If You're a Personable Republican Candidate for President, S.E. Cupp Ain't Interested

For once, Imus wasn’t the one coughing his way into an interview: that job, this morning, belonged to guest S.E. Cupp, a conservative commentator who hosts a daily talk show on Glenn Beck’s radio network and writes a column for the New York Daily News.
 
Since she is the token right-wing nut among her left-wing nut friends in New York, Cupp imported some fellow Republicans into town last night from DC to enjoy a sushi dinner and, one presumes, rag on President Obama. Turns out they’re none too thrilled with some of their own these days, namely Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker who announced yesterday that he’ll be running for President in 2012, in case anyone cares.
 
“What’s exciting about Newt?” Cupp wondered. “He’s a smart guy, and certainly a politically savvy guy, a great idea guy. But he’s a retread.”
 
She suspects few people care about Gingrich’s “peccadilloes,” as she put it. “You mean the fact that he cheated on several wives?” Imus cut in, more to the point. But what Cupp is looking for this election cycle is a Republican candidate that is supremely…dull.
 
“I want someone boring and serious,” she said. “I’m not really into charisma. I think charisma is currently in the White House, presiding over nine percent unemployment. I’d rather have C-Span, kindergarten paste boring.”
 
And which person, out of the dozen or so chomping at the bit for the nomination, does Cupp believe embodies that particular brand of boredom?
 
“Tim Pawlenty,” she said. “I think he’s serious, I think he’s got good experience. He’s boring! He would make me think hard work is being done, whereas someone like Obama, someone like Trump—I think they get distracted when they see themselves in the mirror.”
 
It’s not that Cupp doesn’t appreciate magnetism, like the kind JFK or Ronald Reagan displayed, along with their big ideas; she’s just realistic. “In the absence of personality, I want the big ideas,” she said.
 
After all, the “Osama bump” in Obama’s poll numbers, as Cupp calls the fondness the American people feel for their President in the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s death, will not last forever.
 
“People will remember, come 2012, that we have staggering unemployment still, and a shake economy, and inflation,” she said.
 
Presumably, Cupp covers these topics during the 30 minutes she spends on the airwaves everyday, not that her boss Glenn Beck would know. “He doesn’t know what I’m going to do,” she told Imus. “He doesn’t vouch for me, and vice versa, which is a good thing.”
 
One thing she knows is that Beck loves the I-Man, who wasn’t feeling similarly this morning in the wake of Beck acting like “a jerk and a creep” toward Meghan McCain.
 
“I don’t want to drag you into it,” Imus promised his guest, then reconsidered. “Actually, I’d like to drag you into it, but I’m not going to.”
 
Good man.
 
-Julie Kanfer