Grand Old Parting: fix your party before causing more damage to your country

Can a Republican reach the White House this year? The answer is yes, possibly, but the real question should be: can Republicans actually run the country anywhere except into the wall*?

As I write, South Carolina Evangelists are preferring Mitt Romney to Rick Saint Orum**, and most pundits expect him to become the next GOP nominee. Mitt is probably considering vetting a running mate who doesn't know how to don the white shirt and wag the Book of Mormon, but Newt Gingrich keeps throwing Hail-Mary-passes and Latter-day Slanders, actually helping Romney for the general elections by depicting him as a Massachusetts moderate (the closest thing to a mass murderer in Amerikan lingua). For GOP's sake, even Harry Reid is a mormon.

Rick Perry is a moron, so he can perfectly qualify for the Veep position, in the great Dan Quayle tradition. Twitter darling Ron Paul prefers to bet on the next caucuses (Nevada): obviously, Libertarians cannot trust pure democracy, you know, that process where voters are actually free to think by themselves when they cast a ballot? I wish Ron were running as an Indy come November to ruin the party, but he might be tempted to salvage a few bridges for his son Rand, a mini-me with a sheep wig (Gary Johnson? I said nevermind). Which leaves us with Donald Trump, a Romney impersonator with an even sillier wig, but who does a decent "you're fired".

Mercifully, because Jon Huntsman didn't drown in New Hampshire, we'll enjoy the presence of a reasonable man in the race until at least Florida.

Mitt Romney also seems a reasonable man, but if you're starting to picture him as the next POTUS, here's some food for thought:

.Yes, this guy can win...:
- Okay, he speaks quite good French, but he is likeable enough (though not as much as Hillary, with whom I bet - four years ago - that Obama would replace Biden for his 2012 run), and he is a moderate by nowadays GOP standards (which doesn't mean anything, but some independent voters might get fooled, and even Reaganians could fall for this caricature character from a 1980s sitcom). But Romney won't be allowed to run without making unacceptable compromize, and without a dangerous lunatic one heartbeat away from nominating the next Supreme Justice.

... but no, neither Romney nor any other Republican candidate should become President...:
- We're not just talking about a person but about a party. And right now, the Republican party is not fit for power. Simple as that. This divided nation cannot afford a divided party that hasn't achieved anything positive over the past twenty years, and officially imploded eight years ago***. If they really love their country and their party, Republicans must first reform the GOP to transform it into a sustainable platform, fit to govern the nation. Even the Democrats did it twenty years ago by getting rid of their most caricatural parts, and by trading ideology for pragmatism. Of course, Reps still manage to win now and then (and not always by cheating in Florida), but look how they fail miserably when they do. And the only time they came up with a consistent vision, it was the ultimate negation of republican and democratic values. You want more impostures? Guess who turned record surplusses into record deficits, privatizing gains and socializing losses? And guess who saved American capitalism?

... and yes, Obama is still the man:
- Yes he could have performed better in many ways at home and abroad, but the things he did wrong were the things he did the conservative way, for instance getting along with corporate abuses or Israel excesses. At home, Obama managed historic reforms before the Reps shook the House. Yes, the economy hasn't recovered yet, but he has already cleaned an impressive part of the incommensurable mess they caused, and even until now they keep provoking further damage (last year's surreal budget drama exposed if needed the GOP's inability to govern). Yes, Guantanamo is not closed yet, and yes, Obama couldn't prevent the implosion of Iraq borne by the 2003 invasion, but he proved a better and smarter Commander in Chief by getting Bin Laden and freeing Libya with limited means. Yes Iran remains a danger, but the regime has lost the ideological battle home and Obama was inspirational for a change that later rocked the region.

Yes, he can.

But for that, he needs four more years, and a majority.

Since America is a free country, voters can decide that they preferred the way the country was run before Obama (reminder: the Bush-Cheney administration destroyed more value and more values than any other in American history), and that the whole country should be run like the House they voted for in 2006 (a disgrace mocked all over the world). A no-brainer, I tellya.

Right before the 2010 midterm elections I asked that simple question: "Can America really afford a Republican Second Dip?".

I have the bad habit of repeating myself, but so does History.


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*without caps: forget about that dream image of a bull on Wall Street.
**For the few retards who didn't catch his subtle marketing positioning, and the surprisingly many retards who embraced it, Rick Santorum wrote down a few words below his name on his campaign billboards: Faith, Family, and Freedom. In other words: Theocons, Paleocons, and Anticons* (for that latest flavor, see "Grand Old Parting - enter the anticons").
*** see "GOP: time to split"

Billaryious

Billy the Comeback Kid is shooting on sight. He wants Barack Obama down one way or another to save Hillary and himself from humiliation.

But shooting at a MLK-RFK wannabe 40 years after the double murder of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy doesn't sound like a smart move. "Billary" could win South Carolina and sweep Florida clean, but what would they get at the end of the day ?

A ticket for the 2008 Superbowl for sure, but also big trouble within the Democratic party... not to mention yet another competitor from NY state (Mike Bloomberg).

America wants decency. America wants to get rid of win-ugly-presidents. America needs Obama.