Republican Candidates: The Froth and the Hope

The circus of the GOP primaries (as well as Obama “reluctantly” signing the Constitution-defying NDAA, just so you know it’s not an issue of partisanship), is enough to put me off politics forever. As much as I want to ignore it, unfortunately political matters don’t work the same as say… what’s something else that’s awful… Two and a Half Men in that while Jon Cryer doesn’t have to be a part of my life if I don’t want him to be, politicians will impact my life on a daily basis even if I try to mute them.

Therefore, to my own agitation, last night I followed the caucus results in Iowa, and I was shocked to see Rick Santorum in a dead heat with John Kerry I’m sorry, Mitt Romney. Yes, somehow the man whose top Google listing is one that defines his name as a crass anal sex “by-product” (which I will happily link to in order to contribute to the magical Google algorithm that keeps it at #1) is a contender? The only enjoyable think about Santorum popping up in the news is that Wonkette always publishes that hilarious picture of his daughter crying. Yeah, I’d sob, too, if he were my dad.

I forget whose blog I was reading yesterday (remind me! I’ll link you) that introduced me to the part of Santorum’s wikipedia page that explains how he brought his son who died a couple of hours after being born so prematurely home to meet and “cuddle” with his siblings. Moreover, Santorum then slept with the dead infant in his bed that night. When I read that, I was like, “That sounds like some Duggar shit” thinking of the recent photo shoot the family did with their miscarried baby.

Then Andrew told me about how the Duggers are campaigning for Santorum, even lending their bus (my favorite detail is that the Duggar kids managed to “badly misspell” Santorum’s name when painting it on the side of the bus), and now it all makes sense.

But if Weekend at Baby Bernie’s (or the anal sex froth) isn’t enough to make you question Santorum, how about his racism, his extreme homophobia, or his eagerness to start a war? Can’t we do better than this, America? BLAH.

I was thinking about how sad it is not to have a candidate to even root for in the GOP primaries, but I think I finally discovered one today: Buddy Roemer. I can’t pretend to know too much about him, but he’s running – as a Republican - on a platform of taking corporate money out of politics and instituting campaign finance reform. In a way, I don’t even care what his other stances are (although he is passing my initial sniff test), because until we make changes in this facet of politics, it’s just going to be more politics as usual.

Roemer needs to get 5% of the vote in New Hampshire in order to be included in the next debate. Even if he doesn’t stand a chance to win, I hope Roemer gets that much so his viewpoint can become a part of the larger conversation. He’ll need more luck and support considering, as he himself pointed out, that he received only five more votes than “Lizard People” in Iowa. (See? He’s funny, too!)