Where does one begin? Rick Perry dropping out of the race? Mitt Romney stashing huge sums of money in offshore Cayman Island accounts? (Huge to us, at any rate: 8 million dollars, which perhaps isn’t all that much to Mr. Romney.) Rick Santorum actually winning the race in Iowa, though for some arcane reason his win is now being called a "draw." Or Newt Gingrich and the Threesome That Could Have Been?
Threesomes trump everything else in politics. Perhaps in other areas of life. We wouldn't know for certain. Really. As of the time of this writing (noon PST, Thursday Jan. 19), Mr. Gingrich’s ex-wife Marianne will give an interview on ABC tonight regarding the moral excesses of her then-husband, the then-Speaker of the House. Gingrich apparently wanted to have an open marriage with Marianne, enjoying both her and his younger intern Callista simultaneously. Marianne refused. And now, on the eve of the most important election of the GOP hopeful’s life, she will be sharing the intimate details on national TV.
One must wonder how the Republican voters of South Carolina will react. How the word "threesome" will feel on their lips. How it will resonate in their brains. Presumably they won’t be voting for Mr. Gingrich Saturday. Perhaps they will be voting for Mr. Romney?
Another bombshell dropped this morning: Mitt Romney keeps millions of dollars in offshore investment accounts based in the Cayman Islands. At a time when taxes, and how little the wealthy pay in taxes, are among the most pertinent of issues in the election, this revelation can’t help the man who is becoming the poster boy for plutocracy. Though there has been no allegation of wrongdoing by Mr. Romney, the words "Cayman Islands" certainly conjure images of the seamier side of high finance, and could very well drive away the blue-collar voters who are doubtless preparing to abandon Newt Gingrich’s foundering vessel.
Perhaps those voters will look to Rick Perry. Or perhaps not – he’s dropped out of the race, though with polling numbers so low that one could be forgiven for not noticing. (Seriously, how does he keep winning the governor’s office in Texas? Is it a regional thing? Is he somehow not considered, how to put it politely, sub-par in intelligence down there? In the land of the blind, is the one-eyed man king?)
Who remains to attract the South Carolina free-floating conservative vote? Herman Cain’s name is still on the ballot, and with social satirist Stephen Colbert launching an Occupy movement to take over that ballot spot, a few percentage points could lodge themselves on the Cain Train as combination protest vote/Colbert fan vote/I hadn’t heard Mr. Cain had dropped out of the race vote. A few percentage points. Possibly more than Mr. Perry would have received, had he continued to run, which could very well have been the deciding factor in Mr. Perry’s sudden departure from the race.
So, we come to Rick Santorum. We come and we go. Though the evangelicals in Texas recently gave him the nod, he is as finished as Rick Perry. Nobody really likes him. The sweater vests. The baby-boy look. We know that look is big with Republicans right now, but really. It just doesn’t work for the Man Who Would Be King. And when you google him, the terrible things you encounter. His name is synonymous with, well, we must quote it directly: "The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." It’s incredibly unfortunate for him that his name just happens to mean that. Didn’t he consider changing it while younger, before he went into politics? Maybe change it to Rick Smegma? Alas, he probably doesn’t have a chance to hold national office with such an unfortunate last name.
Unfortunate seems to be his middle name, as well. When he was behind by eight votes in the Iowa count, it was hailed as a huge win for Mitt Romney. Now that the final count has been tallied, Rick Santorum is 34 votes ahead, and the race is being officially called a draw by Republican Party officials. Apparently, with votes from eight precincts missing (and, let’s face it, with the Anointed One no longer ahead in the vote count), the final results are too inconclusive to declare a definitive winner. Unfortunate.
And who remains? Ron Paul?
The GOP primaries have gone to the land beyond bizarre. The man who would slash the military, would close almost all bases overseas, and wouldn’t have ordered the hit on Osama Bin Laden, might stand a chance to win in South Carolina on Saturday....
Or not.
VOTE HERMAN CAIN
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