Ever have those days when you wonder, “If I look at it this way, maybe it will make more sense.” And yet still the Republican world makes no sense to me…

Whatevs.  I report, you decide.

Well, the good news is that the longer I wait between posts, the fewer candidates there are to worry about on the Republican side.  We ditched Bachmann almost immediately when she finished dead last in Iowa and she threw her support to Ron Paul. Uhhh, watch your back, Ron. She’s looking for a Veep slot, I think. No seriously, ’cause word is she isn’t running for re-election in Minnesota –a bright spot in this whole debacle. And oh, Iowa?  Count those votes again, maybe you’ll come up with ME as the winner. Mrow.
Guess it doesn’t matter ultimately though since no one seems to know how Iowa’s caucuses are related to, oh, say, actual delegates at the GOP Convention. Okay, Santorum. You win. Go you. Thanks, Iowa.  Now he’s insufferable.

New Hampshire winnowed out Huntsman, who finished third, but decided that his ticket to ride was back home. On his way out he endorsed fellow Mormon Romney (Is that like Highlander? In the end there can be only one?) And with him goes the last chance for any semblance of sanity in this race.

Then South Carolina peeled away Perry. Sadness.  A lot of good reality-TV type antics and Holy Roller nonsense leaves the race with him, and frankly I just can’t see Paul and Santorum stepping it up to be quite the brand of cuckoo-bananas that Bachmann and Perry were. Still he kept things interesting to the end, throwing his God-given support behind the MOST family values, MOST God-riddled, MOST holier-than-though candidate possible, “She turned me into a Newt….A Newt?…I got better….” Gingrich. In my humble opinion Perry helped him into a win in South Carolina. How else to explain the bizarre 40% that Newton took in the Palmetto State? Even paleo-cons like Daniel Larison know he’s toxic: “Republicans are faced with an unfortunate predicament entirely of their own making: they can rally behind the Republican Bill Clinton to try to stop Romney, or they can nominate the liar.”

Wait, we’re talking about the same Newt, right?  The doughy guy who used to be Speaker of the House before he was charged with 84 ethics violations, fined $300,000 and forced to resign in disgrace? That guy?  The one who led the impeachment charge against Bill Clinton while he himself was five years into an adulterous affair with Callista Bisek while still married to Marianne Ginther, who had been diagnosed with MS? That Newt? The one who asked Marianne for an open marriage so he could keep boffing Bisek, but continued to give pretentious, holier-than-thou speeches on family values? The sleazy, self-righteous boor with a bilious disposition?

For those of you who sat through  the South Carolina debate, Old Grimr Wormtongue may have defined a whole new level of hypocrisy.  Jon Stewart’s take on the debate from Monday night isn’t posted yet, but look for it here by Tuesday.

Ahh, there’s so much more.  I had wanted to shine a light on Old Sanctimonious and Looney-Paul, but there’s time yet.  And there’s Florida.  Oh Florida.  Where Wormtongue is enjoying a surge.  Savor it now, ForkTongue. The voting public is a fickle beast.

And if you’re looking for some amusement, try the NY Times’ hilarious interactive Stump Speech analyzer. It helps you ID the key concepts and catchphrases each candidate like to employ.

There will be more on “Schmerz in my Mittel” Romney soon, I promise.  Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten him.  I’m just aghast that Newt  Wormtongue is enjoying such resurgence. Don’t worry. I’ll get over it. In the mean time. Leo sends along this lengthy but absorbing background piece on Mittens. Well worth a read.

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It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s SUPERPAC

And in case you’ve been missing out on Stephen Colbert’s wicked wicked ways, early last year, Colbert started his own Political Action Committee, under the tutelage of (for real) former Federal Elections Commission chairman Trevor Potter. What has ensued has been a hilarious, revelatory and highly disturbing sashay through the latest changes in campaign law–ones that allow for unlimited money to be poured into political campaigns with little-to-no checks on what these organizations can do. Colbert’s commitment to the perfect satire knows no bounds– he testified in front of the Federal Elections Commission (for real) and everything. And he was granted to right to form the Colbert SuperPAC.

When Colbert discovered that, according to a Public Policy Poll, he was leading John Huntsman in South Carolina, Colbert predictably decided he should explore a presidential run.  But wait, Stephen, admonished Potter, you can’t have a SuperPAC and be a candidate. And so, vested with the right to do so under the unbelievably simplistic– nay, moronic– rules of SuperPAC-dom, Colbert  transferred the awesome power of his SuperPAC to none other than Jon Stewart.  Watch and learn, my little PACsters. It’s a civics lesson and comic genius all rolled into one.

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***IMPORTANT ALERT***

Folks, I’m going to email the rant for one more edition, but after that it will only be available by subscribing on the WordPress blog via the link in the upper right corner of this page. So if you’ve been enjoying the Rant, if you want to keep following it into the deep dark jungle that is an election year, please subscribe directly. You’ll still get your Rant in your inbox, but it makes it easier for me if I can post and email all in one swell foop. Thanks!

And if you are enjoying things please feel free to pass the link along to your friends. I only bite the heads off of ridiculous primary candidates occasionally and there’s rarely any blood…

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GROUSY CAT SEZ:

It’s been a while since we all met, and yes, I admit I’ve been laying low, because, well…come on, people, it was just too early to start getting my dander up and keep it up. After all, I’m older now and it’s going to take a strategic meting out of dander to keep me going through this election.  I don’t want to waste my precious political ire on flashes in the pan like The Pizza King or The Donald. I mean, remember back in 2008 at this time, some people thought that Hillary Clinton had the Dem nomination sewn up and a junior senator named Barack Obama was considered a long shot? We were still talking about Mike Huckabee’s big lead in Iowa and what a nice wholesome guy John Edwards was.

But as we all hurtle into the election year, I can’t resist the call to battle, nor do I feel that any of us should. There’s just too much fun ahead.

Bread and circuses, folks.  Roman poet Juvenal said: “…duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses.” “Long ago, from when we sold our vote to nobody, the people poured away our cares; for the public, who once commanded the military, government offices, legions, everything, now represses itself and anxiously chooses only two things, bread and circuses.”

Except that here in America we can’t even frickin’ vote ourselves a grain supplement– we just get circuses.  Yep, we can’t even do the Decline and Fall of Civilization correctly.

But I digress. It’s another year of wondering what this circus gets us in the end, why it matters and what we should be doing about it.  I invite you to subscribe to my new blog with the link at the top right of this page and enjoy a year of political ranting with me. And if you’re really having a good time,  please feel free to pass along the link to any of your friends.

Let’s get this party started!

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If you’ve been assiduously avoiding the entire Republican campaign scrum, I applaud you. Really, you haven’t missed anything of consequence at all.

But on the eve of the Iowa caucuses you might be wondering what year we’re in– Romney? Ron Paul? NEWT GINGRICH?  No, seriously?  O, Republicans, this is what you call a field? Santorum or Perry?  I bite my fist…no, no, you go ahead, you choose Rick Santorum (*urk*) or Ron Paul (*uggglmph*) as your candidate to run against Barack Obama.  ’Cause loose-cannon nutjobs like Sarah Palin helped SOOO much in the last election.

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Heigh-Ho, Heigh Ho!

We’ve gotten a god-awfully close and horrendously loud look at each of these fine specimens and have thrilled  to the tales of their woeful upbringings, when the nanny wouldn’t bring them a second cup of hot chocolate or served the smoked salmon too chilled. I present to you, the seven dwarves: Gore-y, Sleazy, Looney, Slimy, Sanctimonious, Pesky and Irrelevant. Settle in. Get to know them.  My guess is that…God help us…no one is dropping out of this party until New Hampshire.

GORE-Y

Thus named because the former Massachusetts Gov soooo reminds me of a GOP version of Al Gore.  No matter what they do, dagnabit, his handlers just can’t seem to warm up poor Mitt Romney, Mormon underwear or no.  And despite that he is possibly the Republicans’ best hope for any kind of a challenge to Obama in 2012, the rest of the field continues to savage him like he’s a T-bone steak in a pit bull fight. Go ahead,  he’s still the front-runner going into Iowa at around 22% in the latest Iowa polls. But with a net worth of somewhere in the region of $200 million, it’s hard to picture Romney as “in touch” with the pulse of average Americans. I mean, really, when was the last time he had to buy himself a quart of milk? And he’s stood by as The Newt got nicely Swiftboated on his behalf by Restore Our Future.  Watch this space for future SuperPAC games.

SLEAZY

How is it that we are still even speaking about disgraced former House Speaker Newt “Contract on America” Gingrich? Shall we revisit his Dickensian plan to ship children of welfare recipients to orphanages? His dystopic suggestion to make DNA testing part of universal healthcare reform? His brrrrrrilliant idea to fire school janitors and instead make the poor kids do the cleaning? What’s next? Send them to the shoe blacking factories, or coal mines?

It’s not too surprising when you consider that Newtie-boy’s net worth is placed around $6.7 million, which we presume includes his half million dollar interest free account at Tiffany’s. Bizarrely, the good folks in Iowa were warming up to the thrice-married (Remember when he served his first wife Jackie Battley divorce papers while she was being treated for cancer in the hospital?) Georgia native. Such was his success that the forces of evil had to unleash the hounds of hell a little earlier perhaps than originally scheduled, and the “Romney-boating” of Newt in Iowa has been bloody. Still, perhaps on name recognition alone –”Yeah, I’ve heard that name before…I’ll vote for that…”–he’s clinging to 15% and fourth place in Iowa. But he’ll be out within months is my prediction –Dude, you didn’t even bother to secure your name on the ballot in Virginia WHERE YOU LIVE. Sic transit gloria mundi, sweetcheeks.

LOONEY

Okay, so yeah, that isn’t seriously looney Ron Paul, it’s Heaven’s Gate looney Marshall Applewhite. But ya gotta admit, there are similarities.  Tea Party darling and Texas Congressman Paul is running a close second to Romney at 21% in Iowa. I try not to speak ill of the mentally unstable, although Paul is seriously testing my patience. Do I think he’s laughably ridiculous(“The regulations are much tougher in a free market, because you cannot commit fraud, you cannot steal, you cannot hurt people”), ridiculously laughable (“This superhighway would connect Mexico, the United States, and Canada, cutting a wide swath through the middle of Texas and up through Kansas City”), or plain old scary (“opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions,” or that “if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,”)? Let’s just say I’m not turning my back on him in a dark alley.

Of course, like all the rest, he’s just one of the “little guys” –I guess a net worth of between $2.29 million and $5.3 million makes you one of the lesser millionaires of our era.

SLIMY

Spit and determination (and possibly a bit of lube?) have propelled Santorum (<==CLICK HERE ONLY IF YOU’RE NOT AT WORK AND THE KIDS AREN’T AROUND.) to around 19% in Iowa. The former PA senator and Fox News talking head, has seen a God-mandated resurgence in his rising Iowa numbers — just, please, don’t Google him. He’s a man of the people too, and with assets valued at around $2 million, he might actually be one of the closest to you and me in net worth. Don’t get too close to me though, Rick… step back, there’s a good boy.

SANCTIMONIOUS
Now thankfully, universally considered “second tier,” the Texas Governor is on the slide and if we can thank God for anything, it’s the message he sent through His only Son –on Funny or Die– about Rick Perry. It wasn’t just his fumbling debate flubs,  or that his absurd “Strong” ad generated its own meme, or the fact that he couldn’t remember how many Supreme Court Justices there are, or what the voting age is. No, I like to think that it was the kind of facial wrinkle problem that even $1.1 million (according to Forbes) can’t fix.

PESKY

Michele Bachmann–that’s two “Ns” for “NumbNuts.” Go ahead. Admit it. You thought that that crazy whatsername from Minnesota would be lost in the mists of time by now.  That after years of making incomprehensibly moronic pronouncements,  (“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” ”If we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” ”I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”) she would be not just written off, but actually swathed and buckled tightly in a white longsleeved jacket and gently placed in a padded and soundproofed room. But the Congresswoman, who according to financial disclosures is worth between $1.3 million and $2.8 million, hangs on in Iowa at 8%.  Think about it people.  That means 8% of poll respondents will actually admit to supporting her. Be afraid.

IRRELEVANT

Poor Jon Huntsman.  Yeah, I know, you’re saying, “Who? Oh that guy,  the good-looking one? Mormon Number 2?”  The former Utah governor, who also served as ambassador to China under Obama and (*gasp*) speaks fluent Mandarin is probably the Republican that you or I would actually vote for if forced to choose at gunpoint. Amazingly, he is who I was electronically matched with at Project Vote Smart’s VoteEasy’s Match Game. Try it yourself…. His campaign is running on reserves –Huntsman’s personal net worth is between $15 million and $90 million, so guess what? He’s for eliminating the capital gains tax–but he’ll doubtless hang on til New Hampshire where he’s actually polling pretty well. In Iowa, he’s running way under the radar. Probably because he’s not cray-cray enough for the party.
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Now to be fair, President Obama ain’t in the poorhouse either, having brought up his net worth to about $5 million with his best selling books. But my point is, let’s not try to even imagine that any one of these people knows what it’s like to struggle today in America.  None of their kids are being reaped for The Hunger Games, let’s just say. But if I gotta choose who I think is actually going to, oh, y’know, DO SOMETHING in the next four years, yeah, I’m picking Obama.

This circus, while hilarious, is nevertheless distracting us when we could be focussing in on bigger pictures, real issues that need to be addressed in the country — ballooning costs of health care, poverty in America, alarming fossil fuel dependency and all of its ramifications. We have a Congress mired in its staunch adherence to doing absolutely nothing and a divisive atmosphere and kindergartener attitude in a country that needs to pull itself together and grow up.  After two years, the much vaunted Tea Party has done exactly what it said it would do– nothing.  Can we take back the House?  Sure hope so.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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GROUSY CAT SEZ: