida, and Eagleton. Just because I heard the blatherings of these scholars, and could repeat them, it does not mean I took it to heart. I recognized bs when I saw it, and chose to move on. However, Jindal’s degree in biology demonstrates the man’s stupidity and his arrogance. It’s one thing to reject fluffy French philosophy that lacks any basis in fact or objective evidence, it’s quite another to disdain mountains of scientific and irrefutable evidence. Perhaps his creationism is a Machiavellian scheme to gain power, and his promotion of willful ignorance is evil; however, it is also stupid of him to believe that he can get away with it. He is either stupid in believing in creationism or stupid in believing that such a ploy will help him outside of the dense south.
Ummm. Since Jindal has managed to get himself elected to a major office in a fairly big state, I’d have to suppose his political savvy is a bit more advanced than that of your average blog commentator, and to assume otherwise would be pretty stupid.
Oran Kelley, Jindal is the governor of the state with one of the largest percentage of racists and one of the lowest rates of education as well as one of the most obese and least healthy.
His so-called response to Obama’s speech to congress showed him as totally lacking any savvy.
From Wikipedia:
“Jindal’s speech was poorly received even among some Republicans, conservative commentators were among his harshest critics, calling his speech “a disaster for the Republican Party””
Young earth or old earth, either way they’ll always be dumb earth creationists.
Pawlenty had appointed Cheri Yecke as the Commissioner of Education during his first term as governor. She named a panel to rewrite the benchmarks for science, math and history for the state standards. Their first draft and the third draft was intended to weaken evolution education, a “fact” that John West still touts as a victory for ID.
She is now apparently distancing herself from Intelligent Design, but at the time that he appointed her, Pawlenty knew full well that she was a creationist. This is no surprise to Minnesotans. Also watch as he claims that he stuck to “no new taxes” while introducing plenty of new fees; he also offloaded taxes to the local governments.
In theory, the two-party system actually works to prevent extremist parties from gaining power — in such a system, both parties have to appeal to the “center” in order to get anywhere near the required number votes, as opposed to a system with many viable parties where some can fill an extreme niche and still get some representatives elected. See the Front National party in France for an example of this in action.
The problem here is that a) the American “center” is WAAAY too far to the right, shockingly so for a developed nation; and b) the GOP is going through an implosion that is making them say much stupider things than usual. Hopefully that will be over soon (either by the Republican party reimagining itself, or by the GOP getting marginalized while the Democratic party splits in two).
I’m also frustrated by the two-party system at times, but it has its advantages, and moreover I don’t think you can really blame the two-party system for the Republicans’ current batshit craziness.
(In fairness to Front National, except for a few ultra-extremist ideas on integration and the unfortunate fact that many of their leaders have engaged in Holocaust denial, this “extreme right” party in France is probably very slightly to the left of the current GOP…! But again, I think that’s more a reflection on problems with the American “center” than on the two-party system itself.)
We have a few years to go, so it’s possible for other potential GOP candidates, such as Michelle Bachmann to come to the fore.
Bah. None of those three will garner the GOP nomination.
Why?
Are they too moderate?
Yeah, that’s exactly it *rolleyes*.
No, I think their shtick will be seen as way too old by then. I hold out hope that the majority will want to take their party back. Away from all the nonsense and idiocy that has plagued it for the past several years.
Well, I like to reserve “ignorant” for most creationists, but he obviously can’t be ignorant. What alternative is left?
He’s a liar?