by JASmius
Ladies and gentlemen, I am BACK!
For this post, anyway; mein Gott, you miss a lot of blog-fodder in sixteen months. So let's review how we ended up with this unmitigated clusterbleep, shall we? (also known as condensing several hundred posts into one - compared to me, Reader's Digest is a bunch of dilletents).
WHO DIDN'T RUN
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Became a GOP rock star in 2009-10 for his public combativeness taking on, and bitch-slapping, Jersey's public employee union thugs. Then he endorsed Mike Castle in the Deleware GOP senate primary; then he endorsed Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination. Strangely enough, Governor Christie ain't the rock star he used to be.
Meanwhile, in the real world, he's only in his first term, and low-information independents - who, regrettably, determine who wins presidential elections - don't like public combativeness. To the Big Man's credit, he recognized the former, and is unapologetic about the latter.
MITCH DANIELS: Two-term conservative governor of a (nominally) swing state - IOW, presidential timbre who would have ground Red Barry into mulch. But his wife didn't give him permission. Also, not the greatest PR instincts (a "truce" on social issues and all that rot).
BOBBY JINDAL: Fun-sized, much softer-spoken Chris Christie, with Mitch Daniels' charisma. Besides, as my friend Doug Gibbs would point out, he's constitutionally ineligible.
SARAH PALIN: I said it all here. If she'd wanted to run for president, she wouldn't have quit as Alaska governor. Simple as that.
And even if she'd stuck it out for two terms, she's been irreparably "Quayle-ized". There's simply no way that she could ever win over swing-voters who've had it burned onto their low-watt cerebellums that 'cuda is a funny-talking, moose-drooling, wolf-shooting, hard-right Moonshine McJugs. Whenever I'm tempted to buy into the notion that the Obamedia is on its last legs, I think about Mrs. Palin, and the urge goes away.
And given her fratricidal inclincations towards the so-called GOP "establishment," that's not an altogether bad thing..
MARCO RUBIO: Senators don't get elected president when not running in open races against another senator. See also Jindal reason #2. Besides, he just got there - let him become our (chaste) verson of Ted Kennedy.
PAUL RYAN: No congressman has been elected directly to the presidency since James A. Garfield in 1880. There's a reason for that. Besides, the House Budget Committee chairman is far more useful right where he is.
WHO DID RUN BUT SHOULDN'T HAVE
MICHELLE BACHMANN: When Mary Tyler Less announced her candidacy, I thought it was a publicity stunt to boost her visibility for a senate run against Amy Klobuchar this year. When she stayed in the race, I thought it was to canoodle with Mitt Romney to get on the GOP ticket by being his de facto hatchet woman. When she STILL didn't get out of the race, I figured she was either a purity warrior or a Donk deep-cover mole whose mission was to smear every last nationally viable GOP candidate (Gardasil-mania, anyone?). When she stayed in until Iowa, I finally realized: This woman is crazier than Ron Paul and (almost) as big an egomaniac as His Majesty Barry The First. Imagine my shock when she actually dropped out after her eminently predictable hawkeye fizzle.
HERMAN CAIN: Because, of course, a failed GOP senatorial nomination run and a pizza magnatecy has ALWAYS been the stepping stone to POTUS-dom. Exit question: Seeing as how his candidacy wasn't even viable for thirty minutes, shouldn't his foolhardy donors have gotten their money back?
NEWT GINGRICH: Supreme party ideologist; godawful presidential candidate. And as much of a "true conservative" as Bill Maher. Even Sheldon Adelson has stopped propping him up. But as we're all supposed to realize, gang-raping Mitt is far more crucial to the surivival of the Republic than deposing the big-earred tyrant who's merrily throttling it to death.
JON HUNTSMAN: A former governor, and so nationally viable. But also a one-termer, so only miminally so, and as an ex-Obama employee a total non-starter in a Republican presidential contest.
GARY JOHNSON: Huntmanesque, only more like.....
RON PAUL: His anti-American foreign policy dementia gives constitutionalism a bad name.
RICK SANTORUM: See Rubio reason #1. Why? Barack Hussen Obama, THAT's why.
Sourpusses don't get elected president, either, or "true conservatives" who go pork-happy when in office and descend to party-hack-dom at the drop of a hat (Do you remember Senator Santorum backing Pat Toomey against Snarlin' Arlen Specter in the 2004 Pennsylvania GOP primary? Me neither). Only reason Captain SweaterVest is still in this race is because he was the last "not-Romney" standing. Seeing as how he can't win the nomination, he's got no reason to persist other than to screw Mitt, to Red Barry's benefit.
I guess that's what all "True Conservatives" are supposed to want.
WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FRONTRUNNER(S)
TIM PAWLENTY: Two term governor of a "blue" state whose budget he balanced without tax increases in the teeth of ferocious Donk opposition, and did it with a smile What more could the GOP base have asked for? But nooooo, he was too "bland," and besides, he once said something kinda sorta positive about global warming six years ago. So screw you, heretic!
RICK PERRY:
...Oh, yeah - THREE-term governor of one of the largest states in the country with the best job-creation record in the Obama era. Again, what more could the GOP base have asked for (That doing an internet radio show for a few years wouldn't cure)? But nooooo, he was a "crony capitalist" who got his kicks shoving HPV vaccine needles into underage girls, or something.
Is it a coincidence that our two best shots at unseating The One were blatantly smeared by Mary Tyler Less? Do you see yet why I loathe that woman and cackled hysterically at her congressional re-election race donors deserting her in droves?
WHO THAT LEAVES
Yep, MITT ROMNEY, the candidate the base professed not to want to nominate with a ten-foot pole, but who Tea Party purist idiocy really has made inevitable.
Miminally viable as a single-term governor, but as the architect of ObamaCare's Massachusetts precursor, takes that gaping vulnerability off the issue table. Yet the only remaining electable candidate in the race.
And, this just in, he's rich. Which makes him Public Enemy Number One, even in an ostensibly Republican nominating contest.
So, of course, Captain SweaterVest and Newt The Avenger just HAVE to team up to kneecap him, and save Red Barry the trouble (and cash).
None should wonder why I started calling this train wreck "dysfunctional" months ago.
[cross-posted @ Hard Starboard]
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