Babylon Has Fallen

When I put up my first post on this sordid subject, I was morally certain it wouldn't be the last. T'was inevitable; after all, we're still a year and three months out from Election Day 2012 and that huge sucking sound you hear is the the latest version of the Republican Party as typified by its field of loons and losers who are competing for their presidential nomination. The plain fact of it is that the GOP is more unpopular RIGHT NOW than it's been since the question started being asked of voters in 1992, according to the CNN/ORC International Poll. Only 33% of those polled have a favorable opinion of Republicans while 59% view them unfavorably. They view this with great trepidation...but have no plans to change. YOU figure it out!

With Iowa now behind us, let's take a quickie look at the way things are coming together...

First of all, I was VERY much anticipating poking giant economy-sized fun at Mrs. Moose...and she hasn't put in a serious appearance yet. Of course, when I found out why I wasn't especially surprised: She quit one more time. Of course, this is hardly news. Just four days after attempting to reboot her bus tour, the nitwit headed back to Alaska for "the start of the school year" Four days!! She couldn't somehow seen this coming? Is she just crazier than a beagle in a vacuum factory or what?

Obviously this woman isn't serious about a run for the presidency, despite continuous claims to the contrary. If every little thing is a major distraction, she simply hasn't got the temperament for ANY serious job. She didn't participate in the recent GOP televised debate or the Ames Straw Poll; for an attention-hog like her staying offstage like that must actually be physically painful. Do you think that despite the "I Can Win!" optimism of her recent Newsweek cover, she might be starting to grasp the fact that she can't.

Tim Pawlenty, who was scrounging around down near the bottom of the barrel, wisely decided to pull the plug and avoid further humiliation by bowing out. As predicted, he couldn't generate enough spark to light a fire in a match factory and it was getting difficult watching him trying to gain even the tiniest amount of traction. The media was simply refusing to cover him because he a.) didn't have big money behind him, or b.) couldn't be counted upon for a hilariously goofy, clueless soundbite whenever a microphone was shoved in his face like certain other of their contenders. I've also got a hunch that Jon Huntsman will be following him out the door...especially now that he's taken to teeing off on his fellow candidates and Republicans in general. "Say goodnight, Gracie..."

Since my last A Funny Thing Happened essay, a new radical rightwing creature has joined the ranks of presidential wannabes. I know you haven't heard his name more than about half a dozen times, and that's because he has essentially the same deficiencies as Huntsman and Pawlenty. Except that he's even more colorless than they are. One more GOP droid who deals in your basic religious insanity and tax cut mania. I mean this joker is almost not even there. And, of course, among the nine participants in the Ames Poll, he came in dead last. That should tell you everything you need to know.

As long as we're swimming around down here on the bottom, I probably ought to mention that Noot the Grinch might be off on another vacation. Can we talk? If you required any further indication that his campaign is on full Code Red life support, all you have to do is keep in mind that he pulled in just ahead of Huntsman and McCotter and his days in this little soiree are nearly at an end. Hey, Noot! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

It took me aback somewhat that Willard Romney, everybody's favorite Mitten, would come in sixth, trailing even Sick Rick Santorum who made it all the way to fourth. Maybe that's why Iowa in the first round had always been something less than truly indicative; the GOP voters there seem to embrace the clear quill, high-proof crazy utterly without apology. Romney is a liar, a fool and a thoroughgoing fraud who will do or say most anything to get himself elected. About the most you can say for him is that he does look presentable, although he is much too shiny smooth for my taste. Sort of like a department store mannikin, wouldn't you say? Despite the poor showing, he still does have a legitimate shot at the nomination, at least for the moment.

I'm really thinking about starting a pool for Herman Cain, betting on the exact day he'll wake up, smell the burning crosses and decide to drop out. He's just making himself look like more of a moron than he truly is by remaining in a race he has no slightest possibility of winning. (Remember: This is a patrty whiose Senator of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, wanted to put the imasge of Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the Ku Klux Klan, on his state's licence plates. I am absolutely not kidding.) If Cain were less boisterous, obnoxious, offensive and mean, I might even feel sorry for him. Maybe. A little.

Ron Paul, who came in a strong second, is going to hang tough until the bitter end. You heard it here first. He's already announced he's retiring at the end of his current term so he hasn't got a thing to lose. But he's not going to win the nomination.

It absolutely blew me away that whackjob Michele Bachmann could EVER top the Straw Poll...until I found out that she did it the old-fashioned way: She bought it.

No, I'm not kidding. It cost her somewhere in the vicinity of a cool million bucks. She gave out 6000 tickets worth $30.00 apiece--that's $180,000 right off the top. Then she paid Grammy award-winning country music artist Randy Travis his required price to appear and bussed in a whole passel of his fans who were given tickets if they voted for her first. (She only needed 152 of 'em to beat out Ron Paul; she got about 4800!) I know this broad is barking mad, but it's still hard to imagine her green-lighting this as a worthwhile expenditure. The only benefit she derived from it was a couple of days or so at the front end of the news-cycle. Oh, she turned up on ALL the Sunday talking head shows...but didn't she have to be booking in advance for those..? And, even then, Rick Perry's announcement of his candidacy STILL almost sucked up all the oxygen in the room.

Rick Perry, Governor of Texas. George Bush clone. The Terrible Teabagging Monster. This is the goon whom those radical extremists on the right believe represents their best hope of defeating Barack Obama in November of 2012. Say what?!? Less than a year ago, he was screaming about his state seceding from the Union. He claimed--more than once, out loud and in publi--that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" that's also "unconstitutional." (And when he was questioned on this statement last week in Iowa, he stuffed his mouth full of popovers to keep from answering. True fact.)

Now, realizing perhaps for the first time that he's so far out of the mainstream that he actually scares the daylights out of people, he's dancing away from his nine-month-old book, Fed Up: Our Right to Save America from Washington. This execrable epistle equates monetary stimulus with treason, denounces environmental laws as unconstitutional, demands the repeal of the 16th Amendment to the Constitutional--you know, the one that gives Congress the power to enact income taxes, claims that people should not be able to elect their own senators and says blatantly that Texas can nullify laws it doesn't like.

On top of all this, he has presided over more executions--that's 234 of 'em!--than the next two states COMBINED since the death penalty was restored.

Does he sound like somebody that YOU want in the Oval Office? If not, then I advise you to make it your business to get into a voting booth next year; this goon is now the Republican front runner by double digits...