The new year brings many new things: resolutions that will die on the vine by the end of the month, newspapers will waste space by reprinting old stories that no one cared much for to begin with, most editorials in the opinion section are about evergreen topics. Finally we discuss the current crop of GOP contenders for the White House and what they “should be” doing. The Washington Post dust’s off some GOP also-rans and gives them a chance to say what they feel the Presidential nominees can do to win the election. Noting that very few have anything to say about actually winning the primary. Haley Barbour, Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels and….Herman Cain…all chime in.
Haley Barbour: Reads like a buzzword bonanza, showing his corporate moneyed lords that he is not even remotely allergic to pandering their sophistical laden bullshit. Economic Growth, Job Creators, Government Run Healthcare, and the gamut of explosive economic policy, overzealous spending, deficit spiking overreach, all those ground into your face talking points that have never even registered on the needle of the independents. He says, invoking the Reagan Commandment “Talk no mess on other Republics”, that he’d attack Obama’s policies and offer solutions. Surprisingly, maybe because of the lack of real estate offered, and not the fact that the GOP has NO real solutions, he doesn’t offer any. But he does provide this delicious nugget: “As conservative as I am, remember that the idle will decide the election in November, and the center agrees with us on the critical issues.” What are those critical issues? Who knows? It’s the last line of his little blurb, this is the stock response of the current GOP, the one that the middle cares about 38% right now in the polls. If Obama maintains his approval rating which is much higher than both congress AND the GOP Presidential nominees, then he won’t have to worry about being agreed with on “critical issues” such as not raising taxes on the wealthy (job creators) or destroying social services (entitlements).
Sarah Palin: Noticing a severe lack in their “Print Sarah Palin’s name” change jar, Washington Post dusts off Palin and agrees that she was a GOP candidate, even though she never announced a candidacy. A few veiled threats to run notwithstanding, she also never took part in any of the dozen or so debates, and has yet to get behind any candidate. Instead of “professional quitter” as her byline, she’s given her usual “former governor, V.P. 2008 candidate moniker”. Her editorial reads like it was written in a spiral bound notebook and hastily passed to another student in the classroom. Her verbiage is about on par with a teenager. The use of “whatever” is particularly jarring. One would hope that the editors of the conservative-leaning Washington Post would try and correct that instead of once again tilting the goalpost down far enough so that Sarah Palin can have another slam dunk with this outing. Right off the bat she implores the candidates to turn to chapter 3 of her book “Going Rouge” and read about what it would take to get America back to energy independence. Is “Going Rogue” another book of the Bible that has been added by political hack evangelicals?
What’s interesting about this editorial is to see the various faces of the republican party whip about in frenzy. All four are united in one thing: overturning the incumbent president. Barbour represents that buzzword hurling, ideologically bankrupt face of the GOP. The “Party of ‘NO!’” face that is obstinate in it’s behavior and long in the tooth on real solutions. They depend on think tanks and lobby interests to guide their political strategy, and they are so out of touch with the “center” of this country that they’re repeated notion otherwise is laughable.
Palin represents that Glenn Beck, evangelical, apocalyptical money whore face of the GOP. The one whose entire policy is underlined by a deeper political daftness. It’s the face of the party that runs with the heart and not the mind. Your abortion abolishes, and cutting everything they see as an entitlement, because lord knows that all you need in life is a good pair of bootstraps to pull up on. Palin and her ilk are the constantly oppressed, persecuted minority, ever fearful of being quieted and dragged away in the night by Marxist/Stalinist Fascists.
Mitch Daniels: In some way represents the slow steady hand of the GOP of Old. While his blurb is riddled with buzzwordery, he also is coming at entitlements and deficit with a surgical strike efficiency. However, given that most of the republican base these days is academically challenged to say the least, his words strike a bit too stuffy. On deeper analysis he’s pretty much saying what Barbour is, but with more intelligent sounding panache. Daniels represents the kind of GOP the center would agree with, as it at least seems sane and isn’t braggadocios about it’s intrinsic pulse of the nation finding self.
Herman Cain: Is the evolved form of Palin, and the most dangerous face of the current GOP. I would gander that very few of the “center” would ever get on board the Herman Cain train. Funnily enough, he evokes 9-9-9 into his very blurb. You get the feeling that his dying breath will be all or some of this awful flat tax baloney he was attempting to sell. Ironically he sights “an official in the Reagan Treasury Dept.” that says his plan will put more money into the pockets of Americans and make the government better stalwarts of the money it does take in. Unfortunately for Cain, he didn’t get one of his experts to actually find the name of that official, as he or she probably never existed.
This aspect of the GOP, as shown, laughs in the face of facts and logic. When found wanting, they merely double-down on the stupid, and never relent. Most importantly, they’re just around to sell some books and act in their own selfish nature. Good leaders, even middling ones, are better than that. The “center” also sees right through they’re bullshit. They’re able to convince very few right-wingers to their cause, and will never be able to be the nuanced, thoughtful leader that society expects out of a president.
The sadder narrative that wraps this article about failed candidates trying to give advice is that not one of them was a serious contender. Not one single bit. Even in Palin’s case, she just drove around half the country being an asshole to any media outlet outside Fox News. It’s why I, as a frequent hater of the right-wing punditry, was relieved at the Alaskan tundra levels of silence about her after she refused to run. Noticing this trend she’s has again become combative towards fellow GOP running for the presidential nomination. To my mind, they could’ve asked Mike Huckabee, John McCain, hell even Alan Keyes and the myriad of other, in their day, more serious GOP Presidential contenders.
The only nice thing about this editorial is the definitive proof of a fractured GOP. I thought it was bad, but not this bad. These four different heads only share a common body, but each face is so radically different from the other one. And while both Democrat and Republican parties are in definite need of unification, I fear the GOP isn’t done growing more heads. You didn’t think Sarah Palin not being able to answer a question about what papers she read was so bad when you saw Herman Cain have a massive brain fart when questioned on foreign affair matters.
When David Brooks asserts that the GOP is all about the working class, and represents the “real” center of America, I do have to say “Are you fucking kidding me?” It’s why I’m once again convinced at how out of touch our Washington D.C. pundit class and “elite media” (for lack of a better word) is with the rest of the country. I can stomach…nay, fathom…that we can have light levels of this; but when it’s becoming vastly apparent that this is the rule and not the exception, you begin to realize where our problems reside.
Being anything other than a heterosexual wealthy white male, there’s nothing substantive the GOP has to offer anyone else.
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