Donald Trump as the moderator of a GOP presidential debate?
Herman Cain scheduling the opening of a new campaign office for the same day he quits the race?
Newt Gingrich urging that nine-year-olds become school janitors?
Mitt Romney huffily scolding a Fox News interviewer for "not knowing the facts about my record"?
Michele Bachman saying she'd consider choosing Donald Trump as her vice-president if she's nominated?
Rick Perry thinking you have to be twenty-one to vote on "November 12"?
Jon Huntsman still persisting as the straight man candidate in a race that obviously has no room for the non-insane?
It's a lot of laughs! But leave it to Ron Paul to trumpet the real zinger. According to his spokesman, Ron Paul won't be at the Donald Trump debate because the notion of a reality show host as a moderator "flies in the face" of the dignity of the presidency. This is from a man who has made a career of sneering at government as an unnecessary evil! One has always concluded that Ron Paul, should he win the presidency, would immediately abolish the office along with the rest of the government, anarchist that he is.
But Paul is on to something. Something is indeed flying in the face of the dignity of the American presidency. That something is the collection of wannabes contesting the GOP nomination. There has never been such a collection of comics since the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"! You'd think they were auditioning for roles in a remake of the madcap film, rather than running for the presidency.
But, in a way, it's not funny. It's sad. If about one-third of the electorate is Republican and this is the best they can produce as potential presidential nominees, we are all in a lot of trouble. What does this collection of zanies and egregious flip-floppers say about our citizenry? Or at least about a big chunk of it? Nothing very good.
We can, however, take some consolation from the fact that the GOP voters aren't all as daft as their would-be leaders. One by one, the aspirants have been elevated in the polls by the GOP voters, examined, and then dumped. You can't fool even a third of the people all of the time, it appears. The same sort of thing is going on in the wake of the 2010 election. As I noted in my last blog, Republicans who elected Tea Party candidates in 60 House races in 2010 are now having buyers' remorse. Big time. So big, in fact, that 48% of these voters now DISAPPROVE of the ENTIRE Republican Party. That's 48% disapproving of their own party!
There hasn't been this kind of disaffection in party loyalty since the Democratic white working class voters turned away from the George McGovern Democratic Party and ran to the arms of Nixon and Ronald Reagan several decades ago. And we all know how that story turned out.
Now poor ol' Ronnie and Richard must be turning in their graves because it seems that the nuttiest of the GOP are driving out the more moderate in their party, reversing the gains that R & R made those decades ago.
Meantime, we've had a lot of laughs with Herman Cain, and he presumably sold a lot of books. It was fun watching him fumbling for Libya and nine-ing around. But, let's face it folks, he was running thin on material, and the chickens that were coming home to roost were actually real women whom he had wounded. Including his wife. Thank you, Gloria, for not extending the charade of a campaign by standing by your man in front of TV cameras while he confessed and was contrite and kept running. Thank you, Herman, for sparing us another one of those "redemption" scenes a la Newt or John Edwards.
Nothing becomes you so much in your brief moment on the stage, Herman, as your leaving it. In leaving the race, tis a far, far better thing you do than you have ever done. Other than make pizza.
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