Those John Cusack for President people in 2004 were on to something

Picture the following as a campaign speech:

McCain, who said he knows nothing about economics, will surely hand over the reins to the Friedmanites and neoconservatives who have sent the country on a path to ruin. Anyone looking at his team could tell you that. Palin and the interests she represents are even further to the right.

Now, no one in their right mind -- including reasonable independents and Republicans -- wants to double down on neocon ideology, but here comes the "maverick" and his economic advisers to use the crises we face to implement more "change" and "reform" to the system by privatizing everything in sight. Is this what the American people want? When they are aware of it, the answer is always no. It's the same bullshit re-branded.

It may happen in a shock therapy in the first 100 days, or financial chaos may force them to wait until things stabilize, but sooner or later they will follow their fundamentalist creed. Ruin the government you are purporting to run and turn it over to privatization frenzy, creating a shadow government of private corporate rule. That's the whole idea.

So let's brand bust this maverick gibberish but understand the coded language that belies their true mission... we should take them at the true meaning of their words.

Not just more of the same -- worse than the same. Times of crisis are great opportunities to implement the radical agendas we usually reject.

That's also the idea.

McCain and the neocon ideologues won't "reform" government, they will gut government and privatize everything in sight in the name of responding to the crises they helped engineer through Bush and Cheney. Their view of government is the reverse of the Hippocratic Oath: do harm and then when the patient is sick, give the wrong medicine, watch him die, and sell off the body parts.

They will destroy the Department of Energy, HUD, the list goes on and on. With this crew, all you need to do is destroy government, privatize it and get out of the way, and then a magic utopia appears. Well, actually it doesn't, but a lot of connected people get rich, and in the privatized war business, blood money flows and a fuck of a lot of innocent people die. The legacy of Bush/McCain is a legacy of shame. Any man that stood with this criminal administration should be forced to answer for it.

The Republicans have been ruinous and most of it stems from an ideology that leaves the government in ruins. McCain has been on board hook, line and sinker. He voted with Bush over 90% of the time. End of story.

It is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest to call it reform when leaders want to cripple government, then hand it over to private industry, usually subsidized by taxpayers, but for other people's profits. More like contempt for government.

Red meat for dummies... a horror show for the rest of us.

OK, maybe there are people who just can't wrap their minds around "Lloyd Dobler" as a political candidate. But damn if there isn't a candidate in there screaming to get out.