The GOP Candidates as High School Stereotypes

An absolutely fascinating post from Time's Michael Scherer:

Here's one thing you need to know about John McCain. He's always been the
coolest kid in school. He was the brat who racked up demerits at the Naval
Academy. He was the hot dog pilot who went back to the skies weeks after almost
dying in a fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal. His first wife was a model. His second
wife was a rich girl, 17 years his junior. He kept himself together during years
of North Vietnamese torture and solitary confinement. When he sits in the back
of his campaign bus, we reporters gather like kids in the cafeteria huddling
around the star quarterback. We ask him tough questions, and we try to make him
slip up, but almost inevitably we come around to admiring him. He wants the
challenge. He likes the give and take. He is, to put it simply, cooler than us.

Now here's the thing you need to know about Mitt Romney. He is the
overachiever, the do-gooder, the kid in class who always does everything right.
All his life he has outperformed, as a Mormon missionary in France, as a
corporate takeover consultant, as the guy who saved the Winter Olympics from
financial ruin. He works crazy hours and apologizes after he makes a joke,
because he is worried you won't understand his meaning. He is the one who takes
endless notes in every class and has a little plastic container inside his
locker for all of his mechanical pencils. He will probably be the valedictorian,
and he will surely disappoint you at graduation by giving a bland speech that
all the parents just love. "Isn't that boy so sweet," say all the moms.

In case you're wondering, Scherer manages to squeeze Huckabee in there too:

He is the class clown with the weight problem everyone likes...