GOP Debates and A Look Ahead

Ken AshfordElection 2012Leave a Comment

I watched the GOP debate on Saturday night, and heard some of their debate held on Sunday morning.

And I have to say… even when serious, they are all serious douchebags.

It was seriously disturbing, and most distrubing of all was the frontrunner, Mitt Romney.  His doubletalk was in full force, especially when it came to the issues of privacy/abortion, as well as gay marriage.  On the latter point, here is what he said:

But — but to say that — that marriage is something other than the relationship between a man — a man and a woman, I think, is a mistake. And the reason for that is not that we want to discriminate against people or to suggest that — that gay couples are not just as loving and can’t also raise children well.

No, stop right there.  He does not want to suggest that gay couples aren't as loving and can't also raise children well.  He does not want to suggest that.  Got it?

But then, in the very next sentences, he suggests that.  Blatently:

But it’s instead a recognition that, for society as a whole, that the nation presumably will — would be better off if — if children are raised in a setting where there’s a male and a female. And there are many cases where there’s not possible: divorce, death, single parents, gay parents, and so forth.

But — but for a society to say we want to encourage, through the benefits that we associate with marriage, people to form partnerships between men and women and then raise children, which we think will — that will be the ideal setting for them to be raised.

Got that?  Society would be better off if children were raised in a man-woman marriage.

Let's put this in a different context — the racial one.  What Romney is saying (in doubletalk-ese) is this:

Oh, I don't want to suggest that blacks can't do jobs as well as whites, but I think as a society we want to encourage whites to have the better jobs because that is the ideal.

This is what happens when you try to straddle the conservative position on gay marriage along with the moderate position.  You simply can't.

And that's all I could think of as I watched Mitt Romney: "This guy just wants the gig.  He doesn't care about America."

The other things about Romney was his constant grandstanding about American freedom so that we can have more and better entrepreneurs living the American dream.  It was like he was running for the President of Future Enterprisers.  I wanted to jump through my TV set and tell him that "the American dream" doesn't just mean starting your own business.  99% of Americans don't aspire to that, and are quite content to raise a family, worship freely, and have a decent job.  Romney was serving up the ""what's good for GM is good for America" koolaid, and fortunately, I don't think that message is going to resonate far outside his circle of Wall Street cronies.

Anyway, the New Hampshire primaries are tomorrow, and they are not even worth nothing.  Romney wins there.  His poll numbers are slipping, but he still takes it by as much as 10-15 points.  The rest of the pack are kind of bunched below, noone breaking away significantly.

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That puts all the eyes on conservative South Carolina.  Romney is polling ahead there, too, and if he takes South Carolina, it's pretty much over.  But taking South Carolina is far from a sure thing.  Gingrich is picking up steam there; so is Santorum.  A win, or even a close second, from either of those two will force Romney to keep on fighting (and moving to his right).

In the end, as we always knew, it will be Romney running against Obama.  It's just a question of how long it will take him to secure the nomination and how long he will have to pretend to be an far right conservative.