Old stereotypes die hard — especially the ones which have long been false.
The June 1 cover of The New Yorker Magazine depicts the Republican Party's current crop of declared and undeclared 2016 presidential candidates as pretty much a white-boys affair (only Rubio looks a little ethnic), showing seven of them in different locker-room postures, with Hillary Clinton peeping in through a window. How is this possible, you ask? Where are Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina? Obviously, presenting a segregated, chauvinistic image of the GOP is more important than dealing with reality (HT Patterico):
As Dana at Patterico's place noted, Carson and Fiorina are declared candidates, while "Chris Christie and Jeb Bush have not even officially announced."
The narrative explaining the cover drawing is also predictable (two paragraph breaks added by me; bolds are mine):
How many Republicans are running for President? It’s a trick question. (No it's not. — Ed.) Some of those who are clearly running—Jeb Bush, for example—are still pretending that they aren’t, mostly because declaring would change the fund-raising rules. And if you counted everyone who, against all evidence, takes himself (or herself) seriously as a candidate, the locker room depicted in Mark Ulriksen’s “Suiting Up,” this week’s cover, would look as crowded as the departures hall at Penn Station, and almost as disconcerting. (If Penn Station is "disconcerting," that sounds like a problem far-left Mayro De Blasio should be, but isn't handling. — Ed.)
As it is, Ulriksen presents seven contenders with seven varieties of preening. Maybe it’s hard to tell a vision for America from a delusion of grandeur, at least until the debates and primaries get under way. Until then, Marco Rubio’s got his phone, Rand Paul his comb, and Huckabee his Bible. Ted Cruz’s eyes flit between his copy of the Constitution and his mirror, while Scott Walker seems on the lookout for unionized gym attendants. Bush is wearing his dynasty-logo boxers and Chris Christie his put-me-in-now pout.
And yet, somehow, one of these seven men is almost certainly right about his chances for the nomination. The primary campaign may look like a pickup game about to descend into a brawl, but there’s a national candidate somewhere in the lineup.
Behind these Republicans, there is a face in the locker-room door’s window: Hillary Clinton, peeking in. Once they’re done with their intramural shoving match, they’ll mostly likely have to play against her. Some other Democratic candidates might emerge, ones tougher to beat than Bernie Sanders, but at the moment Clinton doesn’t really have to share. She may be the real subject of the picture—she is the big game.
Never mind utter unimportance of their perceived chances over seven months before the first meaningful primary contest — but if one insists on knowing, Ben Carson is currently polling in fifth place and Fiorina is in 13th. Carson's polling would justify his inclusion over Christie, while Fiorina's feistiness with media hacks like Andrea Mitchell merit her inclusion.
In fact Fiorina should be at the window, telling Hillary to get her jollies some other way or she'll call the cops — who might then come into Mrs. Clinton's home and retrieve her server for forensic analysis.
Oh, and if readers want to see what a virtually all-white club looks like, they can always go to this historical roster of New Yorker cartoonists. As best I can tell, the compilation identifies one African-American in its many hundreds of listings — and that gentleman last worked there in 1942.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
