The veritable clown car of candidates that is the GOP presidential primary hopefuls is gassing up and preparing to leave poor lil’ ol’ Iowa for New Hampshire, and not a moment too soon.
Never before in the annals of American political history has a party served up so many duds. The stupefied and numb look on the faces of many Iowans isn’t due to indigestion from too much roast pork and corn fritters and mashed ‘taters. Rather, it’s the slow creep of a realization that this dysfunctional crew is the best the GOP has to offer.
Remember back in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell decreed that for the next four years Republicans would stop at nothing to get Obama out of office in 2012?
The Senator who most resembles Kermit The Frog and Speaker of the House John ‘Tan Man’ Boehner have held true to that goal by creating legislative roadblocks at every turn and picking up their toys and going home whenever the political game in Washington doesn’t go their way.
There’s a problem with that strategy though: you don’t commit to a goal like that and implement the obstructionist and divisive tactics the GOP has used for the past 4 years without being able to deliver the goods with a presidential hopeful that inspires, is decent on the eyes, and who has some impressive political bona fides around Washington, not to mention the ability to bring the old Republican guard and the tea party speed-bumpers into line.
You know the type: Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Richard Nixon, Abraham Lincoln. Heck, Nixon looks like Winston Churchill when compared to the likes of Romney & Company!
What did the GOP cough up instead?
A pre-anointed heir apparent in Mitt Romney whose early campaigning looked more like playing possum; and who looks miserably wooden and uncomfortable even talking to babies out in public. Seriously, he wants us to elect a guy named after a baseball mitt?
Really?
Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has the ideal face for an addition to Mt. Rushmore and the proud broad shoulders of a former military man, but who apparently has done his share of chaw and probably keeps a flask in his boot which is the only way to explain his monolithic gaffes in debates and on the stump. Looks the part, just don't ask him for directions.
A peaking Rick Santorum, who has run around Iowa like a lab mouse on Red Bull, shaking hands, kissing babies, and talking about he’s the best; his past endorsement of Romney was the best he could do at the time based on what was best; but that sometimes the best is not the best, because he’s the best. Huh?
Let’s not forget the Mother of All Endorsement’s his campaign got yesterday from Jim-Bob Duggar he of the breeding TLC Channel clan. Well, at least Santorum can count on 19 or 20 votes right there.
Former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, he who has fallen from leader to the back of the pack in two short weeks, attributing it to all the negative ads Mitt Romney’s campaign launched at him like so many scud missiles.
Memo the the former Speaker: America will never elect a president whose wife has an impressive hair helmet, but is the spitting image of George Washington.
For those who dream of the days when stagecoaches were the mode of travel, every man had a gun and a horse and women wore corsets and gave birth in open fields without government intervention, there is creepy but Keebler Elfish Ron Paul.
Sorry folks, but watching him and son Rand---a Kentucky Senator---campaign together can evoke vivid memories of the Ned Beatty forest scene from ‘Deliverance’.
Finally, there’s Michelle Bachmann. She the perpetual GOP Milf who was allegedly more teachable and just as easy on the eyes as Sarah Palin; a sort of Palin-light, who somehow found the time to raise 5 kids and 23 foster children while getting a law degree and taking government assistance for the children she took in despite being vehemently against such aid today…when she no longer needs it.
All of them agree on a few things though: each would rescind, repeal, reject, reevaluate and re-jig everything the Obama administration has done in the past three years, which is odd when one considers that all of them are running on the mantra, ‘Less government, not more’.
It’s not too late to pull New Jersey Governor Chris Christie away from the buffet table down at Manchu Wok and slap him on a ticket with Sister Sarah Palin.
We’ll just trade the old GOP clown car in for the short bus.
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