Tea Time

It's still January. The GOP primaries are barely underway, and the candidates described as Tea Party favorites are nowhere to be found. The Snow Bunny wisely decided to sit out this race and rake in the kale as a TV talking head. Sugar Cain, Moochele Bachmann, and El Perrito went down in a matter of days -- bang, bang, bang, just like that.

There's possibly a lesson here about the Tea Party, maybe more than one. First, when it comes to choosing favorite candidates, the Tea people are clueless assholes. The congressmen they helped elect in 2010 are a bunch of unqualified fumble-fucks who would destroy the country if there weren't a few grownups around to tell them they can't have candy before supper.

Furthermore, the Tea Party apparently exerts minimal influence in Republican Party politics at the national level. They do pretty well in small elections, like those for House seats. In November 2010, Tea Party pick Bachmann ran in the most conservative district in Minnesota, the 6th district. She spent nearly 9 million dollars on her campaign, and received about 160,000 votes (53 percent). The bimbo let success go to her head, and decided she was ready for the White House. The Tea Party wasn't strong enough to get her there... or Herman or Rick either, for that matter.

The Tea Party people are always talking about taking back their country. Those assholes aren't a majority in America -- they aren't even a majority in the GOP. Fuck 'em.

Failure, Part I

If I wasn't so fucking disgusted, I'd laugh out loud whenever some Republican asshole claims that Obama has failed to unite the country. When those assholes talk about uniting America, they mean that Obama should forget he won the 2008 election fairly decisively, that he should give the Republicans 100 percent of what they want, and 99 percent of what they think they want.

The truth is, Obama has been a disappointment in many respects, mainly because he kept trying to make peace with congressional GOPers, offer a few reasonable compromises, and fiddled around for days when circumstances called for a swift knee to their groins and a razor slash to their throats.

Newtie and the Blowfish, Part 4

Legend has it that the winner of the South Carolina GOP primary always goes on to win the party's nomination. It's part of the conventional wisdom that isn't exactly true, but some people believe it. Newtie Gingrich is one of them, and his ego, always inflated, is really puffed up because the polls are showing he has a real shot at winning on Saturday.

Newtie's ego is an issue because his self-esteem is starting to seem pathological. The fat turd has the potential to be the worst example of a loose cannon to ever occupy the White House. He brags about his grandiose ideas, most of which revolve around his plans to exercise unrestrained power as president.

Then there's the matter of his wife, the woman he was fucking while married to his second wife, the woman he was fucking while married to his first wife (the one with cancer). If Newt wins in November, his current wife will be America's Third Lady.

There are a lot of Republican assholes who list gay marriage, abortion and school prayer as three of the top four political issues. The dumbasses call themselves "values voters." If Newtie wins in November, I don't want to hear any more of their fucking crap about the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of the family unit.

The South Carolina Game

In South Carolina, the clock is running in the fourth quarter and Newtered, once trailing the Romney juggernaut by three scores, now needs only a touchdown and a 2-point conversion to tie and send the game into overtime. Can he pull this one out with an efficient two-minute drill, or is he just another turnover waiting to happen ?

Gingrich is a master of hyperbole, and has been predicting the death of conservatism if Romney wins the South Carolina primary. He's also a dangerous egomaniac, predicting that if he wins, it will change history -- he'll triumph in November and immediately begin the process of reshaping America to suit his own little fantasies.

Republicans are most dangerous when they're marching in lockstep, sweeping across the landscape and crushing everything under their boots. The longer they remain fragmented, the better for the country. I haven't been especially impressed with Obama, and I'm not sure he deserves a second term -- but he still looks like a safer bet than any Republican in the race. Huntsman had promise, but when he left, he took all the good silverware with him. Now, the best of a bad bunch is Romney. Assuming Willard has the balls to slam the door on the evangelunicals after his election, he might be tolerable as president. I can't say the same for Gingrich or Sanitorium, either of whom would be a disaster combined with GOP congressional majorities.

The best scenario at this point is for Romney to win the nomination after a long, brutal struggle. Newter, S-Rick, and Pappy need to win enough primary support to encourage them to hang around and keep things in chaos... but not enough to take the nomination. P-Rick needs to finish out his term as governor, then look for work as a TV evangelist. In November, Obama faces off against a wounded Romney, who has at best the enthusiastic support of maybe 40 percent of GOP voters. Flip a coin and call it, heads or tails.   

Dawn of the Dead

Perry does his zombie impression for one of his fans as he awaits his inevitable defeat in the next primary. Maybe his real future lies in low budget horror movies.

Mitt Math

Trying to predict the results of a national election ten months before the voting is stupid, but I've still been trying to sort out the possibilities.

Like most people, I think Obama will have a hard time winning in November. Every Republican hates him, and he's disappointed most Democrats by continuing to try crawling into bed with Republicans in Congress long after it was clear they hated his fucking guts. My crystal ball as of today (January 8th) tells me that Obama can only win if (a) the economy continues its recent pattern of incremental improvement, and (b) the GOP nominee is someone that drives nearly all the independents so crazy that they decide to stick with the devil they know. I think both conditions must exist for Obama to have a chance in the Electoral College.

Here's where Mitt Math comes in. There are two things that we know are absolutely true. First, Republicans don't fall in love; they fall in line. Second, Republicans as a rule hate Ns even more than they hate Mormons. I live among Texas Republicans of the yahoo variety, and have witnessed both of these truths as part of my lifetime of experience.

Right now, Perry is sucking hind tit, barely ahead of Huntsman. There are still four Republicans actually in the race -- Willard, Pappy, the Newt, and S-Rick -- but Gingrich is fading and Pappy is too weird in too many ways to win a single primary. Willard is projected to win New Hampshire, and early polls show he might even win South Carolina. If he does, that blows the last remaining reason for Santorum's existence out of the water -- South Carolina is supposed to be in the same class as Mississippi and Alabama as a bastion of cultural conservatism (evangelunacy), and religious crazies should be S-Rick's natural constituency.

So let's say Mitt fights his way through and eventually wins the GOP nomination. He will have been forced to steer hard to the right to win states like South Carolina, but after the convention, when everyone has signed on the dotted line, he won't be dragging around a loose cannon like Palin as his running mate. My gut feeling is that pragmatic Mitt will replace pandering Mitt, and he'll make course corrections toward the center. He'll get away with it because Republicans hate the N even more than they hate the Mormon. It'll be too late to rescind the nomination, so the voters will fall in line as they always do. Given a choice between moderate Mitt and Obama, the independents switch back to the (R) column on the ballot. Obama's looking for work a year from now.

That's why I'll be watching the results in South Carolina. If Santorum really does emerge as the Anybody But Romney choice and wins the nomination, Obama still has money in the game. That'll be important if the GOP holds their House majority and takes over the Senate. 

The Other Rick

Rick Santorum, henceforth known as S-Rick to distinguish him from P-Rick, is no longer The Other Rick. Based on his showing in Iowa, he's now Big Rick, and Perry is The Other Rick. It looks like P-Rick will stay in the race indefinitely, since he realized that he can be out cruising the highways for months at a time, and nobody in Texas misses his sorry ass.

Santorum is one of those weird religious zealots who believe that abortion, school prayer and gay marriage are the most important issues facing America today. He runs as a "family values" candidate, meaning his goal is to make his particular religious beliefs the law of the land. As a family values guy, he appeals to the 50 percent of Republicans who are hardcore evangelunicals and dominate the party even more than the tea people. The big wheels in the religious right-wing hierarchy are getting together to work out a plan to consolidate behind an anti-Romney candidate. As a Mormon, Mitts is viewed as a member of a Satanic cult and can never be allowed near the presidency lest he convert America to his evil ways.

It has been easy to ignore S-Rick since he's spent most of the campaign thus far barely casting a shadow while the publicity went to Bachmann, Perrito, Sugar Cain and Gingrich. Now he's starting to accumulate a little clout because he's just as fanatical as Bachmann (without appearing insane) and Perrito (but able to express an articulate thought). The big cheeses in the evangelunacy visualize a large majority of Americans fighting for spots at the head of the line so they can vote for this asshole.

One of the bedrock principles of my political philosophy is separation of church and state. I don't begrudge the right of religious people to believe any nonsense they choose to believe, but keep it in church and keep it out of my face. If the fucking evangelunicals are right, and if S-Rick wins the GOP nomination and subsequently the White House, he'll be in position to move the nation toward the Christian theocracy that his supporters dream about. That sucks.

Dreamer

"When I get THIS big, I wanna be like Superman. Or like maybe the president or somethin' like that."