This drawn-out extra year on the campaign has cheapened the political process more than Dennis Kucinich (D-Pluto) and Ron Paul (R-Bong Hit) could do if they bred with each other in a lab and created a hybrid political ass thorn. That we're rewarded with the first votes being cast by fringe representatives of each party in the weird Iowa caucus process makes the pain of the season more unbearable. Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe in everyone participating but having a bunch of frozen subsidy addicts hold sway over the national debate for this long gets annoying after a while. Mitt Romney (R-Coifed) doesn't deserve to be president just because he spent roughly the equivalent to the GNP of Portugal there in the last year. Likewise, Mike Huckabee (R-Shucks Folks) doesn't deserve it simply because the twelve Iowa Republicans who will caucus are willing to overlook his laundry list of negatives and pay attention only to the fact that he's a Baptist preacher. We're not electing Best Guy To Run The Tent Revival Mission.
I will admit that saying "caucus" all the time is fun in an extraordinarily juvenile way. That the Democrats and Republicans each caucus differently makes it creepier. I don't mind that the state gets to have a different way of doing things. I grew up in Arizona, where contrariness was a birthright. However, shouldn't election related matters be the same for each party?
What's really got me to ready find a brick wall that's compatible with my head this year is that Romney and Huckabee are getting all of this attention because of Iowa. Although I'm a big fan of the two party system (they tried having just one in the Soviet Union and that sucked) I truly believe that any of the current Democratic candidates would be a disaster as president at this point in history. The last thing this country needs is a Commander-in-Chief who thinks that a one degree spike in temperature over the last 150 years is more dangerous than rogue nuclear states or Islamic terrorism. The Democratic field is loaded with candidates who are going to end up battling terrorism by crying, "Be nice to me, I drive a hybrid!"
The Republicans have only two serious candidates to handle any of this: Fred Thompson and John McCain. Sorry, Rudy fans, he's a train wreck of scandals that the Dems are just salivating at the prospect of picking apart in the general. So we have two great candidates for the job but we're talking about Slick Mitt and Aw Shucks Huck.
Romney has done a 180 on just about everything but his hairstyle. Somehow, serious conservatives take him at face value but still say McCain, who is solid on all the things Romney's flip-flopped on, isn't conservative enough. I don't believe any candidate who shows up to an election with a whole new set of ideals. I have no reason to believe he won't trade those in once elected. Romney seems like the kind of guy who won't exhale unless the polls say it's popular with the voters. We have another name for poll-driven politicians who shift positions a lot: Democrats.
Social conservatives love Huckabee because he's solid on pro-life issues. Go ahead, vote for him, you won't be able to afford a baby based on his record of taxation as governor. Oh wait, we're not supposed to talk about his record.
Hopefully, the GOP can weather this inane first round of voting and let the big people step to the fore. If not, you can look forward to trying to outrun a terrorist attack while listening to President Obama on the radio in your federally mandated Toyota Prius.
I don't know about you all, but I'm going to use Al Gore as a shield if that ever happens.
Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell and Real Clear Politics (Vote for it!)
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