Thinking of making this a monthly thing, since I tend not to delve into politics much in writing anymore. And if it becomes a monthly thing, people will say that it was a thing, and that it just happened. Sounds cooler than it really is.
Anyhow, we're officially less than a year away from the presidential election, although good luck convincing the GoP and CNN of that. Not even rumors that Justin Bieber knocked up some 20-year-old chick back stage and is on the way to becoming every teenage girl's number one babydaddy has broken the constant and fucking monotonous coverage of the Republican explosion. (Thought it does beg the question, what fucking 20-year-old listens to that Justin Bieber? Was she deaf?) Picture a scene where a seventeen year old virgin nervously cleans the back seat of her father's convertible while her boyfriend sits on the ground crying and trying to get his pants back on. Now imagine you're the girl, quiet sobs and love songs from the radio around you, thinking, "What, that's it?". That's about how I feel toward the coverage in general. But because general doesn't say anything and that analogy sucked, let's get into specifics. Starting wiiiiiiiiiiiiiith...
The 2011
GoP Primary Contestant Breakdown Lighting Round Hootenanny!
Starring:
Herman Cain
Mr. Flavor of the Week. There are three separate but equally valid theories to describe this man's bizarre behavior.
1) He is a poor politician in general and has no concept of what it is to run a successful campaign. He has no hold in several key race states, is grossly underfunded, and seemingly has no organization whatsoever. His talking points are all over the place and he contradicts his own firm stances daily, sometimes in the same interview. In less than a week of rigorous talk show appearances, Cain has basically alienated everyone in the country. He reminds me of the proverbial dog chasing a car in two ways: he wouldn't know what to do with it if he caught it, and when he's chasing it, nothing else matters. Today he stated that he wouldn't be answering any more questions about the two alleged sexual harassment suits that may or may not have happened and that he did, didn't, may have or may not have paid one or more settlements on, and I sincerely believe he believes this will make the issue go away.
Or behind door number 2) there is the notion that he was not a serious candidate to begin with and ran just for shits and giggles. This actually goes a long way to explain his self-immolating behavior, as it's a pretty smart exit strategy. He can be forced out for his lunacy, leave the race and not have to admit any kind of defeat.
C) This theory is not my own - all credit to comedian Janine Garafalo. She says Cain is the "pay-per-view" candidate. His presence as the one black conservative other than Alan Keys (R-Fucking Insane Asshole) and his place in the presidential killzone makes the GoP look a little less racist. Although Cain's outright hatred of immigrants makes one wonder about his own views on race.
Of course there's always option D) the guy is a fucking jackhole.
Michelle Bachmann
Hard to get a read on her. The only opinion I can really form is that she is a lazy rich kid who honestly believes all of this Bible end-of-the-world horse shit and won't hesitate to throw you (yes YOU!) into the line of fire if she thinks it'll speed up Jesus knocking on her front door by a split fucking nanosecond. Her welfare kids and farm subsidy, not to mention a political career defined by social issues and reaction lead me to believe she is not a serious candidate in any arena. She's there to make money and kill the gays.
Because, you know, a bunch of dudes in hot pants marching through Times Square to the tune of Lady Gaga is the biggest threat facing America.
Rick Perry
The former golden boy (and not so name just because he can out-Boehner John Boehner in terms of fake tan grossness) of the Tea Party has two great strengths as a politician. He has an uncanny ability to sense the changing of the wind and foresee trends, such as sensing that Texas was going to swing way over to the far side of batshit in the 90s. His second strength is what I will call Sheer Tensile Anal Flexibility. He is a master of letting other people fuck him in the ass for contributions. Seriously, there's so many dicks in there it's hard to tell where dick ends and man begins. He's appointed donors to every possible position, from regents at universities to flat out making up bullshit state positions to give donors a kushy job at the taxpayer's expense.
In addition to a record-setting 300:1 dick-to-asshole ratio, it is impossible to tell where Perry's principals lie. The man knows no limits and draws no lines in the sand when it comes to his beliefs. The best example of this is a plan to mandate girls in the 6th grade get Gardisil shots - a vaccine against HPV - which is known to cause cervical cancer. This clashes with the fact that most of Texas only thinks unchaste women get STDs and that Trojan condoms are manufactured on the upper-west side of Hell. The plan fell through, but Perry's departure from the almost priest-like devotion to his beliefs was due to Gardisil manufacturer Merck snagging $120 a shot, all at the expense of Texas public schools.
Here's a little analogy to remember every time you think of Rick Perry:
"Perry is to investors as a cheap Herpes-ridden hooker is to the crew of the Battleship Enterprise on the first day of shore leave."
This is what makes him so terrifying as a candidate. His prime supporters are the Tea Party, and worse, the super-paranoid lunatic fringe libertarians with itchy trigger fingers and a whole lot of ammo. Perry's only guiding moral in life is "spread ass cheaks, insert penis," and the length to which he is willing to go is basically unlimited. So in closing...
Dude would fuck his sister for money.
Mitt Romney
Who. The fuck. Names their son. Mitt.
That aside, Romney is an old hat conservative rich boy who thinks wearing a five hundred dollar Land's End jacket and posing in Maine swells one's testes to lumberjack size. He will also be the most likely to win the nomination when all is said and done. He's also into being married and reserving the right to fuck other women (I mean, really, is there any other reason for the Mormon's to exist? Let's just cut all this God loves the USA in the butt bullshit and admit it - some dude like the whores and needed an excuse to continue liking the whores).
Otherwise there is little remarkable and not much we haven't heard before. He's a flip-flopper of epic proportion who'd say, "Good morning," to you when it's clearly 9pm and your dog just died. This can actually be useful for progressives since Romney's stance on economic issues can lean left, depending on the need. He also comes from a background of being pro-choice and pro-gay, which has not exactly warmed the hearts of the swaths of bigots that turn out at these pay-for-entry no-cameras speaking events the candidates try to pass off as public forums.
And what is up with the plastic surgery? The guy looks like the least successful run of Ken doll Mattel has ever known. So bad were his sales figures the designer went home and shot himself.
Rick Santorum
Who?
Ron Paul
The fact that seemingly smart people buy into Ron Paul's ideology amazes me. If right wing rhetoric is one gigantic stream of urine, then Ron Paul is the last little bit that dribbles down your leg.
It's well-known the man is a gigantic racist, and things like taking massive contributions from a group known as Stormfront - the largest neo-Nazi organization in North America - are not doing much to change that image. His anti-government rantings and cries for anarchy in the streets really strike a chord with young people, but it's not the kind of freedom anyone actually wants. Ron Paul, on a personal level, does want anarchy. Around him. But as far as actively participating, fucking forget it. He wants state-sponsored protection from the people he would willing take social, legal and medical protection away from.
This really strikes me as the attitude of most of Paul's followers as well: a bunch of quasi-sociopaths too fucking absorbed with themselves, willing to strip down the trappings of functional society to a base "everyone man for himself" level, yet somehow exempting themselves from the need to live in fear that their neighbors are the ones conspiring to steal their beans, and strutting around with the faux-intellectual, self-congratulatory bravado of a thirteen year old boy who tells everyone at school that Suzie Hicks just gave him his first blowjob.
Here's my advice for people thinking of voting for Ron Paul.
Step 1: Take an ordinary number two pencil.
Step 2: Place it between your index and ring fingers on your left hand.
Step 3: Align your left fingers in a plain, holding the pencil gently.
Step 4: Squeeze all four of your left fingers together using your other hand. Do this for ten seconds.
Did that hurt?
Good. That means it's working. Do this every time you think you might vote for Ron Paul.
Jon Huntsman
It is ironic to me that the only candidate on the field with a shred of political credibility (like working as Obama's ambassador to China) probably has the smallest likelihood of winning the nomination. While I personally would not vote for Huntsman, I give him that he is the one candidate who has not gone and hung two crosses from his nipples and swung them about in the public's face in what must be the most uncomfortable strip tease in history.
It's difficult to know where Huntsman is going. On one hand, he may just quietly fade to background noise as he has been all along, or he may jump to the front of the polls once all of the other candidates crash and burn. My feeling is that his future as a candidate depends on what others do around him, considering that he's already been told to fuck off by both Fox and CNN.
And finally there's Obama, and what a dissapointment that motherfucker turned out to be.
I'll conclude with a thought about Occupy Wall Street.
OWS is terrifying to politicians on all sides of the field for one reason and one reason alone. For years now, politicians have lived in the bubble of red vs. blue. No matter what evil has been committed, you always have a ready-made scapegoat, and the underlying issues are quietly kept out of sight. And sure, the battleground is alight with flames on social issues: abortion, gay rights, gun control, racism, and so on, but in a time of economic crisis, where are the jobs bills, and why is everyone trying to rob social security?
On economic issues, Dems and Reps are basically in agreement. Democrats come up with national bailouts, and Republicans laud them in public, and in private pass similar measures of a smaller scale. Outsourcing is bulletproof. And you just have to have Superpacs and unlimited campaign contributions. And while they're at it they might as well kick unions in balls a few more times, for good measure. On foreign policy, same deal. Education? Drug war? Obama's plan to get the troops out of Iraq isn't even his: it's a legacy of the Bush years when his approval rating was lower than Nixon's and he needed a last minute bump in the polls to ensure a graceful exit. Might as well be a team of synchronized fucking swimmers.
OWS instead directs its anger toward business, which doesn't know a red and a blue, only a list of who can be bought and for how much. This has both sides of the party shitting themselves. The reds are trying to shamelessly brand OWS as racist, anti-Semitic and privileged, while the blues are trying to assume leadership of the growing mob and direct the anger toward congress.
Both of these are separate but equal efforts to destroy any power OWS may have, and stagnate any chance of real change. Obama claims he supports OWS, but his voting record is obstinately pro-Wall Street and anti-regulation. And the feverish anti-poor people attitude in Congress is a symptom, not a cause. Obama's version of OWS would be like a doctor giving you Asprin for a headache while you are slowly dying from pneumonia.
All of this is endemic to what I believe to be a key flaw in modern politics. Leaders understand that their job is to get re-elected, not to actually lead. And in a climate of deregulated elections, it becomes an all-out no-holds-barred slug fest, and any notion of honesty or sincerity is thrown right out the fucking window.
We're also still a year away from the election, and I really wish everyone would shut up about it already.
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