Huntsman 2012

New Republican candidate John Huntsman received a warm welcome from media this week. According to the coverage, he's the nice handsome wealthy unassuming centrist whose campaign has begun so modestly you just have to believe in him. Matt Bai, political chief at The New York Times, writes the following:

If the field stayed wide open, the 51-year-old Huntsman—with his silver hair and his prized Harley and his mastery of Mandarin Chinese, with his record as a tax-cutting governor and his vast family fortune—would be an intriguing prospect ... 

On television, Huntsman radiates strength, with his conventional good looks and easy demeanor, but in person he sometimes has a lesser presence. Average in height and build and self-effacing in a Jimmy Stewart kind of way, he’ll slouch a bit and bow his head, holding a microphone prayerfully with both hands, until it almost seems as if he is receding in front of you. He comes across as genuine and unpretentious, without a hint of entitlement—the kind of guy you’d be glad to run into at your kid’s soccer game.

The Christian Science Monitor offers a list of 10 things to know about Huntsman that reads more like a PR piece than journalism. Their list includes the following:

The relatively moderate Huntsman, whose good looks and polish position him as the GOP’s Obama, may be more electable than most of his more partisan contenders. He’s also a strategic politician who sees an opening in a weak field ...

“Jon Huntsman has an attractive combination of style and substance,” says Professor Chambless. Indeed, the articulate diplomat, who inspires adjectives generally associated with a Hollywood sensation–tall, lean, photogenic, charismatic–appears to be the Republican best poised to challenge Obama on the style front.

And he’s no laggard in the substance department, either. He has held two diplomatic posts, one in the economic powerhouse of China, and he's twice been elected governor– he left office early in his second term for the China post–of one of the reddest states in the union, Utah.

His business success rounds out Huntsman’s impressive résumé. And as a moderate, the ex-governor has a shot at capturing the critical independent vote. Given all that, it’s no wonder Time magazine called him “the Republican Democrats fear most,” and Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, once said the prospect of facing Huntsman in 2012 made him a “wee bit queasy.”

NPR demonstrated their enthusiasm by devoting several stories to Huntsman. Will Rick Perry get this kind of welcome? Maybe this much and more.

When a marriage is legitimate

In Care of the Self, the third volume of The History of Sexuality trilogy, Foucault summarizes the history of marriage. Elite pagans married to form alliances of wealth and power; the poor married for economic practicality (i.e., a poor man might marry a poor woman and they, with their family, could support themselves). These marriages needed only the family's blessing. From there, interests of the State and of the Church took root. Marriages became increasingly social and public.

We have a tendency to look to an institution's origins to inform us on resolving contemporary issues.

2000 changed us

President Obama responded to questions about his citizenship by releasing his long-form birth certificate. The questioners were of two varieties: (1) His critics, led by rich guy and media personality Donald Trump, and (2) the media, who served as the critics' mouthpiece by voicing these questions uncritically.

Last week's drama showed us a powerful man being bullied, and ultimately the peer pressure got him. He had many options for how to or not to respond, but this was not a game he could win. If Obama continued ignoring the birth certificate issue, it would have dogged him, perhaps even stained his legacy. His critics created this rhetorical situation; in his response, a quick morning press conference, the President hoped to deflate critics by framing their preoccupation with his birth certificate as a petty distraction against a backdrop of serious issues: Unemployment, inflation, increasing poverty, decreasing wages, budget and class wars. Obama still failed to make this point.

Some observers accuse his critics, called "birthers”, of racism, of casting Obama as The Other. Probably some of them are racists. But more to the point, I see doubts about his citizenship as attacks on his legitimacy. He’s not my President, they say. The motivation is partisanship more than racism.

In the wake of the 2000 election, about half the voting public remained unconvinced of George W. Bush’s legitimacy. Hell, they questioned his legitimacy as a Texan.

The legitimacy of power should be called into question. Problem is, it isn’t the President who is in power.

Who's Who

Who gets political coverage? And why do they get it while others don't? The coverage itself reveals the answer.

For example, today I watched a clip of a morning infotainment show, maybe "Good Morning America", in which Bill Cosby tries to champion an education outreach program in a low-income Connecticut city. Host Meredith Vieira first seeks affirmation that "throwing money at" education--also known as funding education--is not the answer. Then she asks Cosby's opinion on Donald Trump's apparent Presidential bid.

This is one example of the widespread media coverage Trump's pre-campaign campaigning has attracted. By contrast, has a Kucinich bid ever attracted such headlines? Or a Ron Paul? Or any other unconventional candidates? No. The difference is that Trump is corporate-friendly.

Similarly, this week U.S. Representative and Republican Budget Committee member Paul Ryan published his national budget proposal. He likely did not publish the proposal expecting mass media coverage. After all, the kind of "entitlement" cuts he proposes would probably lead to mass protests, were they suddenly passed. Yet, here it is, sharing front page real estate with Donald Trump. No surprise, the details of the budget are not covered. The corporate-friendly bottom line is.

Now, note that both the Republican and Democratic leadership do this: Make their boldest moves when it doesn't matter. For example, Where was this proposal when George W. Bush was President with a Republican Majority in the House and Senate? This kind of question goes unasked.

Nevermind that.