Big Crazy

I’ve been trying to remain uninformed as to the goings on of the relentless GOP debates that have been sucking up time on the TV and radio and consuming space on websites and newspapers. It is noteworthy, however, that this weekend John Huntsman dropped out of the race.

            The candidates are not stupid individuals. Ron Paul was a physician before entering politics and Newt Gingrich has a Ph.D. Yet it has been only Huntsman to be the sole GOP candidate who is not denying the science, the reality, of global warming. Gingrich, in the past, has talked about global warming and acknowledging not only the reality of the phenomenon but the need to address the crisis. He even famously made this commercial with Nancy Pelosi about global warming.

Paul’s website equivocates on the issue but suggests that the best way to solve this “nonproblem” is to reduce regulation.

            I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Huntsman was the only candidate to acknowledge that global warming is happening and that he is one of the first GOP candidates to drop out of the race.

I have a term “big crazy.” It’s when a lot of people who should know better or could be better informed choose to believe things that are obviously loony. Belief in UFOs is big crazy. Big crazy also describes conspiracy theories. Big crazy has been around for a long time in politics. Legal segregation was big crazy. McCarthyism and the Red scare were big crazy, too.

There was a time, perhaps as little as15 or 20 years ago, when a reasonable person could have some reasonable doubts about man-made climate change. But that is no longer. With Huntsman dropping out, we now have the guarantee that the Grand Old Party’s nominee for 2012 will deny the existence of global warming. Despite the thinning ice sheets and all the science, that is the way it’s going to be. This is big crazy, and the GOP is guaranteed to give us a big crazy candidate.