I recently viewed the Minnesota GOP video showing how Republicans tend to have attractive women as candidates and Democrats not. It was obviously outrageously offensive and manipulated. There are certainly attractive women who are Democratic candidates -- but in truth, probably not as many. Without a scientific survey on the issue, my observation is simple. Republicans are attracted to a clean healthy-looking image much more than Democrats. And they are getting obsessive about it. Democrats tend to go for intelligence - Republicans for looks.
For President, Democrats nominate people like Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton came in second and was smarter than any of the Republican candidates. All these people are reasonably attractive but their major calling card was intelligence.
But I don't think this was the case forty years ago. Goldwater was conservative but was smart. Nixon was below-average in looks, but likely smarter than either of his Democratic opponents. Even movie star Reagan wrote his own speeches much of the time and spent years doing commentary that he wrote himself. Robert Dole: smart. George H. Bush was clumsy but certainly not stupid.
But more and more Republicans seem to gravitate to attractive people who just read what's given to them like an "all hair" newscaster. We saw the beginnings with Dan Quayle (who cares if can't spell "potato?"). Conservatives flocked to him. George W. Bush was probably a new low for Presidential intelligence. And now the attraction on the right is to people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman. What happened to the William Buckleys of the Republican party?
George Will seems embarrassed trying to defend new Republican-made controversies on "This Week." The controversy over "Gays in the Military", or the recent "Ground Zero Mosque" baffles him. He seems dismayed to even talk about such things.
Of course, Fox has led the way, or at least capitalized on the trend, with one attractive --nearly always blonde -- newswoman after another -- perfect hair and a big grin with capped teeth. The group Jon Stewart suggested was being bred on some secret island just for conservative news.
When I see conservatives with any intelligence, it occurs to me that they are simply careerist hacks who have decided that they will get further on the conservative side since the competition is so light. I think they know in their hearts that.
I hesitate to make the Nazi comparison but here it goes -- National Socialism was mostly about Hitler and his followers' hatred for international "liberalism" and a longing for a clean, healthy-looking world of people where everybody lived in a rural, Germanic wonderland. A world that was cleansed of the different and unattractive.
It seems the Republicans are more and more headed that way.