The Fast Fix: Candidates on Parade

The fourth of July is important for politicians, and even moreso for those angling to be president. While they won't get a vacation, the day does provide a stage for candidates to showcase their patriotism and political independence.

If you are running for president, you don't get July 4th off.

While the rest of us will be eating barbecue and watching the fireworks, the likes of Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman will be stumping for votes.

Bachmann spent her weekend in Iowa, the state where she was born and where polling suggests she may well be the frontrunner.

Romney and Huntsman will both be in Amherst, New Hampshire for the Fourth and will even be walking in the same parade. That could get interesting. Businessman Herman Cain will be in the Granite State too, taking in a New Hampshire Fisher Cats minor league baseball game.

The Fourth of July is an important one for politicians. Patriotism and political independence are part and parcel of the day and every politician in both parties wants to be as closely associated with those two ideas as possible.

And, if anything patriotism is on the rise. In a 2010 Gallup poll more than three in ten people described themselves as "extremely patriotic" up from 26 percent who said the same in 2005. Almost no one, on the other hand, thinks of themselves as not patriotic. Just six percent of people described themselves as not especially patriotic in the Gallup poll.

Given those numbers, expect every presidential candidate to be draped in red, white and blue all day.

----

Get The Fix in your e-mail inbox! Click here to sign-up for the Morning Fix newsletter. Click here for the Afternoon Fix newsletter. Follow The Fix on Twitter @thefix or @thehyperfix.