Thoughts in a Haystack

Republicans in Iowa are awaiting the Second Coming ... of Ronald Reagan. In a pinch, they might settle for that other fellow but only if he promised something nasty would happen to Hillary:

"I say we have to go vote because if we don't vote, then all the women will vote and we'll have a woman in the White House and then we got problems," bellows Larry Timmons, who is in the construction business, from the back of the room. This gets a huge laugh. But he's serious.

"God," he notes, "did not plan for a woman to run everything."

The horror of the prospect of Mr. Timmons having a say in any government with control over my life is only slightly assuaged by the evidence of dispirit in the Righteous Right:

[T]he mood among many evangelicals here reflects what is happening nationally, as Christian conservatives grapple with apathy and evaluate whether they should count on the government to legislate morality. Down the highway in Sioux City, home to nearly 300 Christian churches, Jeff Moes, a soft-spoken, 44-year-old senior pastor, is one of those who has nudged his congregation into a "new vision" of the process. "I am hearing 'what difference does it make?' " he says. "They are less and less trusting of government."

Moes' assessment of the candidates tells the story:

John McCain, he says, strikes him as "very negative, very angry," and Romney's Mormon religion "bothers more people than they care to admit."

And thrice-married Rudy Giuliani, whose children don't seem to be supporting his candidacy, is a non-starter for Moes and many others, he reports, because "he can't get his own house in order."

"The Bible says that if a man can't lead his own family, how can he manage the house of God?" he says. "And I think it's the same with the country. If he can't get his kids to love and respect him, how can he command the respect of a nation?"

Hmmm ... short memories about Maureen and Ron? Anyway, that leaves him with Huckabee ... a nice man who seems unlikely to convince even his friends that he is up to the job of being president.
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