Dear god, let it be Santorum
Like most people with a functioning cerebellum, my tolerance for the 2012 election has been used up. As the GOP flounders around trying to find someone, anyone willing to be utterly defeated by Obama, its gotten more than tiresome. Now the pollsters are seeing Rick Santorum in the lead.
Praise be.
Now I’m no fan of Obama- not at all. He’s a war criminal who is in bed with Wall Street, and he’s too timid by half. His refusal to indict the Bush Administration on anything is reminiscent of our inability to deal with Nixon, and will have the same effect. The stimulus was too small, and the banks too big. His use of drones is appalling, and allows us to wage war without comment- not that he would listen to comment anyway. No, Obama is flawed.
But compared to Rick Santorum, there’s no contest. One is a rational human being who deals in facts and reality, the other a homophobic theocrat who makes Pat Robertson look almost sane in comparison. Drummed out of the Senate, Santorum – even without Dan Savage’s help- is a laughing stock. He can’t make a public statement without resorting to complete fabrication, debunked urban legends or Biblical “evidence”. His is the perfect embodiment of the sad state of the GOP. Unable to run on their record, they instead lie about Obama’s. They hold the myth of Reagan as their absolute, despite the fact that he ballooned the size of federal government, raised taxes and was a draft dodging failed actor. To be a contender for the GOP nomination means you’re beholden to the Tea Party and the likes of Jim Demint, who seems to be permanently stuck, like the rest of the party, somewhere in a mythical 1950s America, where women did the dishes and kept their mouths shut, gays were shunned and minorities were largely unseen. The GOP has invented the laughable “Sharia law” threat, while at the same time insisting that their own “divine law” become the law of the land. They’ve had 30 years, more or less, to watch as their winner take all, trickle down economic “theory” has reduced our nation to beggars, eating away at the middle class while the 1% gets fatter. Gay marriage, the “war on terror”, the whole notion of “illegal” people, all GOP talking points, all fodder for the pundits, but already passed by for the majority of Americans, who are evolving past the regressives. This will be the last election that you’ll see applause lines generated by “socialism” or “secular humanism”. No, the GOP is a dying breed, unable to do much of anything except say no- and people, except for that stubborn 25% that thinks the Civil War is still being fought, aren’t interested.
So instead of Mitt Romney as the nominee, I pray that it’s Santorum. The only thing Mitt can run on is his race- everything else about him is Obama-lite. And for some, that will be enough. Just give them a white male, and they’ll be happy. But Rick Santorum, now that would be an actual race. Not a race for the presidency- Santorum would lose by double digits- but rather a battle between two diametrically opposite ways of looking at the world.
Santorum believes that the government can and should tell you who you can marry– but not regulate business.
He feels that children are better served with a father in prison than with a lesbian couple.
He doesn’t believe in evolution, and feels tax money should go to “teaching” intelligent design but not funding the EPA.
And of course, the whole repellent “man on dog” crap.
Now, the money men aren’t going to allow little Ricky to be the nominee- and that’s a shame. Because his running against Obama- and losing, badly- would be a line in the sand moment, where America would be able to pick between two totally different visions of our nation, one progressive (of a sort) and one completely regressive. As noted before, I ain’t no fan of Obama. If Romney is a GOP candidate, I’ll probably skip voting. But if Rick Santorum gets the nod, I’ll be first in line to vote against him, and everything he stands for. We as a nation have been far too nice to those who would drag us back to the 1850s with their ignorant homophobia, racism and dim-witted pandering on science. Rick Santorum is an embarrassment, and his defeat would send a definitive statement on just how far out of the mainstream he and his loathsome ilk are. So come on, GOP, make him your candidate.
I dare ya.
