Battleground Florida: Clown-on-Clown Violence
It’s time to put a couple fresh plump Florida oranges in a tube sock, and let the beating begin. All week long, Americans have been treated to the horrifying yet compelling spectacle of the two frontrunners in the GOP race for their party’s nomination pummeling each other like Roman gladiators before the bloodthirsty crowd.
The winning gladiator, in whatever desperate shape he happens to be – steak on his eye, split lip, dragging one leg, bleeding on the carpet – has earned the right to move on to the big fight. He’ll be wildly flailing his half-functional limb at the current champion who’s had his feet up, eating grapes and watching the carnage.
During Ronald Reagan’s 1966 campaign for governor of California, he established the so-called Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
“I am, in fact, the legitimate heir to the Reagan movement, not some liberal from Massachusetts,” Gingrich proclaimed on Sunday while simultaneously giving the Gipper’s eleventh, the finger. Don’t speak ill of a fellow Republican? Screw that. Newt has tasted win. And he likes it like crack. He’ll do anything for more, man… Anything. And with his numbers falling, and now behind by double digits to Mitt Romney, that means amping up the vitriol.
Having called Romney “pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase” on Sunday, Gingrich added the title “pro-gay rights” on Monday, in an acidic interview with Fox News. He rewound his last few days of attacks, combining all of his insults and all his vitriol into a string of remarkable assaults on Romney.
And so, the Romney Gingrich mad elephant fight rages on, with Republicans frantically choosing sides in an epic struggle for the right to lose in November. And the Democrats just laugh.
In Palinesque style, Gingrich has also perfected the art of the shameless pander. What’s a trip to Florida without promising the space coast a new lunar colony (by the end of his second term), or without casually mentioning that his opponent, during his time as Massachusetts governor, vetoed funds to expand the provision of kosher food for retirees. Gingrich, the Lutheran-turned-Baptist-turned-Catholic, ablaze with smugness and unashamed by his own transparency, announced that “Romney cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare.”
NASA – check
Jews – check
Retirees – check
Homophopes, evangelicals, and gun nuts? Check, check, and check.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has countered by throwing four times as much money into his own advertising, and gazing down his nose, calling Gingrich’s desperate attacks “sad.” He has played the superiority card as only the perfectly coiffed moneyed elite can play it. (insert golf clap here)
And what would a bout of clown-on-clown violence be without a caustic screeching ring girl?
Yes, Sarah Palin has chimed in denouncing the Florida battle as “Stalinesque” and “cannibalism.” “I’m not whining about the viciousness,” she notes, but the “rewritten history.” “Enough is enough with the lies about Newt Gingrich.”
Nope, the viciousness is A-OK with Palin. Big thumbs up for that. As a matter of fact, Palin’s pseudo-endorsement of Gingrich was only, she claimed, to keep the competition going. Don’t call off the bloodbath yet! They’re both still technically standing! Palin’s rationale from the marble seat in the Coliseum where she sits is that “we need a big dog who has been sharpened and shaped through the school of hard knocks the most.”
And so they bludgeon on, with Gingrich vowing to take it all the way to the convention, and President Obama going up against the “sharpened and shaped big dog” who can stay upright and conscious the longest.
Our thoughts wander to November, and we picture the reigning champion, in gleaming Brooks Brothers gladiator-wear, fist pumping, nostrils flared, approaching the wheezing, swaying “big dog.” The champ touches his confused, sweaty opponent with an index finger to the solar plexus, and down he goes like a big oozing tree. A loser-shaped ring of dust rises around him as he lands.
But in the meantime, there is butter to melt, and salt to sprinkle, and corn to pop. We have many rounds to go before the end of this dog fight. Here’s to Florida. We don’t really care who wins, so the best we can do is hope for an entertaining night.
Mitt or Newt? Bah! Hillary could beat either of these guppies.
With one brain tied behind her back and without a dog tied to the car.
Was he really too cheap to get a large enough car for his family, or a little covered trailer to haul their stuff in? Had he never heard of U-Haul?
I’ve often said that I don’t really trust people who don’t like animals. You don’t have to have one, you just have to like them. But Mitt has shown that, even if he likes animals, he doesn’t have any more regard or understanding of them than he does of people. Saying that the dog was happy up there on top of the car, even though it was clearly in distress, and doing nothing about it but hosing off the dog and putting him back up there should be a clear warning of how he would treat the least of our human population. He is disgusting.
I really enjoy seeing photos or video of the Obamas with their dog. They really seem to like and appreciate him. He’s so well behaved and not in a cowed way. Ted Kennedy did a great job having the puppy trained for life in the public eye.
Mitt says when he is President he will build America’s armed forces .
I thought we already had the best and biggest in the world.
And I don’t see that he or any of his sons have served in the armed forces.
I think i am correct on this.
Oh—but he does have his money in foreign banks. Does this count??????
And keep in mind that he “served” as a missionary in France during the Vietnam War, the same (according to Mitt) as fighting in Vietnam as a soldier at the same time. And, also too, his sons “served” his campaign in 2008 and that was the same as fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan at the same time. So, all told, both Mitt and his family have loyally “served” their country. If Mitt were a pacifist, I could understand, but equating two years in France in the 1960’s and helping on your father’s political campaign to being a soldier under fire is just inexcusable especially coming from someone who aspires to be president and in the position of sending young people into war.
I don’t care what he says, serving your church is not the same as serving your country. Plenty of Mormons serve in the military as well as going on a mission after they graduate from high school. I wish someone would call him out on that.
It’s not that I think every presidential candidate has to have served in the military – the rules changed after Viet Nam, after all. But they at least need to be honest about it. And if they were of the era of the draft and they didn’t go in, then they should be up front about how they got out of serving (ahem, Mr. Gingrich).
Ol’ Helmet Hair would have been the ideal asset for 1980’s rethuglicans during the cold war. She could’ve single-handedly knocked a hole in the Berlin Wall with her noggin and become a household name,instead of someone else’s elses. Newt could have dumped her for another,and probably will anyway. Desperate Newts call for desperate measures. I wonder if Mitten’s Grandkids are all born with silver temples,like Stewart Granger?
Popcorn, a cold Corona, and clownicide – and Newt’s down for a thirteen count. He looks bumbed enough to spend the night w/ his wife.
Is that a picture of Sarah Palin or Julianne Moore at the top?
No, that’s Sarah. She’s hollering at Todd to quit shooting the garbage cans because she’s gonna be on Hannity in five minutes!
Down with Fidel.
The Newtster might have pandered more effectively to the Cuban exile community in South Fla.
from Newt ” Spanish is the language of the Ghetto”
And he vows that it shall never be spoken upon his moon.
I think I’ll buy some Cargill stock… in my small IRA 😉
The Gov wants to shut down farm offices in several States. Appanoose County in Iowa is one on the chopping block. The meeting today drew over 200 people with a visitor from DC. All we heard from him was he will take our concerns back to Washington. What I heard at the meeting today, didn’t make any sense. Hopefully we will win—-and keep our office in Appanoose, and farmers won’t have to travel to near by towns to conduct their farm business.
Forgot to post the link:
http://www.agrinews.com/some/fsa/offices/may/close/story-4247.html
If I were the Governor of Illinois or Iowa I would command all farmers to put aside their plans for Spring planting and only allow for planting corn. The entire world will flock to their markets to keep up with the popping demands.
With help from fringe lunatics like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain and El Rushbo, the Republicans are now engaged in full out, unabridged, not-for-the faint-of-heart self destruction. Thank you Jesus!
I heard the guests on Chris Matthews earlier talking about 2008 and how the WORST it got between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was his comment in a debate that she was “likeable enough” and her saying at one point in Ohio “Shame on you Barack Obama!”
Oh, the horror!! Then they went on to use terms like “carpet bombing,” and “strapping on a suicide vest” and “unprescented full out assault” to describe what has gone on with TV ads in Florida. You know what you guys? Thanks for writing the Democrats ads for the fall campaign. Whoever the nominee is will wear these noxious attacks like an anchor around their neck.
We have lots of work to do but we deeply appreciate your in-kind contributions. And I think it will get worse before they are finished with eachother.
Meanwhile, Pig Newton’s campaign is under investigation in Virginia, where they failed to get Swingrich’s name on the ballot. Yep, you guessed it, they committed voter fraud:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9099
“When MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show picked up on the extraordinary hypocrisy exposed by the Gingrich campaign’s apparent 1,500 acts of fraud — in what guest host Chris Hayes described as being “from the Department of Shameless Schadenfreude” — they pointed to a 2009 op-ed in which the former Speaker had inaccurately blasted ACORN for a crime they never committed. [See the Maddow Show’s video below.]
“”ACORN has a long history of engaging in voter fraud,” Gingrich falsely charged in his op-ed at the time, in reference to the exact same thing that Gingrich himself now refers to as little more than “just a mistake”: Submitting thousands of fraudulent signatures to election officials.”
Why does this sound so familiar? Oh, that’s right, the Clinton impeachment, where the Vagina Whisperer was doing, well, you know …
Willard may be guilty of voter fraud (and perhaps tax fraud) as well. It’s in the same bradblog article to which I linked; just keep reading.
“The winning gladiator, in whatever desperate shape he happens to be – steak on his eye, split lip, dragging one leg, bleeding on the carpet – has earned the right to move on to the big fight. He’ll be wildly flailing his half-functional limb……”
It’s just a flesh wound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4
don’t bring out that sweet bunny rabbit, it will be more than a flesh wound. I like that movie, one of my favs. I remember my mom and her sister watching that show, they were laughing so hard, they cried.
Romney the Rich has plenty of moolah to patch up any wounds; if he doesn’t want to spend his hard-earned cash, given he’s unemployed and all, his Big Bank Buddies will gladly loan him a few more millions.
Excellent summary of the bloody fight!
I’m actually sort of kinda waitin’ for those two to really go after one another, I know Newt would be the one to make the first blow. I’m hoping at the next debate, Newttie does his thing and smacks Mitten.
In the meantime, did any of you catch The Colbert Report last night? OMG he equated Quittypants to the Wicked witch of the East from The Wizard of OZ. Palin should be foaming at the mouth about now, can’t wait for her twitter reply. =)Her messing with Colbert will be like Fox News messing with Kermit and Miss Piggy.
My worst nightmare is a third president Bush. Yes, I mean Jeb. If the delegates are split 50-50 at convention time, neither Romney nor Gingrich may be the nominee. And yes, I believe many voters in this nation are stupid enough, and uninformed enough, to vote for Bush the Third. Faux Noize has made sure of that, along with right-wing radio ranters like Rush.
That said, I expect Obama to win the election handily, no matter which of these bozos is the last klown standing. That will mean mobilizing EVERYONE to vote, including the disaffected and disenchanted among us. GOTV!
I am also afraid of another president named “Bush.” I think Jeb, if he were really smart (but then he’s a Bush) would ride this election out because there are too many memories of the brother he foisted on the country in 2000. I think the idea is that the Convention will name the candidate and then, because they always do, the Republicans will ardently support whoever is named. So much for the gazillion dollars spent on all of this debate nonsense to say nothing of how our ears and eyes hurt from having to listen to, read or watch these clown candidates. If I had any say, there would be no campaigning, none at all, until January of the election year. Anyone even tries to campaign ahead of time would forfeit their candidacy. The debates were designed to grab the headlines for a year before any of the primaries and they have succeeded in doing that. What they didn’t count on, however, was that the candidates would be such a bunch of losers.
I agree also, too. Look for Bush3 in 2016. Aargh…
I don’t think Bush #3 will stick his nose in this election. But agree with most that he will try to go for the next one. The country is still suffering from the mess his brother made. And people have not forgotten. I also think he is smarter that his brother.
And don’t forget that Jeb’s wife is Mexican. This election cycle there is WAYYY too much nastiness being hurled at anyone and everyone whose skin is anything darker than skim milk. The GOP has worked far too hard to insult and degrade anyone who isn’t a rich white male to allow someone from south of the border to become First Lady.
They can’t demonize those rotten job stealin’ illegals and blame them for everything evil in our country (helped along by those lazy, food-stamp-using African-Americans livin’ off the taxes of them hardworkin’ white folks, of course) if the candidate’s wife is from the same country!
That doesn’t mean he’d be better–but it could mean he’d be better at getting blood from the middle class turnip.
Okay, I am laughing up a lung . . . .
And when I have dried my eyes and my side has stopped hurting,
I too shall head for the kitchen for something crunch and salty to snack on
as the GOP keeps me conversely horrified and entertained . . . .
And here she is raging away against the machine that plans to crucify Newt:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/31/1059770/-Animation:-Palin-defends-Newt-%28actualaudio%29
Be sure to read the messages on the left hand side as you watch the animation. Does she ever take a breath?