Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

California Finally Counts …

... and the choices suck. At last, a California primary will matter, and we have what Joseph Bottum aptly called “weakest set of candidates in living memory.” Regular readers know my litany of complaints about those who remain standing, so I’ll just quote Bottum’s 11/2007 comments:

Even a hard-bitten soul shivers at the thought of describing them all—the elfin kookiness of Dennis Kucinich, the farmer-in-the-dell demeanor of Mike Huckabee. Look too long at their pictures, and everything about them starts to seem a symbol of their inner selves. The anger swelling under the skin-deep affability in John McCain, like a balloon about to burst. The way John Edwards advertises his good looks with those slow and heavy-lidded blinks. The thinness of Barack Obama, like an adolescent whose body hasn’t quite caught up to his height. The brush of silver at Mitt Romney’s temples, an actor sent up from central casting because he has the face to play a role. Bill Richardson’s waddled jowls, Rudy Giuliani’s turkey-thin neck—bah. Outside of novels, looks aren’t the most reliable guide to character, but these guys do seem to want a makeover.

As for the big two, Bottum opined:

McCain has always seemed to me a disaster waiting to happen. Tales of his insane bursts of anger are legendary among journalists, who have generally not reported them. But they will if he should get the nomination and then run not against his fellow Republicans but against a Democrat. And then there’s Mitt Romney. The issue of his religion has always seemed to me overplayed by the media; the ecumenism of the trenches surely reaches at least as far as the Mormon Church, and Romney won’t be rejected by social conservatives simply for his Mormonism. But there are other reasons to worry about him, beginning with his actual record on life issues and his failure to draw in the people who remain committed to other conservatives.