Political Perry-noia Abounds

A recent collage I created...

Well, I apologize for being gone from here so long. Suffice it to say, LIFE got in the way, although it was a pleasant obstruction. More often than not when that happens, it is anything but pleasure, so I am grateful.

At any rate, where was I? Oh, right, debate review. I ended up being gone so long I think they've had 2 or 3 more by now. I lose count, but Perry's honeymoon period has come and gone, and I'm quickly losing patience with all of this adherance to the far Right's cultural PARANOIA that is all landing on Perry like shit on a stick -- hence, PERRYNOIA has been born.

I really need to get this off my chest about Bachmann: I have noticed a very annoying and cheap trick in her political bag, that of spreading gossip about her opponents. And, that combined with me not agreeing with her far-right Christian Conservative social and personal beliefs, has turned me off her completely. Not that I ever was a fan, but I was willing to give her an open mind and I did for awhile, until she reminded me of every other socially sheltered immature person in my life who has chosen righteous stubbornness for their bubble-view tunnel vision over a search for enlightenment, balance, tolerance and reason within the larger world. I am glad to have seen the Florida straw voters turn against her.

Bachmann oozes good girl evangelical in her decision-making, and at first I tried to look for it being a facade, as in, is there maybe a rational secular pragmatist inside there just pretending to be what her core base wants to see? I even found myself wishing it were so, but now I know she is as much at home sending secret code to her following as she is speaking to the "rest of us". That is disappointing at best. We do not want a president who speaks to "his/her" true believers in code (some say we already have one right now), and Bachmann has been doing that. Imagine needing your president to come to your aid and instead being told no because you do not believe as you should. Bachmann IS what Palin's opponents accuse her of being. Without getting into an argument about how far you can throw that kind of thing, suffice it to say that the president should be someone for the people, all the people. Bachmann is of her people only, and a true believer of that.

On to veep choices. I believe Rubio will be the strategic winner on this for two reasons: he's handsome and he's latino. The latino thing will seal the deal. The GOP needs to gain inroads with this demographic worse than Texas needs rain, and having one of their own on the ticket will do that better than attracting flies with a honey-coated stick. However, in the (unlikely) event that Rubio doesn't agree, I think going with Cain will prove to be a good sound choice. For Romney. I do not think Cain would accept a slot with Perry. Plus, Perry has a bit of a bromance with Rubio in real life. They are besties.

So, sit there and picture Romney with Cain and Perry with Rubio. Then, try to picture Paul with anyone.  LOL, not so much, eh? This illustrates something for me: Paul will not be the GOP nominee. But that won't stop him from running third-party, though. And I believe he just might. But his running mate will probably be someone most of us don't even know. Or maybe it'll be Gary Johnson. Choices to chew on.

I like what that scenario might do the more I think about it. I really think a Paul third-party candidacy will hurt Obama more than the GOP candidate. Humor me for a bit: let's say Perry gets the GOP nomination and he goes with Rubio. That puts it as a 3-way race between Obama/Biden, Perry/Rubio and Paul/Paul (let's fun it up and have his son Rand run with him). This would be a great result to my way of thinking, which is that we need to be as centrist as we can in our politics right now in order to maintain the magic of American capitalistic democracy. And such an array of choices gives us this, as crazy as it seems.

This should indicate to you that I truly haven't made up my mind yet. Obama is also still in my choices, believe it or not. I try to keep an open mind. Although, that is getting harder by the moment, because at present I'm halfway through the book, Confidence Men by Ron Suskind.  I completely agree with this NYT Book Reviews assessment of the book. To me, it's like, DUH. This is why I did not vote for Obama, hello? Still, the vote for president is a choice, most of the time between two evils, hardly ever a choice for the person of your dreams, ya know? This is the only reason Obama remains in my stable of realistic choices, because as bad as he is, he may end up being the best choice in 13 months. Anyway, an eye-opening book, highly recommended.