123,000 Iowans, richer, older, and whiter by far than anything resembling the average American electorate, have told us even they are beyond confused about the choices for a GOP November nominee. Now, this would be just another so what, who cares moment if it weren’t for one unsettling development.
No, it’s not that Willard Romney, the big fat liar, is claiming a landslide, 8 vote win over Rick Santorum. NBC made news way back in June by challenging Mitt Romney on his claim that President Obama has made the economy worse. Now Romney is taking up his dubious claims once again, saying in Iowa that Obama “lost 2 million jobs”—false—and that Romney created 100,000 jobs at Bain Capital, for which there is no evidence. Fact checkers at PolitiFact and The Washington Post concluded that Romney’s “100,000 jobs” boast is at best unsubstantiated, and it’s possible that his layoffs outnumbered his jobs created during his time at Bain. Mitt, if you can’t beat Santorum with the big lie you need another party to run in.
No, it’s not that Rick Santorum finished in a virtual dead heat with Willard. By way of reference, Santorum is the candidate with the strangely shaped, giant head who says gays are like people having “man on dog sex” and calls contraceptives “evil”. While both are popular with the open-minded, tolerant Iowan evangelicals, what gave his campaign a huge, late boost was his sweater vest. Santorum’s vest even has it is own Twitter account, @FearRicksVest, inspired by a comment he made about climbing the polls after attending Mike Huckabee’s anti-abortion forum in Iowa. Santorum admitted that he spoke well at the event while wearing his lucky garment. “So all of a sudden the sweater vest was like, ‘Fear the vest,’” Santorum told radio host Laura Ingraham. The sweater appears to be gaining him points. On Fox News Tuesday morning, Ingraham said that “people find it endearing; they kind of like it.” In fact, the vest is so popular it has its own Facebook page, Tumblr, and a music video called “Sleeves Slow Me Down”—a series of clips of Santorum sporting the grandfatherly garment. While Santorum is celebrating his sweater getting more votes than either Rick Perry (heading back to Texas after losing to habadashery) or Michele Bachman (heading back to planet Witless), he still has been unable to gain the endorsement of his own nephew. Just a few hours before the Iowa caucuses got underway, Santorum’s nephew John Garver has posted a petition at The Daily Caller against his uncle’s candidacy. “My uncle Rick cannot fathom a society in which people cooperate and work with each other freely,” he writes. “When Republicans were spending so much money under President Bush, my uncle was right there along with them as a senator.” So who does the 19-year-old University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown student think deserves the Republican nomination? None other than Ron Paul, of course.
No, and it’s not Ron Paul’s flameout. Too much has been written by, for, and about Ron Paul and now is the time to move on to anything else.
So that leaves us with Newt. How could the namesake of the most coveted achievement award in contemporary popular culture lose to a clown-car’s worth of candidates? I’m simply at a loss. When the man with the acerbic tongue, three wives, three religions, always rambling and frequently contradictory ideas, wampeters, and grand faloons can’t motivate more than a couple of Iowans to come in from the cold and cast a vote for the “intellectual leader of the republican party”, all hope is lost for interesting discourse.
Might as well talk about the biggest off-season news from the Yankees. Andru Jones re-signed.
Sob.
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