The Uh-Oh! Factor - Democratic Underground

NanceGreggs

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Mon Dec-10-07 09:31 PM
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The Uh-Oh! Factor

Well, far be it from me to say that I’m not enjoying the pickle the Republicans have gotten themselves into as we head into the November 2008 elections. In fact, I’m more than happy to tell all and sundry that I haven’t had this much fun since Nixon declared himself not a crook shortly before he resigned because everyone knew he was a crook.

And it’s not like they shouldn’t have seen it coming.

This is exactly what happens when you brag for years on end about the lofty ideals you hold your party’s adherents to – and then trot out a bunch of candidates that not only can’t qualify for membership in The Club, they couldn’t even pass the interview for parking cars outside the clubhouse.

Ah, yes, who could better represent the party of family values than Rudy Giuliani, the man who single-handedly saved NYC from terrorists on 9-11 (well, not really, but it’s the thought that counts), the same man whose messy second divorce was the source of tabloid headlines for months, the man whose best bud Kerik has been indicted, the man whose own children don’t speak to him after the public humiliation he visited on their mother? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

And after wooing the Fundie vote for years with promises (no action, but lots of promises about a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage once and for all), the GOP unveils their next contender, Mitt Romney, flip-flopper extraordinaire, to represent the party’s Christian roots – the only problem being that the Fundies consider Mormonism to be an anti-Christian cult somewhere between Scientology and the selling of Amway products.

Then there’s the Great White Hope, Fred Thompson. White, yes. Hope, not so much. Freddie quickly turned out to be the Great Booming Voice of the Decade – unfortunately, that decade was the ‘seventies and, as most GOP voters have come to realize rather quickly, the guy you’d buy as a spokesperson for No-Doze, Viagra, or the DVD collection of Great Ballads of 1974 is not exactly presidential material. (And I’m sure that as soon as his ~~grand-daughter~~ wife wakes him up and tells him that he’s run out of snooze-alarm hits on his fifteen minutes of fame, he will be suitably disappointed).

And then there’s McCain – ah, yes, McCain. He’s the guy who voters were warned, back in the lead-up to the 2000 election, had fathered an illegitimate black love-child, the same daughter who his dumber-than-dumb wife had claimed to have ‘adopted’ in an effort to cover-up her husband’s dalliance. You have to admit there’s nothin’ that will fire-up support for a man who, as president, is expected to stand up to those who threaten our nation like a man who couldn’t stand up for his own family, but chose to publicly kiss the derriere of those who had started the rumors in the first place. As they say, if THAT don’t get ‘em, they ain’t in town.

That leaves us with Huckabee, the man who talks to Jesus on his cell-phone, the one who thinks Divine Intervention has caused his numbers to soar, the ex-governor who intervened on behalf of a rapist who had yet to fulfill his Holy Mandate to become a murderer – just the kind of level-headed, grounded-in-reality, law-and-order candidate that GOP-Joe-Six-Pack can’t wait to put in charge of runnin’ the country.

Of course, the issues currently in the forefront present their own problems, and the whole question of torture is a perfect example. The Republicans are now in the position of having to explain that the torture which is not taking place is only taking place for the good of the nation, a law-abiding Christian nation that would never condone torture because it is illegal, except when it’s legal, and which has led to the thwarting of numerous plots against the country, but we can’t get specific about which plots were thwarted because it involved torture, which we don’t do. Get it? Yeah, neither do the voters.

When it comes to the national debt, the outsourcing of jobs, the environment, the deplorable condition of our infra-structure, education, the housing market collapse, the health insurance crisis, and the WAR IN IRAQ – well, let’s not even go there. In fact, as the GOP ‘debates’ have amply demonstrated, these problems do not even exist. A hearty tsk, tsk on any of these topics is apparently perceived as enough to instill confidence in the average Republican voter – so where’s the (recalled due to e-coli contamination) beef?

Can there be any doubt that as the warriors in the War on Christmas gear themselves up for spending money they don’t have in stores that say “Merry Christmas” as they slide that credit card through the non-denominational cash register, while worrying if their house will be foreclosed on in January, who aren’t quite sure that the paycheck they got today will be dolled out to someone in India or Mexico tomorrow, who wonder whether it will be a personal medical problem or the mortgage crisis that will wipe out their life’s savings, are less than enthused about their Republican choices, and fervently wish that None of the Above was actually a guy on the ballot who could do something about their plight?

If only their party had offered someone – anyone – who represented the very things they’ve told the faithful are important over the years, maybe there would still be that proverbial snowball’s chance in hell that a Republican might yet again swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States with his fingers crossed behind his back.

However, as of this writing, no GOP Messiah-equivalent has stepped forward to save the Republican party from itself. And as of this writing, even the powers-that-be at Diebold, having viewed the proferred contenders, are putting their money on the Democrats.