“Moderate Candidates Who Live Like Liberals”

March 19, 2007 at 7:52 pm | Posted in American politics, Barack Obama, conservatives, Democrats, Education, family values, liberals, Republicans | Leave a comment

Joe Klein writes in Time Magazine the following when describing the Republican candidates for the 2008 election:

Then again, the Republicans are fielding a motley crew right now: if you count Newt Gingrich, who’ll probably join the fray in the fall, the four leading candidates have had nine marriages among them: Giuliani three, Gingrich three, McCain two and Romney one. The Republican faithful are left with a devil of a choice: moderate candidates who live like liberals, or religious conservatives who talk like liberals.

Now, as a liberal who is in a loving marriage, I find that somewhat offensive. Is Joe Klein saying because I’m liberal I will have a higher risk of divorce? Well, let’s compare these candidates to the Democratic field. Greg Seargant of Horse’s Mouth has done just that. What do we find?

How many divorces have their been among the men — and women — in the Democratic field? Let’s run through them real quick, just for the fun of it. None of the following liberal Dem candidates has gotten divorced:

(1) Hillary: You know the story. No need to repeat it

(2) Obama: Married to Michelle, whom he met when she was just out of law school, for 15 years.

(3) Edwards: Married to Elizabeth since 1977; they’ve had four children, one of whom was killed in a car crash. As Andrew Sullivan recently observed: “Most couples never survive the death of a child. The Edwards family did — and went on to have two more.”

(4) Richardson: Married to his high-school sweetheart for 33 years.

(5) Biden: First wife killed in car accident in 1972; married to his current wife for almost 30 years.

Yeah, you have to really scrape your way to the bottom of the Democratic field to find divorces. The only Dem Presidential candidate with any kind of credible shot who has gotten divorced is…Chris Dodd, who divorced in 1982.

In fact, if you think about it, the entire field of Dems deemed credible boasts fewer divorces than Rudy Giuliani alone!

Huh, how about that. So just what point is Mr. Klein making? It seems that liberals are faring better in family values than their conservative counterparts. I’ve argued this point before, especially when you compare liberal states with conservative states, say Texas and Massachusetts. Texas has a greater proportion of divorces than Massachusetts, while Massachusetts also has a larger percentage of well educated people. Better education, stabler families, seems liberal values are quite strongly pro-family. So why the smear, Mr. Klein?