Funny Or Sad: The GOP Presidential Candidates

What is passing as a Republican Presidential Primary is both sad and funny. Sad because the current process, very public and very embarrassing, is designed to nominate a candidate who can oppose, I presume, President Barack Obama in the 2012 general election. This latter aspect of the entire process is why it’s sad, because Republicans are supposed to choose from among the current lot someone capable of leading the most important country in the world.

The Republican Primary doesn’t look like an interview of leaders, but auditions for the television cartoon “American Dad!”

I really think there is only one Republican candidate acting like he is serious, but he is barely registering in the polls and that’s Jon Huntsman. But, say some of the Republicans, he’s a Mormon! Gasp! Of the other eight — yes there are eight because two of them are barely covered in the media — we have a “serial hypocrite,” “a pandering hair guy,” and several others out of touch with reality.

As a longtime scholar and observer of politics, this primary election has left me, frankly, flabbergasted. All of the candidates have been engaged in what appears like one-upmanship, taking absurd positions on serious issues, pandering to some small slice of right-wing extremists who control the Republican Party primary. What is interesting is that the positions these politicians are taking do not — and will not — play well with the vast majority of the American electorate.

Of course, President Obama may not have too much to worry about because with all the ammunition these politicians are manufacturing, they may commit political suicide before the general election even gets started. Let’s just take a few for instances.

For instance, the serial hypocrite, Newt Gingrich’s (I still have images of witches and boiling cauldrons when I hear his name because one of the ingredients of the witches brew always seems to be “eye of the newt”) positions on climate change, health insurance mandates and the mortgage crisis. In the latter two cases he fought against both policies as set forth by Democratic administrations, yet, his lobbying firm received $37 million from the health care industry to fight the mandates and $1.6 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to provide advice on how to avoid home foreclosures. It appears that Newt is for something until he is paid, or vice-versa, while all the time railing against Washington insiders when he is one! At the same time he has a book signing on the side.

Then you have “governor pandering good hair” (Rick Perry) who can’t seem to pander without shooting himself in the foot. His recent appeal to fundamentalist Christians is blatantly anti-gay; his anti-immigrant position goes against his policy to insure that undocumented children receive state financial aid when attending universities in Texas. Then, I’m guessing here, that his enlistment of Joe Arpaio to support his campaign was a veiled attempt at winning the Latino vote? I mean, gobernador, ¡por favor!

One of the most interesting candidates is Representative Ron Paul who knows he is in the wrong political party. He is a libertarian trying to preach to a bunch of people who want the government to control one’s personal behavior. This makes no sense at all! (I’m using too many exclamation points but they are making me do this!) I think he is so frustrated with the entire campaign that he will retire from politics after this run.

Actually, I think they all need to retire after this primary season. I don’t think we want to see Newt anymore, the pandering hair guy has embarrassed the state enough, and Ron can probably find more folks that will listen to him back home than on the campaign trail. Next week I’ll cover the other Republican candidates as objectively as I did the first three.