Thursday, March 22, 2012

Get Ready For....Obama-Santorum '12?

by JASmius

Oh, it'd be a bit awkward at first, and the Chicago Cherubim might be a tough sell, but would they really be that Odd of a Couple? Besides, Cap'n Sweatervest's turn to the Dark Side seems all but complete. And with Biden already after B.O.'s job, and his re-election bid in desperate need of a transfusion of faux bipartisanism, it could be the ultimate Hopenchange masterstroke:



Can you imagine the veep debate this fall? Wally hammering Marco Rubio (oops, sorry, Doug) or Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley for not being as conservative as the L'il President? You could put that on pay-per-view, my friends. I know I'd buy it.

I have been saying that some Tea Partiers appear to want to screw Mitt Romney out of the GOP nomination more than ousting Barack Obama from the White House. Now their "true conservative" champion has made it official. All that's left is the party switch, and if he doesn't replace Biden, he can always challenge that noted RINO Pat Toomey in 2016. Heck, maybe he can even land Snarlin' Arlen Specter's endorsement - doesn't look likely now, but this perfidious shark-jumping moment ought to warm the cockles of the old turncoat's treacherous heart. Kind of like if Spiderman had taken up the Green Goblin's offer of protege-hood.

Wow, that's a triple-decker dollop of irony in a single paragraph. My, sometimes I even impress myself. And that's not easy.

"Some" TPers would appear to include FreedomWorks, who are only a step or two behind Senator Cleaver:

The conservative grass-roots FreedomWorks organization still is playing hard to get for an endorsement, an official of the organization told The Daily Caller.

In fact, the tea party-favoring FreedomWorks, which former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey chairs, still hopes that another GOP candidate will beat out front-runner Mitt Romney, spokesman Adam Brandon said.

"We never got our natural candidate," Brandon told the Caller. "We're focusing on the Senate, but watching the [Republican presidential] race to see if it heads to a brokered convention, and it looks like it might, to see if we can get someone else in."

Wishful thinking is one thing, fantasism another, delusionalism a third. But this exceeds even the bounds of pathos. Look, Romney wasn't my candidate, either, and I fully and freely acknowledge all his shortcomings - opportunistic flip-floppery, gaffeing over his victory laps, RomneyCare - but he's going to be the nominee, and the Tea Party has nobody and nothing but itself to blame for not unifying behind a viable not-Romney alternative like Governors Pawlenty or Perry last year.

Besides, would a Romney presidency really be that bad?:

What "risk" is there, exactly, that President Etch-a-Sketch would be worse than Obama? Even if his political instincts carry him towards the center, he knows he can't stray too far from the base on big-ticket items like, oh, say, Supreme Court appointments. That's a big difference, not a little difference, and a pro-life advocate as
passionate as Santorum surely knows it.

Yeah, you'd think that was true. But there's precious little indication that he does, if his words are any indication. I think he's been hanging around Newt Gingrich too much.

Want another layer of irony to this phenomenon? Guess what Tea Party stallwart is ready to sign on to the Plastic Express:

"We all need to look at this presidential primary and encourage the candidates to do a little self-reflection here on what's good for our country," the influential South Carolina conservative told reporters in the Capitol after attending a group meeting with Romney. "The sooner we can make a decision, the sooner we can focus on the real problem, which is Obama."

Asked if he was making a diplomatic case for former Senator Rick Santorum and former Speaker Newt Gingrich to drop out, DeMint said "You can take from that what you will."

"There's no need to drag this to a convention if it's pretty clear who our nominee is," DeMint said.

Damned dirty RINO! Closet breast-washer! Traitor to the purity cause! Romney must have bought DeMint a couple 'o Cadillacs and given him use of his luxury box for the NASCAR season. It's the only explanation.

Except for one other: Maybe Senator DeMint gets it. You wouldn't know to judge from some of his idiocies in the 2010 cycle, but his head and sense of perspective both seem screwed on right this time. Will his quasi-endorsement finally convince TPers to just accept Mitt and move on to the imperative task of de-Obamunizing America? Or will they excommunicate him and figuratively hang the South Carolinian from the nearest lamppost?

Yeah, I know, rhetorical question. Romney probably bribed him with a couple 'o gold-pressed, latinum-encrused, diamond-studded Etch-o-Sketches. Just ask The One's newest fan.

[cross-posted @ Hard Starboard]

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