Must ... not ... say words ...
You may have noticed that while pictures of the new Vanity Fair cover have been flooding over America like a glossy-print tsunami, few Republican candidates have had much—or anything—to say about "the Caitlyn Jenner story." This is because
they are screwed.
Jenner’s watershed moment — which coincides with the Supreme Court preparing to rule on whether to allow same-sex marriage nationwide — leaves the GOP and its stable of presidential candidates grappling with how to represent conservatives who don’t wish to accept Jenner and more moderate voters who have already done so.
The only possible approach is to therefore say nothing, hoping that both sides will get the vague notion that you're on "their side" of whether or not transgendered persons are human beings or just mile markers along America's freshly paved highway to hell. And, as usual, this isn't going to sit well with the folks who consider anything less than indignant screaming to be treason to the movement.
If Republicans don’t speak out against Jenner, “you might as well just forfeit the 2016 election now,” Steve Deace, a syndicated talk radio host based in Iowa, said in an interview.
“If we’re not going to defend as a party basic principles of male and female, that life is sacred because it comes from God, then you’re going to lose the vast majority of people who’ve joined that party,” Deace said.
So gather round and place your bets: Will the Republican candidates be able to maintain their silence? Will their base demand statements of condemnation that will then come back to haunt the eventual nominee when they're trying to rebrand themselves as
not an asshole for the general election? Will any stand up to the "social" conservatives and tell them that they really, really need to get over themselves? My money's on Mike Huckabee: He
already put his foot in his mouth once, after all, but I'm betting by next week he'll have found a way to wedge the other one in there too.
