I also find him repugnant and more than a little chill-inducing. I had heard mention of his name here and there before 2007, but I saw him on The Daily Show sometime last year and at first he seemed likeable enough...even quite liberal and I think that is what scares me most now that I know more about him. He has won the hearts of a number of Dems and liberal Independents with his seemingly populist economic stance and his folksy personality, but they don't see (or don't see a problem with) his hardline theocratic core.
He reminds me of the character of President Buzz Windrip in Sinclair Lewis'
It Can't Happen Here. Folksy, down-to-earth Windrip promised economic salvation wrapped in promises of returning to God's Word and was promoted by the big name evangelists, but what the people got was a fascist nightmare.
"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -
The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea
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