At the beginning of December there were eight contenders vying for the GOP nomination to run against President Obama in November’s election. Three weeks into the new year, the field had winnowed down to just four. And what a weird group of four it is.
Of those remaining, the least likely to gain the nomination is probably extreme Libertarian and perennial presidential candidate wannabe, Ron Paul. Congressman Paul has earned the nickname “Dr. No” because he says that he’d never support legislation that is not “expressly authorized by the Constitution.” He’s pro-life, anti-war, pro-guns, anti-labor, pro-lower taxes, anti-Fed, and pro-shrinking the government to the bare essentials. Some question whether Obama was born in the United States. I question whether Ron Paul was born on this planet.
The next least likely to win the nomination, in my humble opinion, is Rick Santorum, the extreme social conservative and vituperative [look it up] anti-gay candidate. He also proclaims to be God’s chosen candidate, and believes he is doing what God wants. Now that Bachmann, Cain, and Perry, God’s other chosen ones, are out of the race, Santorum is God’s last man standing.
Personally, I dismiss anyone who claims to know what God wants. First, God is a myth, a figment of man’s fertile imagination and insatiable need to find unknowable explanations to unanswerable questions. Second, for those who do believe in God’s existence, how can any mere human know what God wants?
And then there’s Newt Gingrich, the personification of sleaze. Remarkably, he has a legitimate shot at the nomination. Seriously, have you listened to this clown? Please, listen to some of the things he’s said, read his positions on matters of public policy. Remember when he recently said he would arrest activist federal judges and force them to appear before Congress? He also said that he would simply ignore Surpeme Court rulings he didn’t agree with. This guy is nuts!
And as the recent allegations from wife #2 about how he tried to persuade her to have an “open marriage” so that he could continue his relationship with his mistress prove, he’s also a slime ball. Gingrich is a first-class egomaniac who believes he’s smarter than everyone else. He may be...but he’s seriously misguided.
That leaves poor Mitt Romney. Romney is the poster boy for everything the GOP stands for. He’s a successful entrepreneur, a savvy businessman, a faithful and religious man, and he looks presidential. Yet most conservatives think he’s too moderate. Many evangelicals question whether he is even Christian, equating his Mormon religion to a cult. He also comes across stiff, detached, and unsympathetic. And he has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth, like when he bragged, “I like being able to fire people....” Sure, that sound bite was taken out of context, but that’s politics in the twenty-first century.
Can’t you visualize President Obama as he ponders the upcoming election season? There he is, sitting at his desk in the oval office, his iPod on and the earbuds secure in each ear. He’s listing to Sinatra’s rendition of the Stephen Sondheim classic, Send in the Clowns.
The President has a big smile on his face.
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