The Fat is in The Fire

With about a month left until the primaries the true season for political junkies now shoots itself up. Oh and this will be a fun one. To be honest, at this point I find the Democratic race a little boring. It’s a two donkey race, with Edwards completely hopeless (he’s a Populist, but the problem is 80% of the country doesn’t know what a populist is, nor would they like to know), Richardson is meaningless, and Kucinich is nailing his to-hot wife and making to-much sense. Not only that, but Democrat’s play a very careful game in the primaries. The have to appeal to their base, but the smart ones (especially Hillary) know that they have to play the middle to ever have an actual chance of winning the presidency. It’s a cruel fact that Obama is slowly learning after a few rational missteps. His completely logical and academic argument into why he will not wear those stupid America pins didn’t exactly play well to the weak of brain. And it sure as hell was good fodder for a media that loves easy stories. But he’s been smarter lately, and, well, like the rest of the Democrat’s, consistently boring.

The Republican primary, on the other hand, is a wonderful carnival into the bizarre of modern Conservatism. Republican’s, because of overwhelming numbers in places they know they’ll win (the South and the Midwest), are allowed to play a game of crazy with their base. It’s fun to watch. I had to pound my head into a concrete wall and slug back a bottle of hearty burgundy in order to be in the proper mental context to absorb the Republican YouTube debate. But the brain damage I undoubtedly caused myself was worth it.

Rudy Giuliani was booed for saying that mental patients and criminals should be given background checks before being handed assault rifles. The Mormon Robot stared directly into the camera all night (I don’t know how he found it, no one else did) and didn’t blink once while deftly avoiding the fact that he thinks Jesus walked in America. Mike Huckabee thinks the planet is about 4000 years old (Yea!), but also thinks those dangerous Mexican’s should be given scholarships by the government (Boo!). As usual, Fred Thompson looked like he’d rather be back in his hotel room doing lines of blow off of exotic Thai prostitutes. But he did manage to wake up for a few seconds to mumble something about abortion being the biggest issue of our time, and that we should immediately halt any scientific progress on the stem cells that he couldn’t identify if they were right on a microscope in front of him. And Ron Paul kept yelling about the mistakes of Iraq and why we should become complete Isolationists (wonderful idea 50 years ago, impossible as the Lone Empire in the Modern Age). The Republican crowd didn’t know what to make of it, and Giuliani looked as if he was wondering how much money it was going to cost to put this guy out to pasture.

The real maniac of the Republican primary is Duncan Hunter. He embodies all the worst qualities of Conservatives (racism, religion and Big Guns) in one neat package. And although they may secretly enjoy his brand of insane, even Republican’s seem a little scared of him. One question was whether the candidates believed verbatim every word in the Bible (like, you know, people living in whales). Most of the candidates danced around it like Middle School prom dates; Hunter looked right into the camera and assured the country that he not only believed every note from the word of God, but that he’d slay any Arab that dared to disagree with him. Luke-warm applause.

But that’s the fun of the Republican primaries, the candidates all have unbelievable flaws even within their own party. In a recent poll, 1 out of 5 Christian Republicans told the pollsters that they would not vote for Romney simply because he was a Mormon. I’d bet it’s actually about double that percentage, as only a real interesting dogmatist would actually go on public record as one who holds faith against a candidate. Good luck fighting up-stream against those pre-lost votes Mitt.

They like that Giuliani wants to kill everything that moves, but that act may be getting a little old. Especially because Rudy’s burned through more wives than Henry the 8th, and he’s clearly only pretending to give a shit about anything Jesus has ever said. And maybe the worst part of it: he’s a greasy Catholic from New York City. Yikes, that won’t play in town hall’s in good ole’ South Carolina.

And who am I forgetting…someone…he’s old, perhaps a little senile…what’s his damn name? Ah yes, John McCain. Great on war, loves Iraq, but is against torture (I mean, what could he possible know about torture!). Plus, to Republican’s he reeks of loser. He lost to George W. Bush and the Vietcong. Tough record.

Huckabee’s been the dream candidate all week, but now that he’s playing with the Big Boy’s the dirt’s starting to fly. He’s great on Jesus (and loves to give every reporter from Anderson Cooper to Matt Taibi his Keith Richard’s story/impression/creepy-infatuation shtick), but he doesn’t hate Mexican’s. And he actually wants to spend Your Tax-Dollars to send they’re leprosy filled children to college. Ye Gods...

So who’s going to win out of this crazy collection of conservative freak shows? Hard to say. It’s very early, and there’s still plenty of time for shocking stories (like the small Indonesian children Fred Thompson keeps prisoner in his basement, feeding them fish-heads and Vicodin for his own sick pleasure). But if I had to call it I’d still go with Giuliani, simply because he has the most money. Whenever it’s a tough political call, always go with he at the top of the riches. And all of this is just a juicy appetizer to the main course of American Political Insanity: one of these shaky survivor’s will take on the formidable duo of what will morph into Clintama over the next few months. That’s when we’ll really have to sacrifice some goats, and do anything to quench the lust of this political monster.