Some Wednesday Political Humor

From a Slate article discussing Mike Huckabee's use of humor and some past politicians who were funny in a good way:

Huckabee reminds me of Mo Udall, the last great punster and jester on the campaign trail who every candidate wants to quote but not emulate. "I'm Mo Udall and I'm running for president," the failed Democratic candidate said, walking into a shop. "Yeah," replied the barber, "we were just laughing about that." Candidates don't repeat Udall's better lines, like his observation that the difference between a cactus and a caucus is that with a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.

Nice.

(By the way, the article argues -correctly, I think- that Huckabee's ceaseless joking will come back to haunt him rather quickly.)

"Would Reagan Survive in Today's GOP?"

Peggy Noonan's Friday WSJ column poses that interesting question (though I wish she had spent more than one paragraph addressing it). After discussing Mike Huckabee's rise (driven,as she sees it, by Huckabee's promotion of the fervency of his faith), Noonan writes:

I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment. Not a regular churchgoer, said he experienced God riding his horse at the ranch, divorced, relaxed about the faiths of his friends and aides, or about its absence. He was a believing Christian, but he spent his adulthood in relativist Hollywood, and had a father who belonged to what some saw, and even see, as the Catholic cult. I'm just not sure he'd be pure enough to make it in this party. I'm not sure he'd be considered good enough.

I think the answer to both of those implied questions is "probably yes," but not "definitely yes."

Also, the column contains a sort-of-nice insight into the immigration debate; I wouldn't characterize the elite apathy point as she does - her views on what to do about illegal immigration significantly color her description, and my views are somewhat different from hers- but there is more than a little truth in her overall assertion. (If you want to understand what I'm talking about, read the column).