Golly, gee, the GOP has gone and discovered diversity:
The three will join Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio - all freshmen U.S. Senators - in a field that could balloon to double digits. While this second wave of announcements won’t include a “top-tier” contender, each of these candidates has the potential to increase their stature, help drive the debate on the Right, and change deep-seated perceptions about the Republican Party.
To begin, the diversity of this nascent field is worth noting: Of the six Republican candidates that will likely be in the race by the end of the week, only two of them (Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee) are white males. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are Hispanic, Carly Fiorina is obviously a woman, and Dr. Ben Carson is black.
Only two of those evil white men! And Fiorina is "obviously a woman." Whew. Bet she's glad she got that message out.
Of course this is diversity of the most superficial kind, which is all this chucklehead analyst probably understands. Real diversity is diversity of thought and philosophy, which is what Republicans should be looking for as the early-round debates progress. As the field winnows, we'll see whether the GOP is leaning conservative, libertarian or moderate. There are good candidates for all those directions, and the best we can hope for is a thoughful give and take rather than sound-bite simplicities.
Fiorina and Carson can bring some interesting perspective to the debates and maybe liven things up a bit. I wish Huckabee were staying out. He's really a "big government conservative" about as close to a populist as the GOP has.
As for Democrats, I don't see any diversity there. The only question is whether Hillary has a primary challenge pulling her even further to the left than she already is. I don't think the party can even see moderate from where it's at now.
