Why did anyone like the Duggars in the first place?

Why the divergence in opinion? Perhaps it has something to do with Huck’s victory in the Duggar Primary. Several candidates had sought the famous family’s favor, as evidenced by the photos (mostly from Josh Duggar’s Twitter stream) of Duggar with Huckabee, Santorum, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker. But this month, before the scandal broke, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, Josh’s parents and stars of “19 Kids and Counting,” endorsed Huckabee over their 2012 pick, Santorum.

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This is the real scandal.

I don’t join in the schadenfreude on the left over the latest case of hypocrisy among family-values conservatives. Nor do I take any delight in the discovery that the Duggars, who find immorality in homosexuality, abortion and out-of-wedlock sex, have more disturbing questions of morality in their own home. What’s troubling is that the Republican presidential candidates have been so worshipful of the Duggars in the first place. The political issue is not what Josh Duggar did as a teenager but why so many who seek the nation’s highest office feel the need to woo people so far out on the ideological extreme.

A quarter of Americans are evangelical Christians, but only a small fraction of them are like the Duggars. Only 3 percent of American kids are home-schooled, as the Duggars are. Only 7 percent of Americans think using birth control is morally objectionable, as the Duggars do. As for the percentage of Americans who favor arranged-in-all-but-name marriages? The answer is so obvious there’s no need to ask the question.

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