So the sanctimonious godbot wins the Minnesota caucuses, with the demented Libertarian gnome in second, and the obscenely rich Mormon robot taking third. It’s not very exciting — nothing but churning Santorum.
You know why a different Republican candidate seems to be surging every week? Because all of them suck.
And that’s all the political insight you need to understand the current chaos on the American right wing.
Yes, the new M&M flavour, “Santorum”.
Not only has Santorum easily won in Minnesota, he won easily in Missouri and is looking pretty good in Colorado. Nate Silver was projecting that Mitt Romney would most likely take Colorado, based on the very early results, but after seeing the results come in from Adams county, he isn’t so sure.
Frothymentum!
I don’t know whether to be elated or terrified.
Just because they suck doesn’t mean whatever heap of shit ges the nomination can’t win. I’m terrified.
I consider the fact that Sentorum won Iowa and Minnesota and Missouri good news. Anything that slows the Mitt boat. But it is all so disgusting.
What’s the long-term result of this? Nothing much, even if Santorum is still looking good for Colorado. No delegates were given tonight, and at best this just gives Santorum a shot of momentum and a chance to embarrass Romney. These caucuses don’t indicate very much — the delegates could still go for Santorum at the convention, but he hasn’t made a major surge.
Still, you can bet that, if Santorum was making his concession by making the rounds as a prospective VP nom, he’s sure as hell going to remain in the race now. He could very well be looking to set the stage for an open convention, which plays into Newt’s interests as well.
With foresight to the General Election, I should think that nominating Mitt Romney is the Republican’s only genuine chance of defeating the President, and according to recent polling, Romney would face an uphill battle against the torrent of capital Mr. Obama is preparing to unleash on him. Essentially, we’ve been watching a horde of people throwing bills and coins at each other while while a person with a line of giant Super-PAC money cannons waits for them to finish.
I can’t wait for the Michigan primary – I think I’ll vote for Newt! Gotta keep them churning for as long as we can.
Godbot, gnome, robot…I will now forever envision the Republican candidates as D&D characters.
You can worry a little, but not too much. With an improving economy and a growing awareness of the contrast between the real Obama and his accomplishments (as opposed to the caricatures) and his shrill contenders, some Republicans will practice their own version of voter suppression and sit this one out.
Just hold your head up and get involved.
Yes, but which one is munchkining his character? I’d say it’s whichever one is spending the most money, but even that seems not quite right.
In the long run, the money is going to talk (Koch money, etc) and it’ll be behind whoever they think has the best chance of beating Obama. Which means Romney. This whole dog and pony show is just an act for the rubes who believe that the people’s opinion is somehow relevant to what happens in Washington.
Don’t you mean the American extreme right wing?
The centre right is in power; there doesn’t seem to be a left.
@6. A. R – 7 February 2012 at 10:48 pm :
Read a good article today in the Guardian Weekly newspaper () on the role money plays in US politics Great quote from there :
The same source notes that Mittens Romney, apparently, has *double* the personal wealth of the last *eight* presidents combined.
(Not sure if that includes Obama or not.)
It seems most likely that’ll buy him the R-nomination and later, very likely, the US Presidency itself. Depressing.
Mind you, Santorum would be worse as would be Perry, Bachman or Palin so guess we have to look on the bright side.
@ matthewhodson :
I guess its all relative.
The US left have been *left* out of things since long ago. There’s nothing *left* of them. Gallows humour. Sigh.
Gingrich isn’t on the ballot in Missouri. Then again, he only got 10% in Minnesota, last I checked.
I can never type “Gingrich” successfully the first time. It’s like my fingers rebel against him.
Santorum victories, eh? What a way to put a… brown stain on what was a positive day for equal rights.
I envision them (and some former candidates) as Wizard of Oz characters. Romney needs courage, Newt needs a heart and Perry needs a brain. Actually, so do Bachmann, Palin and Cain. There wasn’t four scare crows in the Wizard of Oz, was there? You know what? Gilligan’s Isle works better.
@Rey Fox:
It looks like Gingrich is pretty much done at this point. It will be interesting to see what this does to the dynamics from here on out; I kind of get the impression that the only reason Romney has been out in front is because the not-Romney votes have been split…
I don’t seriously expect anybody else to turn out to be the nominee, but the longer this goes on the more money Romney will have spent and the more damaged he will be.
Well PZ, if the wingnuts every take over your university you’ve got a second career as a sub-editor. Excellent headline, I’m still mopping up the beer from my keyboard.
The state GOP just called Colorado for Santorum.
Holy shit.
So the “presumptive nominee” now has, what, 2 states to Santorum’s 4?
StevoR: While it is true that we have no idea how he would spend his money in a General election, we do know that the President is expected to raise more money than any candidate in history (even if the billion dollar claims have been denied). Also, consider what the money would be spent on, such as the ever popular attack ad. A 2008 study concluded that attack ads did relatively little to change voter’s opinions, but positive ads, and issues ads did. Robocalls are incredibly unpopular, and, though relatively little research has been done in that direction, I cannot imagine a massive effect (probably why they are used very close to the election itself.) I personally can’t imagine how a person could be affected by campaign money, but others obviously are.
I HOPE Santorum wins the nomination!
No chance in Jesus’ hell he’s beating Obama.
Plus, should he defy all odds and succeed anyway, at very least I’ll be able to make anal sex jokes for four years, so that’s a win however you look at it…
Brian @ 20: More delegates in the states Romney won I suppose. But the idea of a Santorum inundated nation is deeply disturbing.
@matthewhodson: I’ve long maintained that the US political system is deeply flawed, as voters only really get a choice between two parties, one far right and the other further right.
@A. R:
well, I suppose Romney has to hang his hat on something, but it sounds like a pretty tough sell for a candidate who should be cleaning up right now if he’s really the presumptive nominee.
Romney might be ahead in delegates so far, but only thanks to an accident of the way the states allocate delegates. Not exactly the convincing lead he wanted…
Brian: Yes it’s what the Republicans call the ABR vote: “Anyone But Romney” It’s rather like the passing love affairs of the pre-primary race, but with delegates up for grabs. Last month it was the slimy adulterous amphibian candidate, now it’s the Frothman. Whether this will end in the Republicans accepting Romney, I don’t know, but remember what is even more important to them than ABR: ABO.
Just doing my part by spamming these two links everywhere I go. PZ, how come you don’t have this hyperlink every time you mention
Santorum?
Santorum
Rick Santorum
Still wondering how a candidate who only has 16% party-wide support (according to Gallup) is doing this well. But then again, we are talking about the people who elected Bachmann, Bill Maher’s “Children of the Corn,” and people who think that masturbation, menstruation, and miscarriage are acts of murder after all.
It doesn’t work here. And really, after a few, oh I don’t know, thousand times it gets annoying people linking it in comments everywhere. Let the blog posters do it on their own blogs.
There is no need to keep linking to that site because most of the people here already know of it. Damn, just about every post in this thread does a variation of that. And I refer to him as Santorum-for-brains.
The answer is easy, they are playing for the votes of those people most likely to vote in Republican primaries, the hardcore evangelical conservatives. This is why Mitt, a moderate Republican who governed a rather liberal state now speaks like a tea bagger. His problem is that two of his main competitors who have a history of wingnuttery and honestly call him on his hypocrisy.
Psst razzlefrog :
You can always make anal sex jokes (almost) anytime y’know.
We don’t need a Santorum presidency (*shudder*) for y’all to do that.
I don’t think Santorum will ever live his little Google problem down but then he did just mess himself. Brought it on himself I mean.
Growing up in rural Minnesota in the 80’s I don’t remember seeing a lot of openly far right wing nuts. It seems like they were either ignored or not as loud because they knew few others agreed with them. Now those wing nuts are mainstream Republicans.
Internet Warning!
If you get an email titled “Nude Pictures of Newt Gingrich” DO NOT OPEN IT!!!
It contains actual nude pictures of Newt Gingrich.
[TV ad for a late entry into the Republican nomination race]
Hello, I’m not a witch.
No, Im the devil himself, yes that’s right, Lucifer, Lord of lies, prince of hell, yadda yadda ..
But hey, bad as I am you know at least I’m not Romney!
Vote 1 Satan for 2012.
[This ad not authorised by anyone at all.]
Bet he’d get more votes too -even in “christian” electorates!
Whew, some GOPtroll named 48mmac is really churning out the santorum in the comments section. And it’s the kind of stupid generally reserved for… well, no, there’s no reason to pull out this kind inanity.
Take this little gem, for instance:
0_0
I santorum you not, we’re in some frothy waters bordering on Poe territory.
Exactly. I was once on a hiring committee faced with slim pickings from a lackluster pool of candidates. We were supposed to pick three finalists to pass on to the next round. We cast our ballots and my jaw dropped when the committee chair tallied the results and posted the names of the top three. One of them had been my least favorite candidate. Completely unqualified. The chair explained: Someone had to come in third. There was some consensus on the top two candidates, but our votes for third place had been practically a random distribution. Close your eyes and pick randomly. (Fortunately, the “winner” of third place was not included in our recommendations for the next round and we passed along only two names.)
The GOP candidates are all lousy, but someone has to win the nomination.
Santorum has now won more states than Romney. Gotta love it.
From a distant perspective, which is not necessarily accurate, it seems to this gawper that the GOP presidential candidate election appears more of a rather bloody and unedifying car crash in the requisite slow motion.
And the participants are pompously proud of themselves for taking part in such a goofy one ring circus.
What happened to reality here?
What happened to political argument?
It is a succession of ‘teh ghey ebil’ or ‘jeebus rules ok’ ‘women back to the kitchen bare foot and pregnant’ or ‘fuck the poor,the disadvantaged, and the sick’ or ‘tax breaks only for the rich’ and the unspoken pledge seemingly from all of them to ‘bomb Iran’ not that any of them actually know where Iran is!
With a side order of ‘Obama the foreign born muslim’ rhetoric
Seriously there is not a candidate there with a smidgen of sense or integrity or modicum of intelligence…one wonders how they find the pot in a cubicle to piss in?.
They are all ignorant right wing tip extremophiles to a cretin, with one or two threatening to bring ‘barbie doll’ Palin’ back in to the pig trough for vice idiot.
Is this for real or has the whole of the GOP membership from every corner of the US gone droolingly insane overnight?
It is like a nightmare of the worst of the worst rabid religiotards vying for a finger on the red button…it must be a sick joke surely?
Is Obama that worried?..if he is does that mean America has totally scrapped the last bit of common sense it ever had?
Seems like a one way ticket to armeggedon, or the rapture…you pays ya money ya takes ya pick!
The Republican presidential contest is like a mad, out-of-control clown car laden with explosive turds, isn’t it?
And a steering wheel that only turns right.
The Republican primary race is the most entertaining thing on television. It’s like a hurricane of gaffe.
They have one message for the “mainstream” and another for the fundies.
How can they not know we hear everything they say?
It’s like some weird political Jonestownish suicide pact.
Did the Whigs act like this before they went down the crapper?
It’s kind of “it would be funny if it were not so tragic”.
I know it’s easy to look from the outside and criticise, but really America, how do you keep letting people like this run for any office at all?
Ohhhh I know we Brits cannot criticise too heavily, we have Nadine Dorries, but Santorum? Really? That’s beyond the pale. Now don’t make Walton and I come over there (he’s formed the advance party) and re-institute the monarchy. Although….we do need the ~250 years of back taxes…
Louis
Louis: Hmmmm, I wonder what that would come to. The tea destroyed would be about 3.5 million alone.
If the fight goes the full length (with, I hope, >2 candidates in the running) the GOP conference will be very entertaining.
At the moment I think we’ll take £10 and the promise of not invading Scotland for the oil. A real promise, not the one we made about Iran.
Louis
And well played scaryduck & Marcus Hill above @41 & 42. I laughed. A lot.
The fun comes in looking at the raw numbers. His Frothiness won Minnesota with approximately the same number of votes as he got in New Hampshire, where he placed fifth. In both Minnesota and Colorado, fewer votes were *cast* than were received by just *Mittens* in NH (and it was a low turnout in NH).
“Mabel, you wanna go vote? It’s our civic duty.”
“Clarence, have you actually looked at the candidates?”
“Point taken, Mabel; could you hand me the remote? Let’s see what’s on the Food Network.”
If anything,we are learning that there are four distinct ways to be a hateful scumfuck while maintaining political viability. I used to imagine there were only three.
What I find interesting in all of this is that with no one running against Obama in these primaries, the Dems are getting zero publicity–and it’s helping them!
They just sit in park while the Repubs go past them in reverse.
Louis: Americans never make real promises involving oil-related invasions!
Redwood, it is rare for a first term incumbent to be challenged within their party. This is not at all unusual. What is unusual is how extreme all of the Republicans are talking, who ever ends up on top will have to moderate their message once the nomination is wrapped up.
janine: Yes, but how successful they will be at moderating, and especially making the public forget what they said in the primaries, is another question.
Anubisprime @#40 : Most polls seem to indicate that the majority of caucus attendees and primary voters in the GOP events are from the most right-wing and socially conservative wing of the party.
(this is only an example, from Florida, but I think it’s fairly representative http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/primaries/epolls/fl )
So, you get a result skewed toward the extreme right. Or so says the conventional wisdom.
“Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq.”
~Chris Hedges
Thank You for Standing Up
Welcome to the internet age.
Or one could do a tactic that Newt has already used, claim that any use of his quoted words is a lie.
janine, I was just thinking about how last time, when there was no incumbent running, the primaries of both parties got mentioned, giving both of them “publicity.” Because no one is running against Obama this time, the Dems get no mention at all while the Repubs get a lot and yet it seems to be hurting them more than helping them.
It’s usually a balancing act for candidates to pander to the extremes in primaries and then swing back the other way to appeal to independents who are considered more centrally located in general elections. You’re absolutely right that this year the GOPhers are going much farther than usual.
A friend of mine has the following conspiracy theory about this election: He thinks the GOP leadership doesn’t expect to win this year. Therefore, they let all their crazies run. If they lose then the establishment can say, “We gave you your chance. Back to a supporting role while we cut taxes some more.” If they win, free bonus for the GOP.
I don’t know that it’s true, but it sounds vaguely plausible. Of course, those who believe that they can control Santorum and pals should study recent history a bit more. I’m thinking specifically of a group called the mujahadeen and its successor group…
Look at what I plucked out of the santorum. Don’t worry, I wore latex gloves.
Even from the little that I’ve been subjected to at this distance, it seems to me that Obama’s election broadcasts could be made entirely from compilations of footage of the Republican candidate’s speeches and statements from the primaries, broadcast without comment, and they’d be pretty effective at attracting those floating voters.
Yesterday I see a headline for “Romney falls to a surging santorum”
“Surging Santorum”
*Shudder*
I’m a conservative but I would vote for Obama before voting for an uneducated moron like Santorum. I like to pretend real Republicans don’t deny basic scientific facts, but unfortunately those real Republicans are rare.
Some copying and pasting follows. Please notice that Santorum calls the foundation of biology a liberal belief, as if natural selection is a political idea. The stupidity burns in Idiot America.
Rick Santorum — who strongly opposes the theory of evolution — took aim at rival GOP contender Jon Huntsman this week over his stance on evolution.
Asked to define his own position on the issue, Santorum told the Philadelphia Inquirer in an email, “I believe in Genesis 1:1 — God created the heavens and the earth. I don’t know exactly how God did it or exactly how long it took him, but I do know that He did it. If Gov. Huntsman wants to believe that he is the descendant of a monkey, then he has the right to believe that — but I disagree with him on this and the many other liberal beliefs he shares with Democrats. For John Huntsman to categorize anyone as ‘anti-science’ or ‘extreme’ because they believe in God is ridiculous.”
Santorum once proposed an amendment that would have forced the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula.
WNYC reports:
He also has his name tied to intelligent design: the “Santorum Amendment” to the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act would have forced public schools to offer the creationist perspective in science classes, and to call into question the scientific evidence supporting evolution. That amendment was rejected. In a 2005 interview with NPR, however, Santorum stated that he was no longer comfortable with intelligent design being taught in schools. But he did maintain his opposition to evolution, emphasizing that classroom focus should be on evolution’s discrepancies.
“I’m not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom. What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view,” Santorum said. “And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not.”
dianne @ 60
“A friend of mine has the following conspiracy theory about this election: He thinks the GOP leadership doesn’t expect to win this year. Therefore, they let all their crazies run.”
It certainly seems that way.
Seems the extremes are out in force this year.
Is it maybe a case of a jostling for position within the Party and not really about a presidential contest?
The heart & ‘soul’ of GOP seems to be the prize here.
Because I cannot imagine the GOP demographic of a middle class American GOP voter actually supporting an extreme right winger no matter what party!
Contrary to world popular opinion, I do believe that there are some intelligence in the country…OK maybe they prefer something to be done about immigration especially the illegal sort…and maybe some are hoping for tax breaks…which traditionally the Rethuglians boast about delivering…whether they do or not.
But in the main it is doubtful such unmitigated insanity bigotry homophobia and hatreds are or ever will be part and parcel of the majority of supporters of the Grand Old Party…I cannot see that being a normal view…if it is …then ‘merca is truly fucked from several different directions at once…and as such it would be an unsustainable and frankly pathetic position to be in.
Europe would further isolate itself from such dubious attitudes and turn trade to the far East although it would possibly keep Canada in the loop.
But special preferred trade pacts would fall apart quite swiftly.
Imagine Palin as second in insanity…one speech…and one ‘mismeant’ sentence & ‘Merca would be at war with Russia.
That bimbo is just fucking dangerous and does not even know it!
Nah!…America can be many things…but surely not head banging nuts.
Admittedly they excel at strange and wondrous stupidities…and certainly so does Blighty although Blighty does it with a comic colonialist style which is hard to get seriously angry at……but American’s are not crazy…are they?
Cuttlefish @ 50:
As long as it’s not santorum…
You do not want Santorum to the nominee. Yes, he would PROBABLY lose the general election to Obama, but probably is not the same as definitly. All it would take is a nasty October Surprise and suddenly you have the most vile hate-filled man to hold the Presidency in a long, long time. Yes, Romney would be a bad president, but Santorum is vile.
Tsk. Every time you use the name Santorum, you should link the name Santorum.
Let’s not make it any easier for them to disarm the Google-bomb.
#63 prospect151 – Yesterday, the Seattle Times had an article titled, “Romney looks to squelch Santorum in 2 states.” After about 15 minutes, and quite a few wicked comments, the Times changed the headline.
Seriously, are newspaper editors really so clueless?
Gregory & 69
‘Seriously, are newspaper editors really so clueless?’
Well most print media jockeys at one time subscribed to the first law of Murdoch without flinching…
“WHEN I WANT YOUR OPINION , I WILL GIVE IT TO YOU”
But in this brave new world of post Murdoch incompetence and sleaze some seem to be attempting to swim for themselves…and drowning in their own intellectual sink hole!
The industry lord and master has been proven to be less then infallible,
A certain panic is creeping in without such ‘beneficent’ guidance even though he is still furiously fiddling on the burning deck of News International…seems a rather detuned and frankly grating cacophony emanating from there.
Doubtful he will ever be puppet master ever again…certainly in Blighty…the Brits simply will not have it…fool me once and all that!
Yes, but the subbies aren’t… ;-)
I’d cheer…but then I remember how they laughed at Nehemiah Scudder.
America can be many things…but surely not head banging nuts.
Well, looking at American history and current American politics, I can’t imagine how you came to that conclusion.
If it’s any solace, though, my theory is this: America likes to flirt with disaster, but when disaster gets too fresh, America has no problem with slapping its face, kicking it in the groin and going back to the bar to grumble in its drink about how there are no more good ones out there. Consider, for example, McCarthy: that could easily have slid into true fascism, but it didn’t. Neither did Bush manage to get dictatorial powers, even in a crisis.
And ultimately, we’re electing a president, not a dictator. Should Santorum win the presidency (take a moment to shudder at the image then move on), he might want to turn the US into a Handmaid’s Tale style religious dictatorship, but he’ll have a very hard time doing so.
I do hope Fate* is not watching me type and getting ready to dump a load of Santorum on the country for my overly optimistic analysis…
*Don’t be alarmed. I don’t really believe in fate. But…the internet is forever and if Santorum is elected and manages to fulfill his dream of a Christian (or else) nation, there are some prize quotes for future mining in there…
I’m on the outside too, but not by much; I live about 140 km from the border. The rise of the lunatic right wing in the US is frightening. The closer you are to the stage, the more the comedy seems like horror. I feel deeply for sane Americans who see their country—to quote Ozzie—"going off the rails on a crazy train." I worry that my country will be taken out in the crash.
Indeed. Voters elected G.W. Bush in 2000 (or more accurately, the Supreme Court appointed him). Then they re-elected him in 2004!!! Anything can happen.
really America, how do you keep letting people like this run for any office at all?
We don’t LET them run for office, we insist that they run for office. We select for them. Really, can anyone think of any US president at any time in history that you’d feel comfortable asking to babysit your kid or even leave alone in your house? I can’t.
janine @61: “The amendment is pro-marriage, it isn’t anti anyone” You have to love the fundies for their ability to lie with a straight face!
Yes, we’re cruel and unfair to people who believe in the traditional definition of marriage. Also to people who believe in the traditional definition of human being: adult male caucasian who owns real estate.
Satanorum is a broken human. And he didn’t even come by it honestly such as some severe adverse life event.
If he got elected, I’d give up on the USA. It’s not possible to stand in the way of 310 million lemmings running off of a cliff.
Satanorum wasn’t even reelected senator in Pennsylvania during the Bush administration. And Pennsyltucky isn’t exactly a bastion of liberalism. There were a lot of issues with his corrupt style, being a Washington insider, and so on.
Basically the Tea Party/GOP has been fishing through their garbage for failed candidates. Gingrich was also discredited long ago.
Yep, two stupid fools who would reassure Obama winning a second term. What a loser you are. Your deity is imaginary, and you babble a book of mythology/fiction. Prove otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence.
I got a sense of Poe on winthrop’s comment.
The notsogood pastor is either a Poe or a Troll. Either way not very entertaining. I’m still new at this and it’s not very good material for snining my fangs (did I get that right?)
the pastor has been godbotting on the Mencken thread, maybe PZ might want to take a look at it.
But yeah, wasn’t Huntsman the only one who could vaguely be construed as being in favour of teaching science in schools?
News flash to our godbot here: this was the primary, not the general election. But Obama also got elected in the caucuses, right? So there you go. You have a science proponent in the heart of PZ Myers country…
pelamun: Yeah, looks like a troll now that I’ve examined the other thread. Ariaflame, go for it if you want to. Should be some nice squishy fodder.
The comments system filters out <sarcasm> and </sarcasm> tags and sometimes it’s hard to recognize parody when the quality is low.
A simple ad against Romney:
– Show his net worth and annual income
– Show his tax rate
– Show his line “Corporations are people too”
Rinse, repeat.
Brother Yam,
don’t forget to include:
– I like to fire people
– I’m unemployed too
– I’m not concerned about the very poor
– let’s bet for $10,000
– giving an unemployed man $50
Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers might as well run for president themselves…
See also the 2008 version of the electoral D&D game, thanks to which I am pretty much incapable of hearing Dennis Kucinich’s name without thinking “I’M A BARD!”
@doctorzoom:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/11/dungeons-and-dragons-presidential-candidates/ :)
@my 90:
That actually links to http://www.funnyordie.com/lists/e0cb0351f6/presidential-candidates-explained-through-dungeons-and-dragons-character-sheets – so click there… cause it’s faster.
@dianne:
My theory as well. So far the Obama administration has been pretty much business-as-usual, Republican-lite. I think when they do look to win in 2016 they’ll run a Republican governor like they did with Bush: someone not that well-known, someone the lamestream media can sell as moral and respectable.
I think when they do look to win in 2016 they’ll run a Republican governor like they did with Bush: someone not that well-known, someone the lamestream media can sell as moral and respectable.
Someone named “Jeb”?
I fear that the reprehensible positions of the Reps (and Dems to an arguable “lesser of two evils” extent) are really just symptoms of a broken and flawed system.
I actually see why the Reps are so able to play into the “big government is bad government” rubbish when, from a systemic point of view, there are so many things to be disillusioned (or, for those with guns and mullets, Libtardarian) about.
And, just for the sake of being accurate, corporations actually are, in law, “persons” – but not “people” (“persons” can be bodies corporate, trusts, partnerships, individuals, etc. “Individuals” are natural persons – or “people”!). Not that that makes Romney any less of a privileged, ignorant asshole…
Heh – America’s royal family.
dianne: Not sure if Americans would go for Bush III. But then again, I never put anything past this profoundly stupid electorate
I would concur with much of what seems to be a trend of thought in the posts above. As a leftist libertarian (with Trotskyite leanings; -6.62, -6.15 on the political compass)it seems that the Rethuglicans have a certain suicidal inclination in choice of candidates, or lack thereof.
I hope in my heart of hearts however that the general populace of the USA has the intelligence to make the eventual correct choice.
Though I’m not sure I even made the right one during the last election. It is coming down to the choice between the lesser of the two, or more, evils.
“Sigh” :(
Hehehe
Managed to incorporate surging into a Santorum post. Well played, PZ.
Are comments appearing here?
How would they stop them? I don’t think it needs to be a conspiracy – just that a lot of possible contenders, including crazies (e.g. Huckabee – remember him? He’ll likely be back in 2016) decided to sit this one out because they thought Obama would probably win. As he probably will: an incumbent President has won in around 2/3 of elections where there is one, offing Osama has meant the charge of being soft on terrorists is hard to maintain, and the economy seems to be improving, though that is quite recent. For sane Republican possibles, the dominance of the crazies would have been another factor: even the candidates who are arguably sane (Romney and Gingrich – an empty shirt and a psychopath respectively, but their past records suggest at least a nodding acquaintance with reality) are obliged to feign craziness.
@Francisco Bacopa #27:
We need to spam this link around as well.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/05/opinion/obeidallah-santorum-sharia/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Yes, he really wants to do his own version of sharia law.
Nine MSN news headline and apparently what Mr Stinkyfroth himself said :
Source : http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8416312
Bolding original.
Is Frothymix deliberately playing up to his name here or what?
See also if you haven’t already from :
http://blog.spreadingsantorum.com/
One – WARNING very Not Safe For Work – youtube clip here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=72o8e1Eyls4
that makes an apt analogy.
Randomfactor @72:
“…they laughed at Nehemiah Scudder.”
*shudder*
Quoting dianne:
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, probably various other founding fathers.
To not be trite, how about Jimmy Carter? I kind of like him. (His energy policies were quite unfortunate though.)
josh117:
Oh, yes, terrible. Terrible of him to advocate conservation, and funding non-middle east energy sources. Worst of all he advocated research into solar and wind power, supporting those damn hippie liberals and their evil plot to prevent people in coastal areas from being driven out of their homes in the hundreds of millions by rising oceans, to prevent agriculture from collapsing in the face of dramatically altered weather patterns, to prevent numerous species who can’t cross roads and cities from going extinct when the climate they evolved in moves poleward …
Should I go on, or have you began to realize how stupid it is of you to whine about energy policies which are, as it turns out, a necessary response to the pollution caused by fossil fuel energy?
(Yes, I’m well aware Carter’s goal was to stop funding religious extremists in the middle east, and stay out of wars in that area. Perhaps that was your real problem?)
Talk about a derailing.
My problem with Carter’s energy policies is the same as our energy policies today. If you actually do the research, you will find that solar and wind are still completely ineffectual at providing baseload power for anything above, say, 20% of baseload.
Nuclear is cheaper, safer, and greener. Even conventional light water reactors, although I am a big fan of generation IV reactors like the IFR and LFTR. The technology we have now for conventional fission reactors is much much closer to meeting all of our goals compared to the alternatives, and it has been for the last 40 years.
Take solar. Even if the solar panels were free, it wouldn’t work. The problem is how to store energy for the night, and for cloudy days. Here’s some example links of the actual math for possible solutions.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
To be fair, sodium-sulfur batteries appear plausible, and they were not discussed in the above link. However, they’re still too expensive to be practical by a magnitude or two.