The Grand Nuttiness of Iowa's
Straw Poll
Above: Tea Partiers Rush the Stage at Republicans' Beauty Pageant
Welcome back to the Divided States of America. What a mess. What a mess! A Straw Poll it was and aptly named for the straw men and woman who drew 16,892 Tea Baggers out to vote in Iowa’s sort-of presidential primary. The voting in Iowa means nothing, which is something we all should be grateful for. Mitt Romney, who’s become irrelevant to the wild and wooly new breed of Republicans, did some light campaigning around the state, but refused to participate in Ames. Thus, “Mittens,” as he’s derisively referred to by the Righter-Than-Thou party, proved to Iowans that they are irrelevant to him.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry stole Michele Bachmann’s shining moment by announcing his candidacy the day before the poll and then finishing sixth. Frustrated over Perry’s antics, Bachmann threw a handful of “victory” tinsel confetti at a nearby newsman when the Texan's sudden appearance drew cheers and thunderous applause from the crowd. Before things could get worse, Marcus “Rotunda” Bachmann stepped in, grabbed his wife’s throwing hand and whirled her away, dancing to “Turkey in the Straw” played by a local jug band.
As we steel ourselves for the barrage of lying election rhetoric and storm of TV commercials, a disconnect occurs to me that the national media doesn't talk about: What is it that makes Tea Party presidential hopefuls think they are remotely qualified to sit in the Oval Office? Even a gold star presidential candidate of average modesty has to think long and hard about tackling the most public and difficult job in the world. For Tea-Baggers, who consider humility a character flaw, the decision is a no-brainer. They jump right in as if running the country is like being class president. You don’t have to worry about screwing up, because the adults will always be there to save your chestnuts. But then we’re reminded, “Hey, George Bush did it.”
Michele Bachmann
The list of Republican candidates is like a Who’s Who of Mad Magazine. Michele Bachmann—says our Founding Fathers, “. . . worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” She wished Elvis a “Happy Birthday” on the 34th anniversary of his death. And here is her take on the environment: “This big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax.” This is a woman who should not be given the Nuclear Codes. Her ignorance is matched in scope only by the genius of Einstein.
Ron Paul
Ron Paul, the last real Libertarian in America, is a man of integrity and honor. Clearly then, he is ill-suited to play Texas Hold’em with the card sharps of the Republican inner circle, especially if fellow Texan Rick Perry is seated at the table. Unfortunately for Paul, he repeatedly tries to get to the White House by skipping along the Yellow Brick Road. He’s such an idealistic conservative he can't be realistic.
Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum, who received 291 more votes than pizza king Herman Cain, is obsessed with his bizarre anti-abortion philosophy. In an appearance on Meet the Press, Santorum preached, "Life begins at conception, no exceptions for incest or rape, and doctors performing abortions should be criminally charged."
The photo of the Santorum family out on the stump with him may be a sad, but accurate look what it's like to live with a guy who thinks like he does.
Asked why he opposes rape or incest as legal exceptions in abortion cases he says,” That is a person. I believe that life begins at conception, and that that life should be guaranteed under the Constitution.” Santorum, who is also anti-gay, argues that the morning after pill is the exact same thing as abortion if it is taken after “the egg has been fertilized.”
Herman Cain
Herman Cain’s presidential credentials spring from having made millions playing Don C0rleone as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza where deliveries were made by flinging boxed pizzas to customers from the passenger side windows of long black 1930s-style sedans.
Cain is unique. He’s actually promoting his blackness to the Tea Party as the key to beating Obama. He predicts that Black people will definitely vote for him because he has two Black parents to Obama’s one. He's also pledged not to sign a single bill if it exceeds three pages.
Angry over the planned mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Cain told Fox News, "Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state. Islam combines church and state. They're using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community, and the people of that community do not like it. They disagree with it."
Okay, I can see where it would be different if they were all Born Again people instead of Muslims. A Christian theocracy is acceptable in America.
Cain says, “This isn’t an innocent mosque. This is just another way to try to gradually sneak Sharia law into our laws, and I absolutely object to that." The way he sees it, "Islam is both a religion and a set of laws -- Sharia laws. That's the difference between any one of our traditional religions where it's just about religious purposes."
That’s it, Herman. Now just explain why we need a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion. And while you’re at it, name the “traditional” religions for us.
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich got 385 votes, even though he supposedly didn’t have the money to take part in the poll. Remember how he slipped back into view from the shadows of disgrace shortly before last year’s midterm elections? He sauntered in with his nose in the air, sniffing for a whiff of Obama’s blood. Back in the sun, it took Newt five minutes to warm up before he was walking the streets of Washington like a monarch back from exile,
waving to people, making the rounds of K Street and talking about testing the water for a run at the presidency.
The resurfacing of Gingrich tells us what a blessing it is for Republicans to have the Christian Fundamentalists so heavily embedded in their ranks: They make it possible for backsliders like Newt to be swiftly forgiven, politically reborn and recycled back into the party with a fresh coat of respectability.
Rick Perry
The sudden entry of Rick Perry’s Texas-size ego into the fray brought out sheer giddiness from even usually restrained Iowans. Though he bagged a lowly 718 votes, the fuss that the racous crowd made over him ruined Bachmann’s day.
Perry is a dangerous politician. His cowboy good looks, western suits, fancy leather boots and silky twang bowl over people who normally aren’t awestruck by celebrity. He’s reminiscent of a traveling medicine show huckster who could roll into a town and have the citizenry eating out of his hands in a couple of hours. He’d deliver a pitch for his miracle elixir with the fervor of a revivalist preacher, empty the folks' pockets, then disappear before they realized they had a bad case of the trots and the enamel on their teeth was gone.
That’s pretty much what Perry’s done to Texas, but his charm has allowed him to stick around Austin for 12 years. Whatever he’s done, he had people believing they loved it till recently. How’d he do it? With big bucks from big business and their lobbyists, by depressing the Hispanic vote and fervent public prayer.
Perry is considered a rainmaker. He created tens of thousands of jobs for Texans when other states were reaping the dry, wild wind. But his kind of jobs are wretched minimum-wage ones with no benefits. The ones that mean slow death for the working man. That’s why corporations flock to the Lone Star State: they’re virtually unregulated and pay more for a tank of gas than they do in taxes. In eight years the governor blessed them with $500 million in corporate subsidies.
There’s a joke down there that goes, “Sure Perry has created thousands of jobs. I’m working three of them.”
Perry’s Texas is a godforsaken land for working people. It has the fourth-highest poverty rate in the nation; it’s tied with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers in minimum-wage jobs; it’s Number One among states with the lowest number of high school graduates; and it’s has the highest percentage of medically uninsured people in the country.
No question Perry is the most popular politician in Texas—among conservative white males. They like the way he handles money. Earlier this year it looked like he was about to be brought down by a $27 billion budget deficit because of all his tax breaks for business. It was time to raise taxes, but not for Perry. Instead, he cut $4 billion from the education budget and laid off thousands of teachers.
Mitt Romney
One can almost feel sorry for Mitt Romney. But how can you take pity on a guy with a $200 million fortune, who's been governor of Massachusetts, has once run for president and is having another go at it with other people’s money? How can you bleed for a guy who has never had to wait on people, wash their cars or bag their groceries? Mitt Romney has never spent a day in the real world.
This pleasant-looking, seemingly affable man's career has been spent as a Corporate Carnivore. His salad days were as CEO of Bain Capital, a firm he helped start with $37 million. Bain’s modus operandi was to buy other companies or controlling interest in them. Romney and his partners would proceed to gut their prey. Their “business plan” was to rake in fees for managing a business and get themselves appointed to the board of directors.
They then sold off assets, fired workers and purposely hired inept managers to run the businesses. When a company was about to keel over, Bain bailed out by selling the shell to duped investors. Once this scheme backfired and Bain wound up having to defend a messy shareholder lawsuit.
Between 1987 and 1995 Bain invested in five business—Stage Stores, American Pad & Paper, GS Industries, Dade, and Details. They made Bain $587 million in profit but it wasn't enough to keep any of them from being driven into bankruptcy and leaving thousands of workers unemployed.
Watch Romney on TV you may think he’s some rich guy who happens to be a hopeless klutz. Visualize this scene in Ames: obviously uncomfortable in a pair of khakis and work shirt, he was speaking to an obstreperous crowd when he made the dumbest and funniest election gaff so far. He told the folks that "corporations are people."
One of the men demanded to know why Republicans are focusing on entitlement reform as a means of deficit reduction versus forcing corporations to share part of the nation’s financial burden, Romney said:
"Corporations are people, my friend . . . of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."
Here's a multi-millionaire who tells people he’s unemployed. Is he extravagantly clueless, or the slick front man for predatory interests like Bain Capital?
If there’s one sure thing about Romney it's that he’s a comedian’s dream: "Mitt Romney looks like the photo that comes with the frame.He looks like the guy who tells you how to buy real estate with no money down . . . He looks like the guy on the ‘ Just For Men’ bottle . . . Mitt looks like the guy who goes to the restroom when the check comes.”—David Letterman
“. . . Mitt Romney, who is running for president as Ward Cleaver, is for change. Every time he gets up there, he says, ‘I love change. Change is good. Who doesn’t like change?' " –Bill Maher
“ . . . Mitt Romney was asked to explain why none of his five sons are in the military and he said that his sons demonstrate their patriotism by going on the road and campaigning for him. Now there’s a tough choice: ‘Iraq or Iowa? Fallujah or Cedar Rapids? Honey, what do you think?”—Jay Leno
“Last week, presidential candidate Mitt Romney called himself a lifelong hunter. Turns out he’s only hunted twice in his life. And, of course, both of those times were for Easter eggs.”—Jay Leno
Jon Huntsman
Clueless or not, Romney is not presidential material. Neither are any of the others who were there in Iowa with the exception of Jon Huntsman, whose chances look as good as Custer’s were.
The paltry lineup of Republican candidates isn’t surprising or shocking. Given its win-at-all-costs approach, the caliber of people the GOP chooses to support shouldn’t astonish anyone. Having been willing to roll with the likes of Sarah Palin three years ago, we were on notice that the Republicans have no standards anymore. For them, it’s not a question of who is capable, but who is saleable.
The intransigence and meanspiritedness of Republicans in both houses of Congress has made it crystal clear that they aren’t interested in fixing anything. The only goal they have set themselves to accomplish is making sure Obama is a one term president. Even if it means we all go down with the ship.
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