Gingrich to go down swinging in Florida...

Like a crazed and angry badger with one foot caught in a trap, Newt Gingrich is lashing out in all direction during a frenzied last, desperate tour across Florida and, in doing so, is becoming a grave danger to the republican party he purports to want to lead.   He is sinking in the polls faster than the Costa Concordia as Mitt’s Super PAC avalanche has him buried up to his neck in a host of negative ads mostly consisting of his own words come back to haunt him.  Newt’s smartest-guy-in-the-room debate shtick  has backfired badly and he finds himself in need of an electoral miracle as the polls open today across what may turn out to be his swampy Waterloo.

Newt and his confederacy of dunces – Mike Reagan, Sarah Palin, Herman Cain – are all trying to make the case that a guy who has made a career out of being a corporate bag man in Washington is the avenging outsider who will lance the poisonous boil of Washington corruption.  A more ludicrous argument can scarcely be imagined.  He has unironically wrapped himself in the cheap, made-in-China American flags favored by the tea party and is promising to return to America’s traditional promise of “exceptionalism”, while fomenting World War Three in the Middle East, building a colony on the moon, stripping the government down to an every-man-for-himself minimum and establishing christianity as the American version of the hated Sharia Law he and his supporters so fear.  Wow…

It’s not surprising really – Newt has always been first in line for the circular firing squad and is legendary for being the life of the party for a while but the one guy who will eventually want to strip naked and go set fire to the Dean’s office at three in the morning.  He can’t see where the line is and, moreover, in his over-zealous enthusiasm, doesn’t even want to know where it is.  His accusations against Obama are so over the top they will become his epithets; he’s an anti-Christian socialist elitist Alinsky-ite.  Romney has gone from a Massachusetts moderate to a “pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-taxes liberal” .  Typical Newt; he’s a very creative name caller and back row insult shouter.  The problem is, while that may appeal to that thin slice of the electorate that is still enraged and sees red every time Obama’s name is mentioned, at this point the majority of even republican primary voters are rolling their eyes and pulling the lever for Romney – the latest polls put him up by double digits and pulling away.

In Werner Herzog’s masterpiece, “Aguirre, the Wrath of God”, the half-mad main character is on a hopeless quest to find the lost city of El Dorado in the South American jungle and slowly goes completely insane as the expedition dwindles through death and disaster, ruling over a smaller and smaller group of slowly starving and hallucinating men, until only he is left.  Hmmm…catch my meaning there, Newt?   In Vietnam War era political double speak, you’re going to destroy the village in order to try and save it. 

This is, of course, monumentally misguided but Gingrich can’t help himself – this is who he is.  This is why the republican establishment is largely backing Romney.  They may be holding their collective noses while doing so, and they may have abandoned their hope of winning the presidency behind Mitt, but damned if they’re going to have Newt lead them over a cliff and cause a disaster all the way down to mayoral races.   It’s being reported this morning that Newt – in a fresh blast of overwrought hyperbole - has his campaign “robo-calls” claiming Mitt “forced holocaust survivors to eat non-kosher food” , an angle that perhaps could only work in a state like Florida and reminds of nothing so much as a World Weekly News headline, like “Bigfoot stole my wife!!!”. 

Well, go down swinging, Newt.   You gotta be you.  But this summer, while you and your notorious-but-forgiven ex-mistress sit on the porch of your 5,000 square foot mansion in Virginia sipping sweet tea, think about this; if you could have just stifled your looney alter ego for 12 short months, you might well have won the nomination.   We’ll save a seat on the next flight to the moon for a second honeymoon…

John Boehner's empty threat meets Grover Norquist's blustery rhetoric...just another Sunday.

An increasingly desperate John Boner – on “This Week” this morning – called Obama’s State of the Union speech “unAmerican” and accused him of advocating the “politics of division”.  This phrase “politics of division” is another way of emphasizing one of his party’s main taking points, the idea of “class warfare”.  There’s great irony in the leader of the republicans in House of Representatives – the defenders of the ruling class, the wealthy and corporate America – sniveling about class warfare when their entire reason for being is to protect the wealth of those they feel earned it and deserve it and, more importantly, don’t give a shit about anyone else. 

This is the misguided notion at the heart of Elizabeth Warren’s speech – the one that went viral – where she points out that the wealthy didn’t create the wealth they possess by themselves.  They did it using the resources of the entire country and that, by definition, includes all of us.   Boner goes on to lay down an empty threat – that, “If the president won’t work with us to help create jobs, I’m sure the American people will elect someone who will.”  You better hope so, John, because if they don’t you will end up back as a simple member of the House from Ohio.  Or maybe you and John Kasich will end up in some tavern in Cleveland playing cribbage and swilling AleSmith Speedway Stout.   But the idea that you and your do-nothing cronies have lifted a finger to “create jobs” is laughable.  

Sure, you keep repeating the lie that the Keystone Pipeline will create 500 thousand jobs or some ridiculous number, and if the president doesn’t play along you’re gonna stomp your foot and stick the enabling legislation in every single bill that comes up this session until it passes.  Meanwhile progressives are pissed at Obama because he didn’t reject the filthy wasteful mess of a project out of hand.   This is nothing but the usual cloak room sleeve job for the oil companies who pay the freight for you and the rest of the treacherous swine you call colleagues.  

I’m sure your consultants tell you to keep pushing this one button because it’s a convenient symbol; you can cite environmental extremists – always a useful boogie man - and that allows you to justify environmental rape and plunder at the same time you bludgeon Obama regarding jobs.  It’s likely the same consultants who tell you to continually being up Solyndra as a symbol of the same misguided environmental extremism and throw in a little corruption while you’re at it.  But seriously; is this all you’ve got? 

 Face it Johnny – you’re scared shitless that no matter who the presidential candidate is, he’s going to get bitch slapped and sent home in disgrace and you and McConnell, Boy Wonder Eric Cantor, Tea Party pin up Paul Ryan and the rest of your unruly rabble will be looking at a very long second term indeed. 

People aren’t going to put up with the same absurd pre-school behavior for another four years.  They’re going to be pissed.  You and the entire republican machine are going to drown in your own effluent.  The alpha-dog Grover Norquists is going to be exposed as the closet treasonous and power-crazed fascist that he is.  He’s boldly talking now about how the president doesn’t matter and if Obama wins the presidency he’ll face republican majorities in both houses and if he doesn’t behave, Grover will put on his jack boots and lead an insurrection leading to an impeachment.  Good idea, Grover.  How’d that whole impeachment thing work out for Newt?  An emptier threat has rarely been uttered.  You dumb asses have completely over played your hand.  You’re not all wrong and Obama is not all right.  But the party has been so completely disingenuous, spiteful and childish that you’re done.  This primary season is proof of how empty your message is and the two leading candidates are the story writ large.   

You and Norquist both accuse Obama of not being willing to work with congress and pretty much everyone except mouth-breathing knuckle draggers know this isn’t true – not even close.  You’re on record since 2008 as saying that you will not cooperate with Obama on anything and are committed to his failure – do you really think you can get away with this ridiculous fiction that he’s the problem, not you?  Even Chevron executives know that’s not true.   

It’s approximately 48 hours before the results will be in in the Florida primary now and far too late for everyone to decide that Newt is an erratic ego-maniac not fit to be president of the local Moose Lodge and Romney is George HW Bush without the personality.   You can double down on the elaborate fairy tales of Paul Ryan with his “Let them eat cake” economic philosophy and have George Will semantically masturbating in a frenzy of obscure literary allusions and pseudo-intellectual gobble-dee-gook in the National Review till the cows come home.  At the end of the day your party – with the incredible opportunity in front of it to nominate someone who personifies the good parts of conservative political philosophy – gagged and coughed up these two chumps running around Florida in a drooling frenzy heaving rhetorical spitballs at each other and looking like the fools they are.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, John.  So go home, have a drink and cry those phony crocodile tears Tuesday night.  And get ready for a long, long year.

Thoughts on that cloud of doom over Florida...

·         Sarah Palin has decided to try once again to make herself politically relevant by spouting off in support of her boy, Newt Gingrich, reeling since he was slapped sideways by the strategically mean Mitt Romney during the last debate prior to the Florida primary. Of course she does so displaying her usual loose grasp of facts, for example in her allusion to Newt’s opponents acting like Stalin – not clear where she’s going with that – and even more so, incorporating Newt’s favorite historically confusing whipping boy, Saul Alinsky.  “What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst."   I’d be willing to bet that she has no fucking idea who Saul Alinsky was – probably thinks he’s the old Jewish guy who runs the deli where she gets her favorite corned beef sandwiches. 

Poor Sarah is having a hard time reconciling the fact that no one is paying any attention to her anymore.  Her only current claim to fame is appearing on Faux News as a guest political commentator for people like notorious pussy Sean Hannity, where she routinely embarrasses herself with full frontal ignorance and an inability to articulate even the simplest thoughts coherently.  But she has inexplicably taken to Newt Gingrich, probably on the assumption that only he would be irrational enough to offer her a high profile role in his administration where she could continue nursing on the teat of whorish notoriety.  But Newt is burning oil pretty badly and she may not have chosen wisely.  We’ll know in a couple of days.

·         Meanwhile, in a stark and shameless example of sunshine state pandering, Mitt Romney blasted Obama for not making NASA a priority during his term.  Oh gee, sorry Mitt; he was kind of busy.  There were two wars to deal with and a global financial crisis.  He saved the auto industry and, like it or not, he saved the banks as well.  He reformed the nation’s health care system. He was attacked constantly and, in spite of a republican party overtly committed to his failure, is still standing.  Imagine if he had proposed increasing the budget for NASA anytime in the last three years; his political opponents would have screamed bloody murder, accused him of misplaced priorities and frivolous expenditures and ridiculed him mercilessly. Yeah, good call, Mitt.  Maybe after the election you and Newt should go on up and spend a few weeks in the space station or something for some quality time together.  

·         Rick Santorum has also apparently decided that he’s not going to win the nomination – big surprise there, Rick – and is now playing nice with Gingrich and Romney, trolling for a Hillary-style, high level appointment.  However his old testament tendencies revealed themselves again yesterday in his bigoted and profoundly ignorant jabber about equality being a singularly christian concept not shared by any other religion.  "It doesn't come from Islam. It doesn't come from the East and Eastern religions. It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."  As you might guess, this pissed a number of people off, not least those who worship according to Islam and other “Eastern” religions.  This is one of the key problems with christians interjecting their faith into national politics; it’s fundamentally intolerant.

 Clearly that’s the danger in the “christian nation” rhetoric so prevalent in the republican party in the last 30 years, a period that coincides with a steep drop off in church attendance.  If the christian fanatics can’t persuade you to attend, they will try to compel you to through force of law, an idea that would be anathema to our founding fathers, in spite of consistent misinformation from republican “historians” like Professor Gingrich, (who should know better).  As Ben Franklin said, “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and god does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”  I think that pretty much sums it up to any rational person who doesn’t have money invested in the Vatican or own teh parking lot across the street from the Crystal Cathedral. 

·         This need to literally genuflect to the semi-literate and reactionary evangelicals might explain why the filthy rich republican party has trotted out the least attractive group of candidates ever.  Mitt Romney is a man who sprinkles in a few moderate positions with his otherwise by the book conservatism and he’s flogged relentlessly for it by the other candidates.  Newt is a man almost universally loathed by the republican establishment and is so wildly erratic that he goes from blowing Romney’s doors off in South Carolina to self immolation in Florida in the course of two weeks.  Santorum is a delusional religious fanatic endorsed by evangelical leaders and virtually no one else.  And Uncle Ron Paul is deeply committed, well organized and supported by a cadre of true believers but is so far outside the republican mainstream – not to mention the national mainstream – that he's relevant only insofar as he’s able to influence the party platform in Tampa and only then if he wins a lot more delegates than he has so far.  It’s no wonder there’s so much buzz about a none-of-the-above stalemate and a go for broke, wide open convention. 

More thoughts on the state of our union...

I took some time today to carefully read Obama’s state of the union speech, something I normally wouldn’t do because most years I feel the SOTU speech is an exercise in self congratulatory gibberish and hyperbole; an exaggerated list of things the president has done or, having not done them, promises to do in the future.   But since the last 9 months have featured an endless series of tedious debates by republican presidential candidates, an avalanche of empty rhetoric, mindless and reflexive accusations against him and blather of the highest order, Obama’s speech was his chance to answer it all in one systematic way with the eyes of the electorate on him.  I have taken him to task during this time for his well-meaning but ultimately futile attempts to reason with his political opponents.  Most of 2011 was a complete waste of time in that regard; a series of high profile dick-measuring contests and pissing matches that accomplished almost nothing and served only to distract the whole country from the business of actually solving our problems.

Ironically, my long and thoughtful review took place with the most recent “debate” as backdrop.  Last night in Florida the four candidates once again assembled in their suits and power ties and took questions from a hand picked member of the hated media.  This time it was the venerable Wolf Blitzer – a name as incongruous as Rock Hudson.  As the field has grown smaller and the two leaders start to distance themselves, the debates have also become more pointless, cloying and personal and the contrast between the ridiculous name calling slander-fest in Florida and Obama’s focused and mature speech Tuesday night was stark.  The continued spectacle of these “debates” – with all the gravitas of a third grade lunchroom argument over a dodge ball game outcome - has to be humiliating to republicans everywhere on some level. 

From the starry-eyed argument about the relative expense of moon colonies to the full frontal exhibitionism of Cuban pandering, this thing had all the class of a farting contest.  It is almost sad to watch the other two candidates – Saint Santorum and Crazy Uncle Ron Paul – try to remain relevant while the mud-wrestling cage match goes on next to them.  And make no mistake, Florida is looking more and more like a tipping point.  Romney’s inevitability has come into question since Newt body-slammed him in South Carolina and another loss to him here in Florida would damage his credibility severely.  Newt is on the ropes himself – under funded and fighting against the entire republican party – he really has to win Florida to be able to continue because of the way the next round of primaries fall. 

After Florida there is a series of caucuses, which could serve to affect momentum and fund raising but they don’t lock up delegates.  So the candidates have to spend time and money and have much to lose and not really much to gain.  There aren’t real primaries scheduled until the end of February.  It may be a bare knuckles bloody fight until then or Florida may spell the end for one or more of the ravaged and tiring candidates.

Meanwhile their fate is, to some extent, tied up with John Boner, Mitch McConnell and the republican congress and this is what made the SOTU speech so interesting.  Obama laid down a marker on Tuesday.  Say what you want, argue with him about this policy or that policy, but the fact is he made a very compelling case for his presidency while at the same time, laying the inability to get anything done in 2011 squarely at the feet of congress – and specifically, the house.  There was nothing radical, vaguely socialist, Kenyan, Muslim or typically liberal about the path he laid out.  Finally after months of trying in vain to get the people who loathe him to cooperate, he has recognized that there was nothing to be gained anymore by being conciliatory.  He wasn’t asking them anymore; he was telling them.   He was rational and practical and pragmatic but with an edge that was recognizable. 

Meanwhile progressives are in a lather, picking through Obama’s speech and finding fault with him on his handling of the banks and his refusal to either insult or disband the military.  When are we all going to grow up and understand what it means to work together to pull in the same direction?  Apparently, not any time soon.  Because like it or not, the fact is that a large part of the president’s role is as commander in chief.  That doesn’t have to mean he wanders around starting wars for no good reason any more than it means he can unilaterally pull troops out of Japan or close Guantanamo.   He is supposed to lead but others have to choose to follow or not.  If he wants to close Guantanamo and is opposed by 90% of the senate over political concerns, is it then a purely political calculation when he abides by the will of the people as expressed by that 90%?  More unilateral action by a president can quickly morph into a Hugo Chavez-like dictatorship and we certainly don’t want that either. 

The president spoke to the economy in general, tax equity, job creation, energy, education and yes, the deficit.  The republican response was their usual mix of criticisms sprinkled again with thinly veiled accusations of socialism and racial code.  Since the Southern Strategy was implemented in the 1960s, Republican presidential hopefuls  and the party as a whole have carefully embraced racial exclusivity, evangelical fervor and wildly militaristic nationalism while as a practical matter, working mostly to enrich the party’s moneyed establishment.  This cynical approach continues as is embodied in both of the leading candidates as well as in the Congress.

Mitt said – with a straight face and buckets of faux sincerity like only a man with 250 million dollars in assets can – that Obama is “detached from reality”.   Newt’s trying to hide his more terrifying gestapo tendencies – like going door to door in the middle of the night to arrest judges who dare disagree with him -  by trying to convince everyone he’s Ronald Reagan incarnate, offering as dubious proof a 15 year-old clip of Nancy Reagan offering him scant praise at some Elk’s Lodge annual dinner.  Newt, that was 15 years ago when she could still form rational thoughts.   How is that relevant now? 

Somewhere in a clubby, dark-paneled room, the republican version of the smartest guys in the room – their “Masters of the Universe”- are sitting around looking blankly at each other and wondering how, in the name of god, have they let it come to this; “We have two fourteen year-olds running for president – WTF?”   Meanwhile Obama is humming Al Green and deciding who will take Hillary’s place in his second term. 

State of the Union night re-cap plus the Newt & Mitt show highlights

I heard Newt Gingrich today, at an appearance in Florida, say that he really wanted to see a positive campaign for president and that he didn’t intend to demean the president but just let people” know who he really is”.  Of course, this is code, since he is on record calling him a Kenyan anti-colonial socialist, among other things.  Newt is always jabbering about “staying positive” because he knows damn well he has so much negative baggage he can’t afford for it to turn into a mud ball fight.  He’s like the Peanuts character, Pig Pen, leaving a slime trail and a dirt cloud behind him that’s obvious to all but the most delusional Obama haters.  No, instead he slyly insinuates and obfuscates, uses half truths and his particularly slanted view of reality along with some kind of weird southern code to get his point across to the republican primary audiences.  “Do we want a president who gorges on watermelon, fatback and collard greens or one who understands how to make American great again?”  That’s keeping it real, Newtie.

And yet somehow this man who was forced to resign, essentially, as speaker of the house in the face of open rebellion by party members wounded by his vitriol and ill-advised search for Bill Clinton’s pecker tracks, is trying to sell himself as a Washington outsider and slayer of the “elites” who are the scourge of our country and the evil force behind our current national crisis.  Meanwhile, in an example of unprecedented hubris-fueled hypocrisy he was playing kissy-face with his Callista-doll mistress and trying to get his second wife to sign on to a creepy three-way scenario right out of some twisted New York city porn film.  And he thinks gay marriage is wrong?  He thinks abortion should be illegal on principle because after all this time he finally has access to a woman’s body he enjoys and doesn’t want her to have any control over it. 

He tip-toes around the definition of a lobbyist by hiring someone who is a lobbying expert to educate him and his employees on how to avoid the technicality of lobbying while still earning big bucks for consulting clients, who have him on a retainer, on the historical aspects of how to buy a congressman most efficiently.   Mitt seems to lack the proper genetic structure to be able to call him out effectively about this but what he said is true and no matter how much Newt spins it – “I loaded the pistol, pulled back the hammer and handed it to the monkey but had no part in the pulling of the trigger itself, therefore I am  not a monkey killer” – the reality is clear to anyone who cares.  He is on record as saying – as he was getting ridden out of Washington on a rail – that he was going to take some time to think and learn some new things and maybe make a little money so it’s no surprise that he used his flatulent notoriety to play junior grade bag man for Freddie Mac and all manner of other leaches and borderline criminals.  He’s a champion bull-shitter and that can make you a lot of money in the right circles.

Luckily for Newt, Mitt’s idea of attacking him sounds a lot like Pee Wee Herman – “That’s what you are; what am I?”  He’s the guy walking out of the frat house with his stupid sweater tied around his neck – he has no idea how to mix it up with a stone cold street fighter like Gingrich so he comes off sounding insipid and cloying and lame.   It was reported that he had his campaign people sidling up to media types at Gingrich events in Florida and whispering that they should “dig deeper” into Newt’s Freddie Mac dalliances.  Brilliant strategy, guys; what else you got?  The whole Romney campaign seems completely bereft of ideas and incapable of getting down in the dirt and calling a Newt a Newt.  Gingrich knows this and simply resorts to rhetorical bullying and loud and repeated denials and, as always, a significant percentage of people will start to believe you because they can’t remember what happened 6 months ago and don’t really give a shit.  As much as the republican establishment wants Mitt to be the nominee, that guy – the guy who’s just pissed about everything - wants Gingrich if for no other reason than he will say the nasty shit the guy would like to say to the people to whom he’d most like to say it.  That guy seems to be the driver of Newt’s current surge and momentum.

As to Obama, he seemed pretty confident tonight.   He’s got plenty of national security cred while at the same time has done enough to extricate us from Iraq and whittle down the defense budget to calm those on the left who still think sitting in a field and talking about our feelings is the best way to resolve every problem.  The economy is moving in the right direction and he has managed to wring some concessions from the big banks who blundered into the housing crisis through a combination of venal greed, institutional stupidity and incompetence.  Again, this deal announced today will leave the left unsatisfied but it is still a feather in his cap and allows him to take up the people’s mantle again without embarrassment.  His delay of the Keystone Pipeline project was a poke in the eye of republicans everywhere used to giving sleeve jobs to the oil companies in exchange for political support and rallied the environmental base while pissing off John Boner – always a side benefit.  And if he faces either of these simpletons in November he’s feeling pretty good about his chances.  

Gingrich takes every opportunity to bring up the comparison to Reagan, as if by simply saying his name and evoking that imagery it will make him the wildly popular figure that Reagan was.  But Reagan – as much as I thought the guy was nothing but an empty-headed Howdy Doody – had a certain undeniable clunky charm.  Newt has all the charm of an empty Pringles tube.   It’s why, in the long term, he can’t and won’t unite the factions of the republican party and keep them from spinning away from each other in all directions.  Opposites don’t really attract; they repel. 

So where was I going with this?  Oh yeah; it’s State of the Union night.  I heard the republican response and it sounded pretty empty; full of platitudes and campaign buzz words but short on anything that would make a thoughtful citizen jump to their side of the boat.  Simple minded accusations and out of context factoids, always returning to the “class warfare” rhetoric, the characterization of Obama as a failure, the almost embarrassing lack of anything positive to say, as if every day under Obama has been torture to test their very souls.  They've got nothing.  Their only hope is for Romney to stagger into Tampa this summer half mad with exhaustion, throwing the convention into a circus of celebrity politics that produces something sensational and unexpected, that gets the base fired up and proves acceptable to the power brokers – then maybe they can give Obama a run.  But watching the Newt & Mitt show is so much fun I’m rooting for them to keep throwing punches right up until the 15^th round, and then leave it up to the judges. 

South Carolina recap and Gingrich surprise - the road to Florida is paved with Super PAC slime.

The votes have been counted in South Carolina and Newt Gingrich – after 10 days of pandering and slandering – has come from behind and overtaken presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, winning the primary there with about 40% of the vote to Mitt’s 28 and Saint Santorum’s 17.  It’s a dramatic reversal of fortune for a man who dragged his sorry ass to a 4^th place finish in New Hampshire and could barely form complete sentences as he headed out of town.   But a change of a few degrees of latitude has served to fundamentally change the campaign as it heads further south still to the swampy land of blue-haired women, Jewish retirement homes, red-necks and Cubans.  How did Newt manage it?  This dog has a few ideas...

Romney waffling on the release of his tax returns during the last debate may have been what swung the vote to Gingrich.  Exit polls suggest that over 50% of voters made up their minds in the last few days and Mitt was roundly booed for his dissembling during the second South Carolina debate.   The guy is a zillionaire, has more money than god but he's awfully shy about those returns and not very good at making up the reason why.

Also a factor was the fact that over 30% of South Carolina voters had someone in their family lose their jobs and they’re pissed about it.  Gingrich seems pissed when he gets out of bed in the morning and his typical snarling debate “performance” dovetails nicely with that anger.  They want to support someone who has a pulse and who can play the avenging “Everyman” ; someone who will go Washington to smite the Beltway criminals who are fiddling while Rome burns.  Unfortunately for the republican nominee – angry Newt or robot Mitt – the “do nothings” conducting the fiddlers are the republican congressional leadership. 

It’s also starting to seem like maybe the power brokers of the republican party are becoming disenchanted with Mitt Romney, as talk of a brokered convention and a “long, tough slog” is becoming an increasingly prominent narrative.  Mitt’s stumbling performance on stage while under attack by Newt, the angry Pekinese, may be causing some second thoughts in the Presumptive Nominee Lounge.  And it seems that the fewer candidates on stage along with him, the weaker his performances.  He can’t hide in the corner while the who’s craziest contest goes on all around him – he has 20% less cover than he started with; cover that allowed him to skate along, placidly playing the front runner and standing above it all; being presidential.

 At the same time his massively funded Super-PAC dumped tons of toxic waste on the other candidates – Gingrich in particular – in a scorched earth policy that now seems to be blowing back at him.  Pissing Newt off played right to his strengths in a state crawling with pissed off working class voters – voters who made up the audience in the two feisty debates where Newt took off the gloves in an all-in strategy designed primarily as a Romney beat-down and if it happened to help Newt as a peripheral benefit, fine.   I realized I also misinterpreted the Gingrich campaign’s use of the infomercial-like anti-Bain Capital video he bought (from some mad genius who made it on spec). 

Gingrich – already a man well schooled in the use of code words and images – succeeded in taking what should have been a strength for Mitt and turning him into a cartoon of a carpet-bagger in the state where the civil war started.  In retrospect I mistook the amateurishness, wild exaggeration and selective use of facts in the video as a misstep but it played right into the out-of-touch patrician Yankee image that is Mitt’s greatest liability.  Gingrich also came out in the late rounds, swinging wildly at the usual monsters under his bed:  judges intent on making the US into a secular sanctuary for agnostic academics, bureaucrats and the “Hollywood elites”.  And of course Obama.  

Even in a state with 40,000 more jobs than a year ago, Obama is still reliably the enemy.  You can speculate till tomorrow about why that is and I have plenty of ideas.  But the simple fact is, showing contempt and disrespect for Obama is a guaranteed applause line with even employed republicans, who have never forgiven him for being black and getting elected in the first place, fundamentally shattering their world view and giving them the worst and longest lasting case of heartburn in modern medical history. 

So Newt wins a round, guaranteeing the race will continue for months.  Santorum is dead and really never was alive except in his mind and the desperate yearnings of the Family Research Council, et al.  Maybe Newt’s backhand across the chops will get Mitt’s attention and convince him and his genius circle to come clean about his various financial dealings.  They are what they are, Mitt, and you can’t pretend you don’t know what people are talking about.  The angry Pekinese is going to alternate snapping at your ankles and power humping your leg for the foreseeable future and right on into the madness of a wide open convention in Tampa unless you close the deal in the next month. 

He finally messed up your hair, Mitt.  What are you going to do about it?

Gingrich and Romney in a southern-fried Death Match...

Rick "Which state is this again?" Perry, in announcing his withdrawal from the presidential campaign, gave a speech in which he said," what we need in Washington is a government hat's humbler." Then apparently not recognizing the irony, announced that he was endorsing Newton Leroy Gingrich, a man well known for being a humble and self-effacing public servant, along with a world class historian and consultant, but not a lobbyist; a man who can build bridges between the races and who recognizes the value of reasoned and respectful political discourse.   Perry was last seen heading for the airport in the back seat of a limo clutching a half empty bottle of mescal...

By the way, could you ever imagine, in your most hallucinatory delusions, Newt Gingrich as some kind of Hugh Hefner, thong-and-smoking-jacket-wearing swinger?  The idea of Newtie sidling up to his 2^nd wife – the one for whom he left a cancer-stricken first wife in the hospital – and telling her that his devote catholic mistress, Callista, wanted to share his chubby ass and – who knows – maybe have a little ménage action, is so repulsive it makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit every time I stop to ponder it.  Of course now that Newtie has settled in with his fleshy third strike and gone to god for forgiveness, he is outraged and appalled – appalled I tell you - that anyone would bring up something so tawdry as the disturbing tableau just described. His angry rebuke of John King at the debate last night was hilarious for its pandering insincerity.  He looked like a recently neutered Pekinese that someone had left too long in a parked car. 

What may be even more repugnant is how his unsettling mixture of racism, right-wing social engineering, semi-coherent anti-government bombast and Obama hatred is received by the mouth-breathing republican audiences in South Carolina. Angry criticism of the (pick one), liberal, left-wing, anti-American, elitist media is almost guaranteed red meat for the pissed off white crowds Gingrich is courting and he isn’t shy about exploiting that opportunity.  The most recent polls indicate he got the bit between his teeth and is charging for home, wide-eyed and foaming at the mouth, so I’m sure he’s hoping to god his ex-wife goes away for a couple of days so he doesn't break his leg before he gets to the finish line.

Romney, on the other hand, spent the last 24 hours sputtering like C-3PO talking to Jaba the Hut in trying to explain not releasing his tax returns, his off-shore accounts in the Cayman Islands, and his enthusiastic embrace of unadulterated capitalism.  Indeed, anytime he has to go a bit off script he seems to freeze and reflexively sputter gibberish in a way that – sadly for him – doesn’t inspire confidence in him taking the proverbial red phone call at 3:00 AM.  Whether during the debates facing Gingrich, the snarling Pekinese and Saint Santorum or out on the stump trying to handle questions thrown at him wily-nilly from the audience, clearly improvisation isn’t his strong suit.  He certainly doesn’t inspire confidence with stammering and rambling explanations.   

Mitt’s handlers are clearly uneasy heading into the 11^th hour, and with good reason; he can release his tax returns and justify Bain Capital’s particular brand of merciless capitalism and his obfuscation may pass muster.  But stashing money in the Cayman Islands begs the question; what the hell is that all about?  It’s not clever investing or skillful use of the plentifully available IRS loopholes – it’s more like Tony Montana hoarding bags of cash so the cartels can’t find them.  That’s a little bit harder to explain – so far the jury is out whether we’re going to buy it or not.  In the meantime Mitt’s Super-PAC is furiously dumping money into the South Carolina media economy, trying to fend off the resurgent Gingrich juggernaut and continue on as the inevitable nominee. He and his people are now whispering that, of course, he never really expected to win South Carolina and that’s probably true a month ago.  ut a Gingrich win in South Carolina changes the game considerably. A Romney win and Gingrich likely heads home to a winter of Callista softly stroking his fevered brow as he tells her and anyone else who’ll listen that he should have been the nominee. 

While all this has been going on a clearly confident Obama told Boner and McConnell to eat shit and die over the ill-advised Keystone Pipeline project.  He immediately was bombarded with criticism and earnest shouting about jobs and the economic health of the country, to which he replied by going to democratic fundraiser and singing “Let’s Stay Together”.  This is a man who has surveyed the field and come to the conclusion – like the hidden republican hierarchy and propaganda machine – that it really doesn’t matter much which one of these guys wins, he’s looking good. 

I  was just having this discussion with what can only be described as an angry and disillusioned progressive friend of mine who was excoriating Obama for all of his failures and broken promises, fervently promising not to vote for him in the fall.  I asked him what I’ve asked all of my angry and impatient progressive friends; did you really think that Obama could cure all of the ills of eight years of confused and constitutionally questionable presidential leadership in less than four years? You’re not sitting on the couch with a remote in your hand; you can’t just get sick of what’s on one channel and start surfing.  If he’s reelected – particularly if the democrats can gain some seats in the house and keep the senate then I think you’ll see more of his promises kept.  He’s not going to win every fight, nor should he.  But he’s spent the last two years pulling a tired donkey up a pretty steep hill and he’s half way there. 

The primary tomorrow will be interesting but unless Romney wins in a runaway, the show will go on into Florida and the next act. 

Republican Racism and Stupidity on MLK's birthday: a Review

An ominous cloud of doom and desperation is building over the republican candidates as they move towards a messy and involuntary reduction of the field after this weekend’s primary vote.   The “4 non-Romney’s” resemble swimmers fighting over a single life ring – scratching and clawing with no concern over whether or not they drown each other in a savage fight for survival.  The evidence was everywhere over the weekend and it was universally ugly.  The candidates are taking turns trying to find the bottom of the gutter and outdoing each other in see who can pander most effectively to the angry white republicans of South Carolina. 

Romney sounds more like George HW Bush all the time. "My record is out there, proud of it, and I think if people want to have someone who understands how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, that I'm the guy that can best post up against Barack Obama," The thought of Romney getting sweaty trying to “post up” Obama is hilarious in itself – the guy looks like he’s never sweated in his life.  Yet somehow he is very close to being crowned the nominee.  His only claim to fame is that he ran a quintessentially republican business and made a zillion dollars, he isn’t demonstrably unhinged and he was a modestly successful governor.  It’s a measure of the quality of the rest of the field that he’s running away with the race even as a large percentage of the party find him distasteful at best and loathsome at worst.  The guy is a walking empty platitude and yet he’s the favorite and if he hits 40% in South Carolina the race is essentially over. 

Even though I have been barking about this same message for months it’s worth repeating as an illustration of the emptiness of the current republican primary zeitgeist.  In the republican primary, a successful candidate has to want to make abortion impossible and, hopefully, illegal. The have to express an explicit disgust over homosexuals and vow to make gay marriage constitutionally unavailable even if individual states vote to allow it.  They have to treat immigrants in general as suspect and if they’re illegal, as the source of all evil, regardless of how long they’ve been paying taxes, serving in the military and being good citizens.  They have to hate the federal government, a particularly ironic position given their ambition.  Guns of all kinds are good and probably should be a requirement of citizenship in every home in the land.  Any foreign country that dislikes us, is mean to us, doesn’t want to do what we want them to do, or otherwise disrespects us is the enemy and subject to military intervention unless they’re really big and /or powerful in which case we should twist the knobs of the world economy and make them buy our T-bills.  Did I mention that poor people have only themselves to blame and are not worthy of anything but our contempt, especially if they’re not white.  I think that covers it.

The non-Romney candidates are chasing the votes of republicans who don’t like him with a determined and desperate fury now, the home stretch in view even though a ludicrously small portion of America has been given a voice in the matter.  Santorum is the embodiment of much of the list of prerequisites above and has the endorsement of the majority of conservative evangelicals, (are there liberal evangelicals?), although there is a plume of toxic dust still rising over the weekend conference where he was chosen and Gingrich in particular is wandering around insisting that he really won and Santorum cheated and he’s the one - and only one - who can defeat Obama and making other scary noises as he tries not to look in the direction of the graveyard.   As proof of his strength as a candidate he can point to Sarah Palin as a supporter, a harbinger of doom if there ever was one.  Santorum called Newt arrogant for calling on him and Perry to drop out – hey Rick: Newt is a pompous blowhard and a deranged nitwit.  How can you act like he has suddenly gone off the rails when his whole schtick is be Triumph the Insult Dog and lash out in every direction like a crazed Ninja.  He’s fucking nuts, Rick…

Newt, desperately flailing around for an issue, decides to go for the KKK vote in South Carolina by insulting African-Americans on Martin Luther King Day, confirming and displaying what used to be the  subtle racism of the republican party.  It was about as subtle as running the stars and bars up the flag pole at the White House.  Newt’s racism is the clueless variety exhibited by the “some of my best friends are negroes” folks.  He apparently doesn’t see anything wrong with jabbering on about giving African Americans job instead of food stamps, despite the fact that a much higher percentage of food stamp users are white people who have jobs.  Nor does he give any hint of recognizing the stupidity of proposing using inner city child labor for janitors in schools.  In fact, cheered on by the audience at the recent debate, he is obviously going to double down on that particular bit of nonsense, claiming to anyone within earshot that he was the noble truth-teller that we all are yearning for.   Sheesh…

Rick “It’s only urine” Perry also joined the fray, defending South Carolina’s attempt to disenfranchise whole blocks of potential Obama supporters – African-Americans, students, poor and elderly – with the cockamamie voter ID law currently being challenged by the Justice Department.  In Perry’s case, he was probably just dizzy from too much okra.  But Perry, trailing the field like a three legged horse in the eighth race, has taken to expressing outrage over the impending punishment of the four dimwit soldiers who not only pissed on corpses in a macabre and pointless display but were stupid enough to capture the whole thing on video and post it like some dancing baby or cute little kitten.  Because the president expressed his disgust over the incident Perry is saying – with a straight face – that Obama is betraying our brave fighting men and women, the armed forces in general, chrisitianity and western civilization in a sputtering blast of jingoistic hyperbole.   The guy is such a hopeless knucklehead. 

So it left to Ron Paul to file his nails quietly in the corner waiting for the circus to leave town so he and Romney can find a place to sit down and divide up the spoils, shake hands and head for Tampa. 

Newt smites the Bain Capital Boogey Man

Rick “The Saint” Santorum has received the endorsement of key evangelical leaders, boosting his candidacy in South Carolina to a tie for third, a mere 20 percentage points behind Mitt Romney and tied with an extremely angry and frustrated Newt Gingrich for fourth place.  So he’s got that going for him…which is nice. 

Gingrich, the bombastic and pompous right wing idiot, has spent the last 10 days or so wetting himself repeatedly and then loudly complaining that no one is willing to change his diaper.  I suppose if I were a republican primary voter I might very well choose the bland and empty-headed Mitt Romney over the surly blowhard Georgia racist Newt Gingrich myself so him being in 4th place is no great surprise.  Especially since he has completely overplayed the hand dealt him – Mitt’s corporate raider past – by creating the most ridiculous pile of filmed hyperbole since John Travolta read the script for Battle Field: Earth and thought it sounded good. 

Once Newt is safely on the sidelines, properly medicated and restrained so he can’t hurt himself, he should watch how Obama rips Mitt a new colon over the very same issue.  It won’t be pretty and you can safely bet that Mitt’s “I created 100,000 jobs” schtick will sound as hollow as Rick “I thought you said I could win” Perry’s head.   Sure, it’s a tricky issue for republicans, most of who seem to belong to the “Thank you sir, may I have another” school of deep economic thought and can’t or won’t recognize that they are unemployed because of the Wall Street geniuses that they are so pissed got a bail out but who are the ones championing Mitt.  Confusing, no? 

It couldn’t be more conveniently teed up for Gingrich; an economic collapse brought on – at least in large part ,if not entirely – by masters of the universe like Mitt thinking ”it’s not wrong if they don’t catch me”.   In the days before the party was bought and sold by corporate interests – guys who took the government bailout money and showed their gratitude by sending checks to anyone who promised to run against Obama – republicans were god fearing folks, patriotic and sensible with a dollar, who worked hard and believed in the American Dream.  Sure, their dream was usually a little whiter than some others’ dreams but nonetheless recognizable as quintessentially American.  They would appreciate and understand that punks in $2,000 suits playing fast and loose with their money probably wasn’t a good thing.  Now, somehow, they’re dead set on eating their young and, in a blind fury of self-destruction, electing a candidate whose whole life is based on the stone-cold Ayn Randian notion that profit is the highest and best goal and people be damned.  Gingrich is right for once but he went completely off the tracks with midnight showings of a 30 minute Leni Rifenstahl epic.  Nice try Newt...

Capitalism has become an unassailable shibboleth in this country, much like democracy. Both have much to recommend them.  Democracy allows for all to have a say in governance and, despite what John Stockle thinks, it’s a noble idea – messy and frustrating but noble.  Capitalism, on the other hand, left on its own, will destroy as often as it creates wealth, and needs oversight to truly serve the citizenry.  Oil companies would drill anywhere there is a hint of oil, factory owners would work people 60 hours a week as long as it increased profit, Newt would hire children to work as janitors…etc.   Indeed, Romney’s defenders among the republican intelligencia have repeated over and over the last couple of days that the natural cycle of robust capitalism involves a certain amount of strategic destruction and that’s a good thing and as it should be.  Tell that to the guy with a mortgage and kids and expiring unemployment benefits.  Therein lays the path to neutering Mitt.  Not some ersatz propaganda film running in high school gymnasiums but real honest and sincere concern for that guy.  Newt’s real problem is, he doesn’t have any.  If the polls are correct, South Carolina may well send Newt home to brood over his history books and 20 year old scotch and we’ll be rid of him for good.

For his part, Saint Santorum has spent the weekend basking in the support of 150 prominent evangelicals, who voted overwhelmingly to endorse him after considering Perry and Gingrich and, nominally, Romney.  Family Research Council shill Tony Perkins made the announcement, jabbering on about how Santorum was the very essence of what was important to the gathering, a damning indictment of their collective political instincts if not their overall intellect.  The FRC is a political organization with a sheen of overweening religiosity so it’s puzzling how a 2/3 majority can throw their weight behind a candidate who almost anyone – probably including them – can see can’t win.  Dazed, sweater vest-wearing Santorum – should he end up running against Obama - would precipitate a re-election landslide the likes of which hasn't been seen since flailing and impotent democrats decided to run George McGovern against Nixon.   The cynical among us might see this as a simple expediency to advance the collection of donations and hence support a righteous lifestyle complete with overseas junkets and big ass houses.  It’s hard to say.  Maybe it’s one last futile gesture before the apocalypse so they really don’t give a shit.  It establishes their credentials with the lord and that’s almost as good as him winning the election.

Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t puzzle aloud over the strange mid-campaign bail out by Ron Paul.  Ron decided he was tired and went home to Texas to ride his bike and relax for a few days, an unconventional approach to campaigning and a sure sign that he knows full well it wouldn't make sense for him to bang his head against the wall trying to beat Romney and is pretty confident of his relative position in the pecking order.  Hell, if he’s going to finish second no matter what, why not relax a little down home in his 7,000 square foot house.   Everybody can relate to that, right?  Have a little BBQ, toss back some JD and get ready for Florida and long flight to Nevada.   And maybe toast Newt and Perry for trying. 

The Shame of Guantanamo Belongs to All of Us...

I've been thinking a lot the last couple of days about the bleeding wound that is Guantanamo Bay prison - and let's be clear; it's a prison and not some euphemism like "detention center" - and the systematic outrage that led to its existence in the first place.  It is the sorry and sad result of multiple flagrant violations of our principles as a nation and the rule of law that we should all cling to like grim death in this second decade of the 21st century if we want our nation to come out the other end of this 100 years familiar to us at all.  Make no mistke; it is a stain on the national character that won't easily be removed.  Its existence is no longer the result of George the Dull and his half-mad cabal of deep thinkers, chicken-hawks and bed wetters; it is now a bipartisan embarrassment that we as citizen continue to enable by our "Who gives a shit, they're foreigners" nonchalance. 

There are currently roughly 90 completely innocent men rotting there - men who have been deemed to be nothing more than unlucky - and we don't have the collective balls to say, "You're not pulling this shit if I have anything to do with it..." - instead we turn away, our heads full of paranoid, pseudo-patriotic nonsense and hope it somehow goes away.  In the face of the idiocy on display night after night during republican candidates' debates - where the issue of the day often can be distilled as, who is the most righteously moral - we allow the superficial and pompous display to pass for a stand on principle and do nothing about "indefinite detention" of the innocent becoming enshrined as the law of the land.  It's a pathetic indictment of all of us. 

Does Clarence Thomas belong on the Supreme Court?

I am grateful today for a chance to take a break from the internecine political wars, knowing full well that the next 10 days will give me plenty of opportunities to listen to drawling Suthunahs praising or damning the candidates in their turn.  I caught a bit of it today and it struck me how different – radically different – two states can be and at the same time have similarities.  California and South Carolina are both ocean-side states in relatively mild climates with yacht clubs and great golf courses and long colorful histories.  But they couldn't be much more different culturally and still be on the same continent.   I haven’t thought deeply about it and there are other things on my mind today but it might be worth pondering as the primary gets closer.

Two things jumped out at me today when thinking about topics; the ten year anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and the Supreme Court decision in what will no doubt come to be known as Hosanna-Tabor.   Let’s tackle the latter first as there is less to say about it. 

The decision known as Hosanna-Tabor involved a teacher at a Lutheran school in Michigan who developed narcolepsy and took a medical leave of absence to start the school year.  In January, after her recovery, she notified the school of her intent to return in February.  The school administration told her that her position had been filled in her absence and, in a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, refused to allow her to return.  Instead they requested that she resign.  She refused to do so, showed up at the school as she had announced, made a noisy fuss and was promptly fired.  The case revolves around a precedent called a “ministerial exception” , a tangent of the First Amendment, which essentially says that a religious order has the right to decide who can legitimately act as a minister and who can’t and that makes sense.  A church shouldn't have to hire Eddie Ducatti as a minister just because he shows up with an application and a glazed look in his eyes.  The controversy in this case is over the definition of a “minister” versus an employee.

The school maintained that this teacher had been designated a minister as it pertains to her teaching religion and other subjects at the school and therefore was covered by the exception.   Her position obviously was that she was not a minister in the normal sense, that she was, indeed, simply a teacher and therefore not covered by the exception.  This is a somewhat dicey issue and the court chose to interpret it as one fundamentally of separation of church and state, in which the court has no jurisdiction in a church’s decision as to who is appropriate to promulgate its teachings.  There is ample precedent for this decision, although from some perspectives it certainly appeared that the church was using this exception as a pretext to fire someone who pissed them off.  The court dismissed this as a mitigating factor and said it didn't matter if that was the case; the exception still withstood this challenge and prevailed.  So why am I bringing this up, you may be asking.  I am bring it up because Clarence “Mumbles” Thomas, half-wit side kick of Antonin Scalia, strict constructionist devotee and a man who has been known for his religiosity, wrote a concurring opinion stunning in its simplicity and implications. 

He said that the church “sincerely considered” this person to be a minister – never mind that she was far more likely to be identified as a teacher than a minister – and that that was enough to persuade him that the ministerial exception was appropriate.  Moreover, his concurrence implies that it wouldn't matter what the source of the dispute between the church and an employee they have deemed to be a minister is; it's still covered by this exception.   So let’s imagine that this teacher catches Father Johnson in the coat room with 13 year old Sally and threatens to turn him in.  He fires her.  Using Thomas’ reasoning she would have no recourse to get her job back – assuming she wanted it back, of course – because he was justified by the ministerial exception – no matter the circumstances – in firing her because he was a minister and she was a minister and therefore beyond the reach of standard employment law and nobody's business but theirs.    

This is a squiggly can of worms to be sure.  A church could suppress the reporting of all manner of misconduct in the guise of the exception simply by designating someone a “minister” regardless of whether or not they would fit that description by any ordinary measure.  It is a preposterous interpretation and grants to churches the kind of license not prevailing for any other type of employer.  A simple coffee shop in Michigan, for example, upon employing a wheel chair bound barista may have to go to significant expense to construct a ramp or otherwise provide access to that employee or be fined.  A church, on the other hand, could by this reasoning, deem a disabled person’s struggle up multiple stairs and over other obstacles to be a test of their faith and therefore they would have no such expense under the exception and would suffer no penalty if that person – having failed in that test by repeatedly falling down the stairs – wanted to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  My point is, Clarence is a simpleton who has spent years on the bench, adding nothing to the dialogue, writing scrupulously researched but fundamentally wrong headed decisions that seemingly come to him in dreams or other religious hallucinations.  The man is an abomination on the court and this country will be far better off the day he ascends into heaven or otherwise leaves the bench for good.

I guess I got caught up in that a little more than I anticipated and so will leave my outraged rant about Gitmo for tomorrow.  I will say this about it, though.  It appears to me that there is a twisted group of strutting assholes in this country who seem to think it is a good thing - makes us scary bad-asses – that there are prisoners being detained there who have been cleared by the FBI and CIA and who appear to guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place when a platoon of adrenaline-amped marines came over the hill where they had their goats.  For that they are held without charge, without a trial, for ten long years and we still won’t let them go.  It is nothing but an American Gulag and we should all be ashamed of the place.

New Hampshire re-cap and body count...

The sickening thud you may have heard last night was the sound of Rick Santorum’s body – clad in an navy blue sweater vest – hitting the ground in the granite state as he came falling back to earth as a result of biblical hubris and his amateur campaign staff deciding to cash their Iowa momentum and go all in for the nation’s first real primary.  Rick’s hallucinating vision for the country managed to scrape up a less-than-resounding 10% of the votes and put a major dent in his paltry bank account.

He probably should have known that heartland-inspired confidence at tying Romney in Iowa wasn’t going to translate into much with the crusty citizens of New Hampshire and just sent his fourteen campaign workers straight to South Carolina where he stood at least a reasonable chance of grabbing a sizable chunk of the evangelical vote and of slowing the Romney Express.  Now he and Newt and a dispirited Rick “Do I have to do this?” Perry will fight over the farthest right of the right wing religious zealots while Mitt skates in looking more and more like the presumptive nominee despite only managing 40% in a state that was virtually handed to him the day he announced his candidacy.

Romney hits 39% in the New Hampshire primary and celebrates by taking the February edition of The New Yorker into the bathroom with a Coke, then, a half hour later, emerging glassy-eyed and ready for a nap.  When one of his senior advisors mentioned that it was traditional for the winner to give a speech he said, “They heard  my speech yesterday” and went to bed.

The various pursuing candidates spent the last week bitching about Romney’s work at Bain Capital, where he cannibalized failing companies, ruthlessly firing people under the guise of “down-sizing” and selling off assets in the name of capitalization.  As Jon Stewart said, he is the distillation of everything republicans stand for, making it awkward for Gingrich, Santorum and Ron Paul to criticize him effectively for it, though they tried so hard even Rush Blowhard lost it and went after Gingrich, accusing him of imitating Obama and Occupy Wall Street. 

This is another example of the republicans being hoisted on their own petard, with the philosophical soul of the party saying "fuck the doomed" and the desperate pack running hard after Mitt having to at least appear to be sympathetic to the guy in the audience whose most hopeful vision for the new year is limited to cashing unemployment checks.  Don’t mistake this for sympathy from me, by the way; the treacherous bastards deserve to be dragged behind a car for their cavalier attitude toward the working class and their knee-jerk opposition to anything aside from a tax cut on John Boner’s “job creators”.  It’s interesting to watch, though, like a group of monkeys playing with a loaded pistol.  Bachman made the first mistake but there are still plenty of bullets left.

It is funny to hear Newt rattling off his own personal taxonomy of American politics as he tries to get some traction to stop the Romney march to the sea; to hear him tell it, he’s a “Reagan Conservative”, an appellation that he seems particularly fond of although its meaning has become fuzzy with the repeated recent reminders of Reagan’s history of actually raising taxes more than he cut them.  To Newt, Obama is a “Saul Alinsky radical” and Romney is a “Massachusetts moderate”, a strangely mild insult but Newt seems to think it’s the epitome of what voters hate – at least republican primary voters.  And anyway, he is comfortable throwing that kind of rhetorical bomb and is quick to do so, since it also allows him to show off how clever he is.  But like the owner of a glass house, he probably shouldn’t be so anxious to start throwing those particular stones as he has exhibited a few vulnerabilities himself and no amount of name calling and verbal cleverness is going to save him now. 

Newt got all over Mitt during the debate for being a career politician despite Romney’s protestations to the contrary, and his rebuttal was an absolute classic Mitt-ism.  When Newt sneeringly assailed him for running and losing for years, Mitt’s come back was, "Mr. Speaker, citizenship has always been on my mind."  What the hell does that mean?  Nothing.  That’s Romney is a nutshell; he’s vapid and bland and utterly colorless.  Apparently that’s what the republican pooh-bahs want to run against Obama and the way they’ve ganged up on each of the candidates as they took turns threatening him makes it obvious that he’s the chosen one.  Rolly-polly Tony Soprano wanna-be Chris Christie barked at some hecklers the other day in an addled rant that the media characterized as a “Jersey-style” verbal slap-down but to these ears it sounded more like one of the Jersey Shore husbands a little tipsy at a PTA meeting. 

As Mitt’s surrogate dragon slayers – the “We don’t give a shit that he appears to be drugged”super PAC - scrambles to buy up ad time in Florida to completely cut off the oxygen to the rest of the field, it appears that the only possible remaining direct threat to Mitt is Jon Huntsman, a man who, while conservative and wrong about a lot of things, is not obviously bat-shit crazy.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow for conservative leaning independents - that their last best hope before they all say “Whatever…” and draft Ron Paul to run as an Independent Party candidate  has become Jon "Want to hear me speak Mandarin again?" Huntsman but there is no alternative now and so they just get an extra large glass of water, close their eyes and hope for the best.  Huntsman realistically has to get into the mid to high teens in South Carolina if he wants to attract enough donations to carry on.  

Meanwhile, during the next two weeks we’ll see the last stand for Newt and Santorum and Perry.  It they can’t get some of their mudballs to stick and mess up Mitt’s hair they’re all finished.  Newt the historian and adviser to the Fortune 500, (lobbyist), might have the resources to stay in for a while; he has some big Vegas money backing him, (mob), and is going to fight like a cornered badger here in his old neighborhood so he might just survive but Perry would have to poll about 20% to stay in and that seems unlikely – same for Santorum. 

After Florida the scene shifts to Nevada, where Paul should run pretty close to Mitt and I guess Newt might have a chance if his money holds out.  The two erstwhile preachers, though, (Rick & Rick), aren’t like to win many votes ranting about sin out there so south Carolina is really it for them.  After Nevada is Maine and really, who cares?  If it isn’t sewed up by then it might be a dog fight right to the convention.  I still think Paul is going to continue to get his 20% or so which will keep him afloat and that is the one bit of intrigue left and a reason to keep watching.  Well, that and to see which monkey pulls the trigger next.