i've never read either atlas shrugged or the fountainhead, but someday i might try just for the comedic value. i'd say the sci-fi/fantasy books that most impacted me as a pre-teen were ursula leguin's earthsea cycle, madeleine l'engle's murry-o'keefe series and raymond feist's magician trilogy. they weren't the only works i read, but they were the ones i read most.

~joshua

Heh. That was funny. I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but tried to make it through the other one... The Fountainhead, maybe?... anyway, I got about two-thirds of the way through before I had to stop because the writing was just so incredibly bad...

-CW

Noteworthy lack of cynicism there.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
John Rogers

When I was in high school I thought it was science fiction. L.Ron Hubbard too. Fortunately, I also read good science fiction so I thought Atlas Shrugged was about the most boring book ever written.

I would rather read a phone book. It's awful.

I do, however, believe that any reading is good reading and so when people bring up Atlas Shrugged, I try to point them at better works ...

http://thereckoner.com/?p=187

-David

Agreed.

Individual TP types seem to love RP. Where's the love going?

I think this question is tremendously interesting and the Republican primary has shined some light upon several interesting facets of the Republican party.

I'll warn you some of this will fall into the complete speculation category, but here's a little bit of what I think is going on.

I think you can break the Republican/Tea Party party down into the following categories:

1. Evangelical Christians
2. Traditional New England economic conservatives
3. The Ayn Randians
4. The South

There's some overlap among these and there's probably some other categories as well, but by and large these are probably the 4 big groups. Mormons might be an interesting 5th group that acts very similar to a combination of 1 & 2.

Notice that the Tea Party, per se, is not included in the breakdown. It's because the Tea Party is really a very similar mix. They don't seem to be as true of a split as the others. I think of them more as a re-branding of the Republican party.

The economic crisis, believe it or not, is what I think brought many of these splits to light because the GOP faced a huge identity crisis.

What to stand for? Trickle down economics wasn't exactly working.

So they've been fighting to rebrand themselves. The logic goes like this. The economic crisis didn't occur because of conservative policies, it occurred because true conservative economics was not being followed.

Hence the Tea Party re-branding. These are our true economic beliefs. We were just kidding the last time. Aspects of this new identity include an overzealous interest in deficits and a sudden discovery of Ayn Rand.

I don't think they've found this new identity quite yet though so they look quite disjointed (with the exception of their shared loathing for Obama).

Both you and Osbourne hit the nail on the head with "co-belligerency". That's about the only thing all these groups have in common right now. Maybe this hate is enough to unite them, but it's going to be a long term problem for them to define themselves only by who they hate.

What happens when the object of their hate goes away for example? You have to constantly keep finding someone new to hate (which they may very well be capable of doing, but eventually people will start to wonder if that's all they offer).

Anyways, how this has played out in the primaries:

- Romney has won the establishment Repubs and the Mormons
- Santorum and before him, Perry, won the evangelicals
- Paul wins the Ayn Randians
- Newt wins more votes in the South (probably because of his Georgia roots)

Romney also wins with the people who don't believe any of the other splinter groups are capable of beating Obama.

Remember, speculation ...
-David

Today's GOP is split into two parts, really: about 55% of the party would like to shut up about gays and abortion, while about 45% cannot shut up about gays and abortion. And yes, if there is anything on which they can rally together it is the usurping Kenyan in the White House. They share a hatred/fear/loathing -- what Jeff Sharlet calls "co-belligerency."

So why aren't they backing him?
What was with the clown car inanity in Iowa?
And why didn't they vote for him in SC or FL???

Something doesn't compute.

We know that they will back totally non-winnable candidates (O'Donnell, Miller, Palatino, Angle, ...) and we know they care little or nothing about what the R'main think. So why did he only get 5% in FL?

It CAN'T be because Newt is so beloved by the TP. For crying out loud, they've taken down people who have a far more rightwing attitude than ShowMeTheMoney Newt. The excitement generated by him in TP circles is positively anemic ... not to say non-existant.

As I said, I truly would like an answer because I think you're right. Individual TP types seem to love RP. Where's the love going?

I guess it depends what you mean by Tea Party. All the people I know who would call themselves Tea Party members love Ron Paul.

The people who don't like Ron Paul are the establishment GOP. The GOP wants the votes, but they don't really believe in any of that Ayn Rand stuff. Except when it suits them.

What Paul would bring as a VeeP candidate would be "authenticity" (if there can be any such thing in the GOP). And legions of dedicated volunteers.

I don't think it's going to happen either, but you have to admit, if you were Romney, it would be something to think about.

Heh.
-David

Ron Paul is not of the TP base. At least he doesn't think so.

Neither does Rush. It is quite likly that a Romney/Paul ticket would cause a revolution within the TP ranks and guarantee a 3rd party.

You also have to remember that the VP cannot overshadow the P nominee. We saw the effect of that in 2008. My guess from Romney will be Cheney type VP. An older, backbench version of Sarah Palin. Of course, I have yet to right about much of anything this year.

Internal factional divisions are showing in public for pretty much the first time at the national level. Those same fractures became public in 2010 bigtime: DE, AK, NV, CA, NY, CO statewide. Congressional districts were a montage of TP vs R'main across the nation. If the current POTUS were a white male, I don't think anyone would question the seriousness of these factions. But, he isn't a white male.

There will be a lack of enthusiasm for {fill in the blank} ... in MS, AL, GA, LA, TN and ID (to name a few). So what? The only real question will be whether the lack of enthusiasm carries over to OH, WS, PA, NH, FL, NC and a few others.

To be really simple about it, who cares what Obama's approval rating is in Massachusetts? He isn't going to lose MA. Further, who cares about the lack of enthusiasm for {fill in the blank} in Mississippi? {fill in the blank} won't lose MS.

You can whip up a lot of enthusiasm with the $$$ both sides have to spend in THIS election.

Maybe Obomney chooses him as a VP candidate?

Weirder things have happened (Sarah Palin). After all, he certainly wouldn't choose Gingrich and I doubt Santorum as well. But he needs someone from the base.

-David

Of course there's some racism against him: in a country of 300M people, there's some of darn near everything you can imagine. But the level of Obama-hate that Republican leadership is trying to appeal to just doesn't exist outside a relatively small cadre of Republican zealots who would feel a similar level of hatred toward Ronald Reagan if he showed up with a D after his name.