They don’t mind her obviously limited curiosity or qualifications: they see a willing vehicle for their own ambitions, a woman who has the single quality that no politician can learn or acquire – star power.

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The Right in America are split three ways: there’s the liberal Republicans advocates of small govt, the flag wavers (McCAin) and the Bible thumpers – Palin.
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About 40% of the US population subscribe to beliefs associated with fundamentalist Christianity. These are not limited to, but include: the coming Apocalypse these days envisaged as a global war between Islam and Christendom with Israeli Jews either converting or perishing; the Rapture by which believers get whisked up to heaven to watch the Apocalypse in God’s own home theatre system; that the American system was originally intended to be a theocracy – a specifically Christian nation; that Science produces the Holocaust.
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That’s 2 out of every 5 Yanks. I’d wager not all of ‘em would be so extreme but still 40% acquiesce to literal and highly selective readings of the Bible and endorse this views. They also breed at a greater rate than their relatively secular fellow citizens. Say the secular Americans have two kids and the fundamentalist ones three on average. Wait 3 decades and do the math. Palin might not come back but we’ll see more of her like and I fear by around 2030 or so they’ll have the US govt sewn up.
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Do they mind limited curiosity? Hell no! It’s practically mandatory! As Ann Coulter said: My faith and reason tell me that God created the world and I’m not particularly interested in the details. I’ll find out when I meet my Maker.
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In other words speculative inquiry, free thought, empiricism are out. This is exactly what happened in the Islamic world c 1000-1200 ACE. Before 1200 the Islamic World was the global centre of science. And now?
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Not so hot.
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America RIP it was good while it lasted.

Hanson as I recall, said that abortions are a personal issue for women and they should decide for themselves.

So, in that respect, Hanson is better than Palin.

On the other hand, Palin has better teeth.

And she dresses much better. ($150K on clothes! What are made of, diamonds?)

Palin’s appeal to working class conseratives, or at least the heterosexual men among them, is that they’d like to have sex with her, probably the kind where they get tied up and whipped.

But that will pass.

Interesting point about Fred Thompson. I kind of liked him. At least, I liked the character he played on Law and Order.

Murkowski is a one of the handful of Republican moderates, pro choice and pro stem cell research. As Republicans go, she is the anti-Palin.

It could be quite a stoush. Myself, I reckon they should dispense with the primaries and go for naked jelly wrestling, best of three falls.

Of course, this is fantasy in more ways than one. Unless they are completely clueless, which is admittedly possible, the Republican party will realise that “energising the base”, all of maybe 20 million people, is not very helpful if you turn off the remaining 280 million.

If the Obama presidency turns out badly, sensible Republicans – the Governors of Minnesota, Michigan, what have you – will be lining up in 2012. That they weren’t in the race in 2008 is as relevant as Obama not being in the race in 2004.

In the meantime, watch the Republican party tear itself apart for the next two years. As they used to say in the 60s: burn, baby, burn.