Wunderkind needs to grow up a bit

Every so often a person emerges from obscurity to become a “somebody,” or if young enough, to be recognized as a wunderkind. The most recent example of this is currently residing in the White House. Having shot up virtually out of nowhere, President Obama, on the basis of a couple of self-aggrandizing books, service in the Illinois state legislature and part of a term in the U.S. Senate, now sits as the most powerful man in the world, unless you count Kim Jong II.

This has left Republicans flailing about looking for their own somebody. They hope such a person could rally the party faithful who were so disheartened after the November election they peeled off their McCain-Palin bumper stickers before the final tally was in.

They’re hoping for a man to emerge who won’t have flown off to a foreign country for a liaison with his mistress while he’s supposed to be serving as governor of South Carolina, have had an affair with a former campaign aid while serving in the Senate, or have been indicted for feeding at the public trough. Apparently such people are rare.

But here in Gwinnett, Republicans think they have found one. While he’s not likely to be embroiled in scandalous behavior, at least not yet, he’s also not likely to sit in the White House anytime soon. In what can only be called a pathetic act of desperation, they are hanging their hope for deliverance from the wilderness of political irrelevance on a child — 14 year-old Jonathan Krohn of Duluth. A former actor, and maybe still one, Jonathan is an author, radio talk show host, and according to some, heir to the title of Mr. Conservative.

Recently, he has appeared at an anti-tax rally in Suwanee and as a speaker at a meeting of Gwinnett’s Conservative Republican Women. He is a celebrity, and like all celebrities he has his fawning fans, even groupies, though they tend to be motherly or grandmotherly women. With luck, as he gets older his groupies will get younger, and like Benjamin Buttons, he will meet them at some ideal place in time, but not scandalously.

For now, he is a phenomenon that has excited Republicans desperately in need of positive excitement. But as the director of the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he gave a two-minute talk in February, told The New York Times, he is still a kid; “there’s not a lot of life experience yet.”

And because he’s still a kid, he’s been treated with kid gloves by the media. Without that life experience he’s simply channeling the voices of the past: William F. Buckley, William Bennett, even Newt Gingrich. But Republicans will need their “somebody” long before Jonathan gets it. In the meantime, they’ll both need to grow up.

Dick Goodman, a registered Republican of 40 years, is a writer and photographer who lives in Suwanee.