Republican Candidates Fail to Sparkle, Why and Who Wins?

By Roger F. Gay

The old wisdom is that it's impossible for a president to get reelected in a poor economy. Strapped with historically poor performance and approval ratings, an obviously failed set of old-fashioned and rather childish far-left objectives, just as obvious superficiality and self-centeredness, a list of criminally indictable scandals, a hatred of Constitutional rule and a racist streak too broad to hide, you'd think Barack Obama, who's also had nothing to show to his base supporters but his butt-crack, would be on the verge of announcing he won't run again for the good of his party, or his family, or something.

But this is 2011. If you're too young to have noticed already, Barack Obama is the perfect politician, for somebody. We don't all agree on who that somebody is, but an obvious bit of the puzzle is that, whoever they are, they're focused on stealing as much as they can and generally think less of everyone else than Alabama road-kill. The only health of the nation that interests them is measured by their own personal short-term gains.

In my view, the difficulty in exposing them is just that there are too many of them to count and they're everywhere. Conspiracy theorists don't seem to know what to say when the protagonists can't be narrowed down to at least one special category and easily labeled. The conspirators have taken capital buildings as their club-houses and being either a greedy sociopath or one of their lying loyal lackies is required to join the club.

Does that sound like a whopper of a conspiracy theory? Well, we used to understand. Back before Western religion was banned, people generally understood the effects of temptation on the weak. And there's simply no shortage of weak. That's a small edge of religious wisdom, but as proper religion so often does, it provides a huge insight into the human condition. It's no wonder that proper civilization wouldn't have emerged and undoubtedly won't last without it. Those who would replace it with science know nothing about science, or about religion, or about either; and they tend to get confused when trying to distinguish between weakness and strength.

Competition then? Surely a traditional conservative view would save the country; that good, old-fashioned competition is all we need. It works to the good in commerce, why not politics? Well, where is it? Whenever a Republican candidate gets ever so slightly ahead of Barack Obama in the polls, it's short-lived. Most recently, Rick Perry has been a few points up. Just a few mind you. Nothing that reflects the overwhelming disadvantages of the current White House occupant (when he's not vacationing). Front-runner Perry is the new guy in the race. The vetting has begun and unsurprisingly, it's beginning to look like he's just another member of the club.

If you still feel the need to focus narrowly and identify a culprit; let's pick an important one. There is a group (an activity actually) so important that they're explicitly protected by the Bill of Rights. The very first amendment to the Constitution reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As you sit, hour after hour over the next several months, covered in cold sweat, eyeballs glued to the tube (even if it's flat), keeping track of every minute of the coming horse-race, remember this. If either side had a good candidate, there would be no reason for such apprehension. As a result, advertising revenue from political “coverage” would drop like a rock. Yep. They're in the club too.
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