\jeff{krimmel}

Begala on the Republican Presidential Candidates

I watched some of the analysis of Tuesday night’s Republican presidential primary debate on CNN. At one point, Anderson Cooper was interviewing Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, and Amy Holmes, a Republican strategist and former speech writer for Senator Bill Frist. Begala spoke up about the 2008 Republican presidential candidates:

When I was a kid, I knew who the Republicans were. They were pro-family and pro-gun. Well now, get this, Rudy Giuliani’s been married more times than Mitt Romney’s been hunting.

Begala immediately went on to note this is part of the reason why so many bedrock conservatives are unsatisfied with the current field. It’s an interesting statistic, in that Rudy Giuliani is on his third marriage, while Mitt Romney has been hunting twice. But it’s not the specific statistic that’s most interesting. What’s most interesting in this respect is the difference between the top tier candidates in both parties.

If you count the Republican top tier as being Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, you have three divorces among them: two for Giuliani, one for McCain. If you count the Democratic top tier as being Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, you have zero divorces among them. I certainly don’t think getting a divorce should alone rule anyone out as a viable presidential candidate, but it is interesting to note, as Begala does, that the party that has built itself upon a constant appeal to family values is sporting the class of presidential candidates with greater questions on that very front.