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Hustings Hustler: GOP Rocks the Granite State
Posted June 19, 2011
[for lack of a better name I've decided to dub my sporadic political column the "Hustings Hustler." Because I adore alliteration.]
The second GOP debate took place this week in New Hampshire, also known as the Granite State, which is a peculiar name, considering that you could carve seventeen full size New Hampshire sculptures out of the granite in California and still have some stone left over to add Barack Obama to Mount Rushmore.
New Hampshire is important to the Republican Party both because it holds the first primary and takes a serious anti-tax stance. You might believe the state's motto is "Live Free or Die," but it is in fact "Live Fee or Die." The state makes up for lost tax revenue by imposing fees on everything. It's a crucial difference: with taxation, the government takes money from its citizens. In the fee system, the government takes money from its citizens. New Hampshire also derives income from beating up Vermont for its milk money.
Mitt Romney has solidified his position as GOP front runner, which is pretty easy to do when several candidates have yet to enter the race and it's a whopping eight months from now until the New Hampshire primary. Do you know how many penis pictures Anthony Weiner could tweet in eight months? I don't know. More than you could shake a... never mind.
Since we last met there have been some minor changes to the field. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are definitely in, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump are out.
The highlight of the Granite State Debate was T-paw attempting to weasel his way out of prior statements concerning the mutant hybrid "ObamneyCare," a hard-to-pronounce sleight against both the President's and Mitt Romney's health care plans. T-paw has a point: it's totally fair to question how Mitt Romney could be against Obama's health care plan even as he signed into law its very model as Massachusetts governor. When Pawlenty was asked at the debate if he would "come and say that to my face," the former Minnesota gov ran away with his big bushy squirrel tail between his legs. That's right: he ran away from Mitt Romney, who has never done anything worse to anyone than naming his son Tagg. If T-paw's plan to differentiate himself from Romney was to establish that a) he's a former governor from a different state that starts with M and b) he's a coward, Mission Accomplished!
Herman "The Godfather" Cain skirted around his prior demand for loyalty tests for Muslims in his administration. It's too bad that he was caught showing off both his prejudice and his inability to waffle effectively when he should have talked about the economy. Cain knows about the economy because he used to sell pizza. To reduce unemployment Cain plans to offer pizza delivery jobs to every unemployed man and woman with a 1981 Toyota Cressida and a solid weed connection.
Wait. Ex-governor. Ex-senator. Ex-governor. Ex-House speaker. Ex-pizza magnate.* Of the seven people on the debate stage, only Michele Crazyboots Bachmann and Rowdy Ron Paul have jobs. That's right: you know who's going to fix our economy and give everyone jobs? A bunch of unemployed people.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich's entire staff decided to spend more time with their not Newt Gingrich. Apparently they realized what I could have told them months ago if I wasn't busy tweeting junk pics around the internet: Newt isn't really running for president, he's running so his ideas can be injected into the greater Republican debate. The big reason Newt's people have departed en masse is they don't believe his social media-heavy campaign strategy, which looks something like this: "vote for me and I promise not to tweet you a photo of my penis. Which is called Big Newt."
At least, unlike Gingrich himself, his campaign staff didn't wait until he was hospitalized with cancer to dump him.
Former Ambassador John Huntsman plans to announce his campaign plans at New York's Liberty Park, which most likely means he's in the running, otherwise he'd make his statement at Who Gives a Fuck Field, which is home to the New York Mets. I didn't include Huntsman in my writeup last time. He's a moderate Republican from Utah and his face keeps freaking me out.
We've all been there: you see what you think is a beautiful woman from behind, she turns around and you hear the staccato reak reak reak sound from Psycho and she has the face of Freddy Krueger but he's been burned with acid and run over with a lawnmower. You know what I'm talking about. And she still rejects you because you're so goddamn superficial.
All I'm saying is that I first saw Huntsman's face in profile and I thought damn, you're JFK-handsome. Then you see his face straight on and he's got all the inhuman charm of a baby wombat.
But the wombat face is the least of his problems. His most recent job has been as the Ambassador to China for President Barack Hussein Obama.
They will just call him Huntsman-Chinabama.
You might think that moderate Republicans have no place in the primaries but you have to realize that historically, the GOP has been much more likely to nominate the traditional old guard (no taxes, loves big business, only pretends to give a shit about abortion) than the crazies. Nixon and George H W Bush were definitely on the moderate side, as was John McCain, that is, until he and George Bush kissed and made up and Bush replaced his brain with a Bible and some oat bran while nobody was looking.
Hell, between Huntsman and Romney and the Book of Mormon winning its Tony, it's a great year for the tribe of Joseph Smith. If people stopped confusing them with Scientology they'd be set.
The last shadow candidate is Rick Perry, who is the guitarist from Aerosmith, and used to play Dylan on Beverly Hills 90210, but since Aerosmith is on hiatus while Steven Tyler offers his enormous lips as shelter for contestants on American Idol, Rick Perry is now moonlighting as governor of Texas.
Governor Perry has been hinting that he might run for president, and kicked off his non-campaign with a prayer event which "received criticism," according to the New York Times. A negative article in the Times for Perry's fundraising team is like winning the big high school game, the chili cook-off and banging the entire cheerleading squad on the same day!
The gist of the article suggests it's not appropriate for a sitting governor to hold a giant evangelical prayer rally to psyche people up for when they get to heaven so they can roast the bones of non-believers. Side note: Perry's Houston prayer rally is co-sponsored by the gay-bashing group International House of Prayer. Yes: IHOP.
Rick Perry has become more likely to announce his candidacy for several reasons. The current field of candidates is unimpressive. Sorry Mitt, but you are boring. You don't even say any crazy Mormon things! Also, there are signs that the economy is slowing, due to lots of circumstances outside the President's control (see Japan), and the economy could easily crater again and then Barack will have to apply for Jimmy Carter's job as "guy who became awesome after being president."
The Texas Governor will rely on a tried and true script: he will turn to God and ask him if he should run, and if God answers in the form of large campaign donations from oil companies, look to Rick Perry to crash the party. In which case I'll have a good time writing about how as a sitting governor he wanted Texas to secede from the country.
*Romney, Santorum, T-paw, Gingrich, Cain. If you got all these right you get a gold star.
 
copyright 2004-2024 G. Xavier Robillard
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