“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”

I’ve been trying for three days to write about the change in tone of the presidential campaign, about the sudden prominence of the culture war, and about Rick Santorum particularly.  But every time I get started, some new blast of hyperventilating rhetoric more absurd and purposely provocative than the last is reported and I am flabbergasted anew and left speechless with wonder that some significant percentage of my country actually believes and supports this self-righteous and ignorant biblical blather.  And to further confuse me and give me pause, somehow it is the same party that is constantly complaining about big government and government controlling our lives that is expressly supporting the most intrusive policies and demanding that the government they purport to hate get more involved in the private lives of those other citizens who they obviously hate even more.   Huh…???

 It’s a race to find the edge of the cliff and it has continued during this brief pause in the campaign festivities between the delegate-free caucuses and beauty contests in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, won by the surging Rick Santorum, and the Michigan primary on the 28^th.  When they say Santorum is campaigning like a man possessed, they mean it literally, as he can’t seem to stop himself from going off on sputtering, pissed-off rants like a deranged and savage Elmer Gantry.  Santorum wants to outlaw contraception along with abortion.  He also thinks prenatal screening should be discouraged, if not outlawed entirely, because it can lead to abortions.  He is adamantly against pre-marital sex, women in the military, lesbian marriage, and women in church without hats.  And while he’s at it, he is in favor of a theocratic government where we all live by his particularly twisted values and home school all children, eliminating public education.  This is clearly a man who has never tried to help an 8^th grader with their algebra homework. 

Meanwhile small groups of tiny-penis republican legislators are working to require intrusive and mandatory ultra-sound for women seeking an abortion and defining “person-hood” as the instant sperm meets egg and therefore subject to further restriction on abortions which are heretofore, legal.  This person-hood horse shit means that birth control pills which prevent a fertilized egg from adhering to the uterus constitute abortion.   Are you kidding me?  It’s hard to take seriously except these people are clearly serious.   Mitt Romney is probably listening to Santorum’s sputtering stump speeches, sees that he has somehow “surged” in the polls and is now ahead of him and wants to turn to the camera and say, “You people realize this fucker is nuts, right?” 

There is only one explanation; desperation.   Nothing else explains how a nut-cup like Santorum is suddenly the front runner.   It’s like the Nazis using the V-2 on London; they had nothing to lose and everything to gain so who cares if it’s indiscriminate?   We’re losing so to hell with it.  Set loose the hounds!   On second thought, maybe there is another explanation.   It could be that the average republican voter is so godsmacked by the endless and nightmarish campaign that they have pulled the covers over their heads and are just hoping for morning.  Meanwhile the bug-eyed fanatics, misogynists and end-of-times true believers have taken the reins and are now driving the buggy.  It’s still headed the edge of the cliff but now the drivers don’t care.

I never thought I would yearn for the arrival of a new Barry Goldwater but I find myself wishing – for the sake of the country – that some normal republican would emerge from the choking, toxic cloud that seems to be enveloping us all.   If Santorum is the nominee he might win a dozen states.  Ironically, Romney might even do worse, as there is essentially nobody who is enthused about him except maybe chubby savior, Chris Christie, whose own enthusiasm serves to cover up his ambition, if only the Jenny Craig thing would work.   And poor John Boner; he’s a hyper-partisan prick but he’s not stupid.  He has to be spending his evenings chasing the ice cubes around in a glass of his good scotch and wondering how they could have so badly overplayed their hand and gone from November 2010 to the current disaster.

Yep; the lunatics are running the asylum, at least for now, and there’s not enough lithium on the planet to calm them down long enough for the hair on the back of their necks to lay flat.  With Michigan looming ahead like a dirty bomb in a train station, it’s only going to get weirder.   I know one thing; if I was a woman I would be going door to door in my neighborhood and making damn sure my sisters got the message, were registered and ready to vote when the time came.