Dear Mark Sheilds By: shep

by shep

Hi Mark,

On the News Hour New Hampshire Extravaganza, I thought your answer on Hillary’s "comeback" was brilliant (also a nice point on the "is blowing 20-point lead a great victory" question). At least, I agreed with it: roughly, female sympathy and backlash at the treatment Hillary has received from the press and her rivals over that last few days (why it wasn’t reflected even in late polling) turned the female vote out for her big time.

Wish I could say the same for your answer on McCain: “the anti-Bush”. Other than finally turning on Rumsfeld, and an all-too-tepid resistance to US sanctioned torture, he’s barely been off his knees before Bush since 2000.

I think the real Republican story is that rank-and-file Republicans, particularly Evangelicals, simply reject Romney (the Mormon) and Gulianni (the philandering New Yorker) and are choosing one of their own in Huckabee. Regardless of their automaton-like fealty to the Republican Party, they have been trained to despise (any) government (pretty shrewd of Huck to play the populist) and to do (and believe) what their preachers tell them.

Oh, and the (conspicuously unspoken) story with Edwards is that the corporate media ignored, marginalized or outright ridiculed him – because, obviously, they hate his anti-corporate, populist rhetoric – so his message never reached the voters who would be energized by it. Others simply bought into the media-framed “no chance against the frontrunners” status (breathtaking chutzpa considering that he came in second in Iowa).

IMHO, for what it's worth.

Best,
[shep]

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]