Ann Coulter, the famous conservative columnist and brainy law graduate who eats Democrats for breakfast (lunch and dinner too), has released a new book this weekend, the thrust of which is her fatigue at the conventional GOP establishment versus Tea Party mentality. In order to build-up public interest for her new book – Never Trust A Liberal – the publisher’s PR machine is indicating the leggy blonde is actually going to tap dance on the 2016 grave sites of all the Ted Cruz types on Capitol Hill polishing their GOP presidential nomination credentials with quixotic crusades and media appearances.
“La Belle et la Bete” was first published in France, a creation of one madame Garielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve in 1740. According to author Terri Windling, it was written as a women’s liberation piece, a protest against a marriage system that treated women as property, given at young ages by parents to older men without their consent. The ideas of love and fidelity were radical, indeed heresy.
Coulter has apparently penned a similar book of liberation, realizing her objection to all things Democratic is not well served by a fatal attraction to the wrong kind of political figure. Publishing house leaks say her latest diatribe against liberals from cradle to grave contains a point that Madame Villeneuve made herself three centuries ago: freedom now.
It appears Coulter has finally conceded to have been looking for conservatism in all the wrong places, to paraphrase a popular country song. The kind of candidates that attracted the Tea Party faithful in the 2012 presidential primaries: initially Donald Trump, then congresswoman Bachmann, business guy Herman Cain, former congressman Newt Gingrich, then former Senator Rick Santorum, and lastly Congressman Ron Paul — are simply not electable. Coulter, a student of history, correctly notes that historically the best candidate to run for President is someone whose political reputation was not made in the halls of congress or by political oratory.
She wants the party to nominate a Governor in 2016, knowing such positions require individuals capable of leadership and nuanced legal thinking. Yes, it is true that for most of her political career, Coulter played Madam Defarge, not Madame Villeneuve. Her initial foray into the elected political game rejected anything but Us v. Them, a theme that allowed her to be the go-to player when Republican oriented talk and cable shows need a reliable basher of Democrats and RINO’s.
As Coulter has gotten older, she seems more comfortable with the position of Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, who said the first duty of a patriot is to get elected. President Reagan would have enjoyed her earlier books, but not taken the political advice seriously.
Coulter seems to have come around, finally. He hinted at her apparent political reincarnation by being the leading Tea Partier to hold out for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for the 2012 GOP nomination. She understandably had a change of heart when the New Jersey Governor became a Republican beast by joining forces with President Barack Obama to help his constituents deal with Hurricane Sandy during the final week of the presidential contest.
Yet a year later, it seems her new book is reconsidering last year’s gut instinct. Most of the pages are filled with the usual rhetoric expected by her fans, justifying the publisher’s advance. She does not want to end up like Anne Boleyn on Rush Limbaugh’s chopping block. But she is too smart to play the dumb blonde to the hairbrained beasts of the Republican circus. So she appears to have penned a liberation of sorts, though it’s got a fantastical dimension too: I mean, Ann Coulter seeing the value in muted victory over losing vitriol?
Yeah, it does seem quite the fairy tale. But rooted in 200-proof political realities.