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It is hard to imagine a more tawdry example of political venality than that on display by the Republican no-hopers in the South Carolina primary. It actually started in New Hampshire, when the little yappy dogs got tired of snapping at Romney’s heels and went for the jugular instead. Gang tackling him for his work with a private equity company? Really?
One would expect to hear such rhetoric from the former graduate student currently Occupying the White House, but from Republicans? Especially from Republicans whose major complaint is Romney’s not conservative enough? Yes, Virginia, our President thinks that the main, the only function of business is to give people jobs, and if a company is profitable, it should use those profits to hire more people. Whether there is anything for those new employees to do is immaterial. The important thing is to give people jobs. That’s how wealth is spread around, and let’s face it, the whole country would be better off if we could just spread that wealth around a little bit. Strange for Republicans to be spouting that line of drivel.
This is what anyone who cares whether our nation has any hope of regaining its historical dynamism and opportunities must confront in November. It is unconscionable that we must confront it on what passes for the right wing of the Republican party. The latest stunt, driven by Old Fencepost himself during last night’s debate, is to call on Romney “to release your income tax,” as if his income tax had been sequestered. Why, hell, if ole Mitt the Job Raper would just release his income tax, it might just wipe out the deficit.
What the Texas Tumbleweed is actually asking is for Romney to make his income tax returns public, so, he claims, “the people of this country can see how you’ve made your money.” What Perry really wants is for Romney to show how much income he derived from interest, dividends and capital gains. What he wants Romney to reveal is that, horror of horrors, he is one of the 1%. How on earth can anyone on the Republican side of the debate think there is anything to be gained from fanning the flames of class warfare? This is the Obama strategy. Even Perry, back in his air force days was smart enough not to walk into a turning propeller. Yet that is exactly what this strategy is designed to do. Hard to believe some people still think this guy has what it takes to be President.
Then there’s Newt Gingrich, who, whenever he isn’t attacking Romney from the Big Government left, is boasting about his status as “a Reagan Conservative.” Yes, the same Newt Gingrich who dismissed Paul Ryan’s attempt to get a handle on medicare before we all start growing grizzled beards and dancing on tables, as “right wing social engineering.” Note to the Newt: A Ronald Reagan Conservative doesn’t use “right wing” as an epithet. In fact, unless she’s discussing airplanes or hockey strategy, a Reagan Conservative doesn’t use “right wing” at all. It seems ever more apparent that Gingrich doesn’t want to rein in the scope and power of government, he just wants to get his hands on the reins.
Rick Santorum welcomed Jon Huntsman’s retirement from the race by using the term “moderate” at least 83 times in a two-minute statement, as in Well, Huntsman’s a moderate, just like Romney is a moderate, and the Republicans don’t want moderates, we want someone with good conservative values, someone who realizes no matter how shaky the economy is, and how dangerous the world is, if we can just ban gay marriage, all those other problems will solve themselves. When did moderation become a bad thing in conservative eyes? Isn’t moderation a defining characteristic of a Conservative? Why does Santorum, or any other conservative, think that a conservative imposing extreme policies against the will of a large portion of the population is going to be any less of an affront to a civil society than when Democrats imposed their extreme left wing policies against the will of a large portion of the population?
Ron Paul’s only function in this race is to allow Obama to look like a tough guy on foreign policy. It really is pathetic that as many as one out of four Republicans might take him seriously. You hear people saying all the time, “Well, yeah, his foreign policy is a little bit off, but I like his stand on the Fed.” Children, his stand on the Fed is immaterial if he hands China our head on a platter. It’s a dangerous world out there, and just because we’ve run away from Iraq and are actively appeasing the bloodthirsty theocratic nutjobs in Iran doesn’t make it any less so. In fact, quite the opposite. Now is not the right time to retreat inside Fortress America.
It really is essential to keep one’s eyes on the prize, which in this case is taking the White House, the Senate, and the country back from the far left Occupiers. Tea Partiers are so isolated from the mainstream, so focused on only listening to the like-minded, that they can’t conceive of a situation in which Obama can be reelected. I can think of at least four situations, which involve nominating any of those ninnies waging class warfare, playing the populist card, and whining, “America, it’s time to come home.” Someone needs to sit these guys down and explain there’s no future in trying to out Obama Obama. He’s got a couple decades’ head start on you. The party line comes naturally to him, it doesn’t to you.
