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.
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.
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.
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.
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