Don M: "I will still "vote for the syphilitic camel, over Obama"."The more I watch this farce, the more I think the GOP is trying about as hard as the 1919 White Sox to win this election.
Me: "Keep ordering syphilitic camel, and they'll just stop putting anything else on the menu, as a quick look at the current GOP field will tellingly point out."
Seriously, GOPers, while I am not one of you, I am a fellow traveler on many of your supposed core issues. On those occasions when you remember that there's an amendment right before the one about guns, and another few sandwiched in there between the bit about quartering soldiers and the one about trial by jury, we tend to get along okay, so take this post as friendly advice from an outsider.
Have you really stepped back and looked at this Jim Rose Circus you're trotting out in front of the American people? Are you guys trying to throw this election? Or has the job become so onerous that no decent person with an ounce of brains would seriously apply for it anymore?
Y'all are facing the most easily-defeatable incumbent since 1980; he even just gave an actual "malaise" speech for opposing speechwriters to rip up. Whether I agree with their positions or not, I have to say that Christie, Palin, or Daniels would have beat this guy like a piñata. With none of them in the race, that leaves Ron Paul as your sober-sided elder statesman on those debate stages. Let that sink in for a minute.
The current slate is starting to look like the Island of Misfit Toys. (Romney is the Train With Square Wheels.)
The Republitards seemed to have adopted the strategy of "Give him enough rope, and he'll hang himself." The Problem is, rather than opposing him, they gave the Anointed One enough rope to not only reach the ground safely, but Barry is able to do a Maypole Dance with it.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe Boehner can straighten things out the next time he hits the back nine with Barry.
I hate the idea of voting for the best bad choice.
ReplyDeleteGerry
"Or has the job become so onerous that no decent person with an ounce of brains would seriously apply for it anymore?"
ReplyDeleteYou the nail the head right there Tam.
Someone much smarter than me once said, "Anyone who can run for president, is no longer qualified to be president."
Unfortunately, we all know that this nation won't survive another 4 years of Obama. So what to do?
Axeman
I vote for the Bumble...
ReplyDeleteI left the GOP long ago and I see no reason to return.
ReplyDeleteI truly wonder if there will ever be a presidential candidate I can support again in my lifetime.
It's been interesting watching the GOP establishment circle the wagons to keep some (but only some) candidates out.
ReplyDeleteAn outsider who could win and disrupt the too-cozy gravy train (as Palin did in Alaska) are not to be allowed.
It's Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy in action.
I honestly think the top men in the GOP have seen the writing on the wall, know a collapse/breakdown in the way things have worked for the last few decades is on the way, and have decided they don't want to be in charge when it happens.
ReplyDeleteI think they're throwing the election, to be honest with you.
The bigshots in the big-R Republican Party are in the same mindset as McCain when that asshole working for him announced "If you attack Obama on these things, I will RESIGN!" McCain immediately apologized for even thinking of actually campaigning and let Obama have his way, when the proper response would have been "The door's over there, don't take too long going through it."
ReplyDeleteSo we have said bigshots doing the idiot things they are, because people who'd actually go after it aren't 'suitable' to their fine sensitivities.
Screw 'em all.
The Republican leadership really doesn't NEED the Presidency in order to accomplish what it wants to accomplish. As long as they've got enough power in Congress to prevent or modify legislation they don't like, they can afford to let the Democrats hold the White House and take the blame. They're playing No-Limit Texas Hold'em while the rest of us are shooting dice at the $5 Craps table.
ReplyDeleteSo long as the media, who choses our candidates for us long before any voting is allowed to happen, is allowed to continue to consume oxygen, there will never be a GOP candidate worth the powder to blow him/her to hell with. Reagan was an accident, which will never be repeated. Our choices will continuie to be shithead and shithead lite, and Shithead lite just runs the carriage off the rails at 1/3 the speed of full-strength shithead.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks to have to vote for shithead lite. I'd like to not do so. But I will have to, until the fourth estate is only so much real estate.
They're not throwing the election, Britt. Even the ones foreseeing currency collapse and new dark age know it's more profitable to be in than out under any circumstances. For one thing, outs don't get to hold the key to the Pentagon toy room.
ReplyDeleteI welcome this post, Tam, even though your counsel to these nincompoops is probably futile. One of the things I've noticed in my GOP apostasy is that institutional Republicans seek wide counsel. Then they trash everything that would irritate the Jimmy Swaggert vote.
The Thanksgiving Dinner gathering before Iowa "evangelicals" last evening was especially embarrassing. A soap pilot script rejected as too maudlin.
My interests run to India Pale Ales, guns I'll never be able to afford, things cooked in butter, and single malt scotch. Most of your readers have, if not the same, at least similar interests.
ReplyDeleteThe people who have the biggest say in selecting candidates are into getting up at holy crap o'clock, and trudging through the snow to caucus for RomneyPerryCaineHuntsmanJingleheimerSchmidt.
Their interests tend more to Jesus juice, farm subsidies and undoing trade agreements. The ultimate nominee choice tends to reflect that.
I'd like to see a candidate who wants to undo, rather than do things.
Oops, I mean undo the departments of labor, commerce, energy, and education - not the free trade agreements - those I kind of like.
ReplyDelete(Romney is the Train With Square Wheels.)
ReplyDeleteWhaddya got against the Train With Square Wheels?
And Perry is the cowboy on the ostrich. Is Paul the squirt gun that shoots jelly?
ReplyDeleteFew things, first this is the primary, the repubs are not running against Obama, they are running against each other. The way you win the primary is to pander to the religious and other looney right, just like Obama pandered to the unions and the looney left. Then after the election you are supposed to become a moderate to govern, something that Obama forgot. I have long maintained that there is someone out there with all the answers but we will never meet him or her because of the circus you have to go thru to get elected. I am not agreeing with this system by any means. I think the whole 2 party thing should be thrown out and everyone including the sitting President should have to run and we keep voting until someone gets more than 50 percent of the vote, but hey I think the elections should be moved to saturday too so what do I know.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people act as though President Reagan was anything other than a big government, deficit President? Aside from some smooth words of reassurance and slapping PATCO, what did he, as president, do to decrease the size of government or slow inflation?
ReplyDeleteChip,
ReplyDelete"Few things, first this is the primary, the repubs are not running against Obama, they are running against each other. The way you win the primary is to pander to the religious and other looney right,"
While I admire your optimism, no matter what lens you squint through, the GOP is thus far fielding a pack of losers.
A month ago I would have voted for Paul, or grudgingly held my nose for Perry or Cain.
Now the latter two have managed to shoot themselves down.
I don't care if Cain has managed to boink every secretary from here to Kathmandu, his muddle-headed grasp of foreign affairs is execrable for one aspiring to the office of Commander-in-Chief, while Perry has proven the master of the unforced error; his middle name at this point might as well be the Apache word for "Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time".
The media did their best to destroy Sarah Palin; Cain and Perry drew beads on their own damn feet.
staghounds,
ReplyDelete"Why do people act as though President Reagan was anything other than a big government, deficit President?"
Good PR.
The best I have to say about Reagan is that, on the whole, he was the least suck-y president of my short life, which is the equivalent of being the tallest midget at the state fair, when you think about it...
He scared the crap out of the Russkies, though, which scored a lot of bonus points at the time.
The only candidate with a real fiscal responsibility record was excluded from debates on both CNN and Fox, ie: both sides of the spectrum.
ReplyDeleteGary Johnson, check his wiki entry if you want to know more. He hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell at the primaries.
PS: You know the media really hates a candidate when they don't even drum up a hate campaign, just exclude him completely, as if he's not there.
ReplyDeleteGuess I didn't make my point,there is no optimism with any body here except maybe Huntsmen, but he'll never get beyond the whole creationist thing. I was just pointing out the crappy primary thing works.
ReplyDeleteI am about to say something that many of you will not like:
ReplyDeleteIf Romney wins the primary, I am voting for Obama. If I have to choose between two big government liberals, I want to choose the one that this Republican congress will oppose, rather than the one they will support.
If Romney is elected, congress will fall all over themselves to support the president with the R behind his name.
Tam, are you trying to make me Drink Moar, or what? Yah, I know, it doesn't take much...
ReplyDeleteDivemedic-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I was actually glad when Obama won the election instead of McCain. We would have ended up with the same heap of crap, but it would have been blamed on the Republicans and Congress would have gone along with it without any fight.
The footnote here is that your average R out in flyover country is more likely to be pissed by what's going on now than if McCain were in charge with the same results. We don't get meaningful momentum toward freedom unless flyover country gets good and pissed.
"...has the job become so onerous that no decent person with an ounce of brains would seriously apply for it anymore?"
ReplyDeleteNot so much the job itself but the process of applying for it, I think. Discount the role of media in that if you will, but the doofi who shot their feet were handed the gun with which to do it, blinded by the spotlight in which to do it, and hammered relentlessly once they did it...one by one, by rather brilliant design. Palin experienced that first hand, and Christie was too smart to submit to it.
So, how did Reagan get elected? The elite in and out of media hated Carter as much as we did, leaving him flapping in the wind. But those same elites still love their boy BO, and if there is a Reagan out there, they're biding their time for an opening...I just hope we have the time.
But if so, and even if RR was a "big government deficit President"? I'll have another helping of that, please.
I can only agree Tam... dammit... At least it was nice to get away from it all for a couple of days.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem is, whenever we go for "Option C", the Republican Establishment tends to think that the Camel they were offering wasn't Syphilitic enough...
ReplyDeleteI would like to see a former governor. I would like to see a 'fiscal conservative'.
ReplyDeleteOr I could vote for the proverbial Cuthulu. Why vote for the lesser of two evils?
Because if I don't, VFTLOTE the greater of two evils might win!
Here ya go Don M:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson
Unfortunately he hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell, he doesn't get any bad press it's true, he gets no press.
Sometimes the only way to fix a broken-ish system is to break it completely. Unfortunately, when this involves a major nation and the recently-shining city on the hill, things could get Pretty Serious.
ReplyDeleteSee to your yardarms and cordage. And ammo, and food, and water, and toothpaste. Oh, and batteries. Hey, I'm running out of room here.
And I forgot to say that the lesser of two self made scum-sucking oxygen thieves is still a self made scum-sucking oxygen thief.
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad there won't be any libtards at dinner this Thursday at my house. We'd probably come to blows. Mainly because I got nobody on the republican stage to cheer for, and the thought of another 4 years of the Commie is enough to make me suicidal.
ReplyDeletejf
Tam,
ReplyDeleteYou and Brigid have made my weekend. Thank you thank you.
Ken said...
ReplyDelete"Whaddya got against the Train With Square Wheels?"
NEVER, EVER, EVER forget, that Romney signed into law a PERMANENT Assault Weapons Ban in Mass., and said he would do it again if presented with another one.
If you vote for or sign into law an AWB, one of two things is true:
Either you are
a) too stupid to understand there is no functional difference between the media/democrat definition of a so-called "assault weapon" and a plain old ordinary rifle, and thus too stupid by far to be president, or;
b) you do understand the difference, but you are an evil (and anti-constitutional) gun-grabbing megalomaniac. Who also should never be president.
Romney was against every major conservative issue before he was for them, so I have to assume choice (b), but either way, he signed the Mass. AWB into law, said he'd do it again, and is therefore either too stupid, or too evil, to be POTUS.
BoxStockRacer
A few thoughts. One, there IS a lot of backroom talk of the Repubs throwing this one. After all, would YOU want the blame WTSHTF? (And don't think the Great Unwashed will be able to differentiate- they can't remember anything past the last gas price increase.) So it's a pretty understandable sentiment, even from the Republitards. Two, the Left-Wing-Extremist Media has destroyed anyone who has presented a challenge to THEIR nominee, the execrable Mitt Romney. Do you REALLY think their 24/7 smear campaign won't put Barry Obamalinsky right back in the White House, regardless of whom the Repubs nominate? I doubt Snow-Freakin'-White could survive that onslaught. Lastly, as hard as I've tried to make myself sit this one out (and let the s**tstorm fall where it may), don't forget that within 12 months of Obamalinsky's recoronation, "our" 5-4 Heller SCOTUS is going to turn into "their" 5-4 DC SCOTUS. :( So SOMEBODY had damned-well better get this right.
ReplyDeleteTokenokie
I think Og said pretty much everything I was thinking.
ReplyDeleteRunning for president seems (to me) to have little to do with actually having any ability to run the country and everything to do with how many rich idiots you can get to fund your campaign.
I agree wholeheartedly with Og, and, even though I just sat there and spat out a terse "Fuck!" after reading it, Divemedic. :(
ReplyDeleteWelcome to The Crazy Years. At least Obama doesn't own a horse.
Yes, I would vote for Gary Johnson if he had any kind of chance.
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin got elected governor as a third party candidate. So did Jesse Ventura.
The electoral college makes winning as a third party tougher.
And its cool to be quoted by Tam, even as a bad example.
Keep ordering syphilitic camel, and they'll just stop putting anything else on the menu
ReplyDeleteSort of.
Stop ordering it, however, and you end up with Whoever The Democrats Run, and it's just as likely that the GOP will take that as a sign that they need to move even more Left, and even Bigger Government.
I think part of the problem, from the libertarian-ish perspective, is that "our" beliefs, such as they are, are just not very popular.
Bits and pieces are, yes. But the whole package? Electoral death.
@Sigivald: That line of reasoning has gotten us to where we are now. The liberals win either way, with liberal candidates running from both parties.
ReplyDeleteForget Syphilitic Camel, I'd rather vote for Morocco Llama.
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of the R-tards playing Good Cop to the D-tard's Bad Cop - let's play Cowboys and Injuns and see who wins, again...
ReplyDeleteA: Yukon Cornelias needs a better retention device for his revolver.
ReplyDeleteB: Reagan managed, through military escalation, to bankrupt the Ruskies by going Big Government, and convinced the American public that he was trying to shrink it. His methods worked, but only because we were generally profitable during his tenure. Hey, when it works, and you're in the Big Seat, you get to claim victory, and smile like you knew what you were doing.