The natural order of things will not be tampered with

It's been interesting to watch the Republican clown car over the last couple of weeks, as lunatic after lunatic has risen to the top of the cable news feeding frenzy (and as a result, in the Pavolvian response of GOP voters), then crashed and burned after each one's lunacy and idiocy has been so out there for the world to see, that not even a 24/7 news-o-tainment cycle could save them.

For a while there, it seemed as if Newt Gingrich would be the Big Winner™ of the Iowa caucuses, thus demonstrating what a foolish and ridiculous country we are that we allow a bunch of people who get paid to go to meetings to essentially pick our presidential nominees. But whether it's his party turning against him, or Gingrich's own socipathic narcissistic self-aggrandizing musings on The World According to Newt, his own meteoric rise seems to be over. Claiming that low-income children in cities have no role models other than pimps and hos and crack dealers so they should become school janitors after school didn't quite do it in the Party of Mean (perhaps even THAT wasn't quite mean enough), but the Money Wing of the party is concerned enough about this loose cannon that they've been pulling out the stops (NYT link):

Attack ads are blanketing Iowa, fueled by millions of dollars from his rivals and a group supporting Mitt Romney. Mailboxes are filling up with anti-Gingrich leaflets. And on the stump, his rivals have stepped up their assault on Mr. Gingrich’s time in Congress and his commitment to conservative causes.

Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, emerged in early December with a strong lead in some national polls and with commanding leads in Iowa and South Carolina. But new surveys suggest that political gravity could be dragging him down, opening the race up again and highlighting once more the fickle search among conservatives for an alternative to Mr. Romney.

“It’s definitely a full frontal assault,” said John Stineman, a Republican strategist who managed the 2000 presidential campaign of Steve Forbes in Iowa. He said the criticism of Mr. Gingrich has been impossible to avoid in Iowa. “The fact is, he’s getting killed,” he said.

For most of December, Mr. Gingrich has refused to push back aggressively against the attacks, promising a positive approach and pursuing a relatively limited schedule of traditional campaigning. He spent last weekend largely off the trail, attending a concert in Virginia where his wife, Callista, played the French horn.

Perhaps because not attending would have required another half-million in Tiffany's jewelry to placate the former bent-over-the-desk Newtie plaything.

A daily tracking poll by Gallup released on Monday showed that Mr. Gingrich’s lead has all but evaporated, leaving him in a dead heat with Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. A new CNN survey also showed the race tied nationally. And an automated poll of Iowa voters showed an even steeper drop for Mr. Gingrich, though many news organizations have reservations about its methodology.

His decline highlighted the unsettled nature of a contest in which many Republican voters say they are still open minded about whom they will vote for; a New York Times/CBS News poll this month found that two-thirds of likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa were still willing to change their minds. On Monday, Sarah Palin said on Fox Business Network that “it’s not too late” for “folks” to jump into the Republican contest.

Just in case you thought that Evita Mooselini had disappeared.

But you needn't fear that we're going to have another media love affair with Sarah Palin. What this GOP race shows is that when the rubber meets the road, the Money Wing of the Republican Party trumps the God Wing every single time. And right now, Mitt Romney, he of the millions of dollars flowing into his pockets from Bain Capital every year who is and the planned $167/year tax cut for the middle class that he claims will help because "It's not nothing", barring a surge by the Ron Paulites, should do well enough in Iowa to hit New Hampshire in pretty good shape.

Except for one thing. Jeb Bush had an op-ed in the Murdoch Street Journal the other day that sure reads both like like a cri de coeur of the Money Wing of the GOP and a campaign speech.

Let's face it: A Jeb Bush/Paul Ryan ticket is the Money Wing's dream team. Utterly committed to corporate power, huge tax cuts for the richest Americans, and a complete and radical dismantling of the social safety net, combined with a family history of complete and utter loyalty to the haves and the have-mores, and without all that Mormon baggage, it's been clear from the beginning, long before George W. Bush and Dick Cheney managed to steal the executive branch of the United States government and begin their appointed task of wrecking the nation in just eight years, that Jeb Bush has always been the one they wanted. Jeb is smarter than his brother, but every bit as heartless and committed to the destruction of the middle class -- and he's one of THEM in a way Mitt Romney, despite his second-generation money made by putting thousands of middle-class Americans out of work, just isn't -- because of all this stuff about golden plates and Jesus living here in the U.S....and that pesky governor of Massachusetts thing.

But whether Jeb decides to be a late entry, swatting the Grifter Palin away with one hand and riding in on his valiant steed to be Savior of the GOP, or the Paulie Walnuts of Bain Capital prevails, one thing is certain: The Money Wing of the Republican Party always, always, always gets its way.

Even when the Democrat wins.

Meet the Yahoos

Now that Herman Cain has "suspended" his campaign so he can spend more time with his attorneys and the GOP field once again bleached to its usual levels, the differences between the candidates become less obvious (four of the five men taking part in the debate wore red ties). Minus Jon Huntsman, last night's ABC News-Yahoo debate looked like the 19th Hole at Augusta with Michele Bachmann as the barfly at 1:59 AM hoping to get noticed.

Obeying the laws of campaign politics, the other nominees played Capture the Flag, taking turns taking swipes at Grand Old Philanderer Newt Gingrich. At 68, this is obviously Newt's last hurrah in his quest for the Oval Office. By process of attrition and running against a clearly mentally unbalanced field consisting of non-entities, morons and psychopaths, Newt is currently on the top of the dunghill even while crowing about making children janitors. And Mitt Romney, Newt's closest competitor and in a process straight out of Last Action Hero or The Purple Rose of Cairo is playing Gordon Gecko to the hilt, proving, as always, to be about as popular as Pat Buchanan in the Castro.

As usual, the punches and counter-punches were done under the guise of civility, with Mitt stiffly laughing as only a possessed Gentleman's Wearhouse mannequin can at Newt Gingrich's jibe that the only thing that kept him from being a career politician was getting his uptight ass slapped over his well-coiffed head by Ted Kennedy, which is true (One can only imagine Romney after the debate, seething with fury and looking for someone's dog to strap on a car roof). But it hardly made Gingrich any less of an insider, an image that he's trying to belie in the current wave of anti-incumbency that was powerful enough to make even Barney Frank retire.

Rick Perry's neurons fired together just long enough to note that the American electorate is quite justified in factoring in a man's infidelity to his wife and to extrapolate from that a suspicion about his moral turpitude in general. Gingrich got points in the always-supine MSM for "smoothly" parrying Perry's thrust. Yet it's notable that while agreeing the American public has a right to ask any questions of any presidential candidate, he also referred to his own serial adultery as if talking about some other Newt Gingrich or a ne'er do well kid brother. Never once in his agreement with Perry did Gingrich admit to any wrongdoing except to say in the abstract, "I've made some mistakes". Nor did giving the American public a blank check to ask any questions it saw fit jibe with the typical Republican surliness and thuggery that comes with trying to hold the candidates' feet to the fire.

Despite currently leading in three of the four early primary states. Gingrich will not survive the holiday season and will be put on a shelf with the other fruitcakes so we can start all over again. Romney is running away from his "liberal" past and flip-flopping about as successfully as a three legged elephant. Romney's detested for that and two other reasons: His Mormonism and the fact that he's just not nasty enough. Republican voters, I think, have come to the consensus that Romney intends to do what's best for Wall Street and purging the nation of unions, gays and liberals may be just an afterthought.

Huntsman and Paul, who are more adroit at hiding their own particular lunacy, are the two scrawny kids always picked last for the kickball game and will never even get to be the flavor of the day. And even among a demographic that revels in watching traffic at NASCAR tracks and WWE wrestling, Bachmann and Perry are just too stupid for even these people to elect (although, how George W. Bush slipped by them 12 years ago is still anyone's guess).

Santorum can forget having any political future ever again thanks to Dan Savage and Google. Plus, as the field's only other Catholic, he'll never pass muster with the evangelical vote that's still waiting for Republican Jesus to come down in a golf cart made of light and wearing a Brooks Brothers suit. Santorum is the worst of both worlds: He's simply crazy and stupid, a shithouse rat that's been clonked on the head too many times with a pipe wrench.

That leaves Romney, a guy who could name his campaign "Bridesmaid Revisited" and who changes positions more often than a double-jointed porn star with ADHD. But the truth is, Romney and Gingrich both have one thing handicapping them: They both present an appearance of being career politicians at least in ambition while being miserable failures at it. Year after year, after getting hounded out of the House when his Contract With America crashed and burned on the Lakehurst, New Jersey part of the political landscape, the Lizard King has spent his time forming exploratory committees that told him every fours that no one wanted him as President.

Romney, when he wasn't taking over weakened companies in hostile takeovers with Bain Capital and throwing American workers on the streets, has only a failed single term as Massachusetts' Governor to point to and otherwise has failed like he's failing now to secure any other position. Because even the mouth-breathing electorate that make up Crazy Base World know the difference between someone who wants to do something (even if it's destroying our social safety net and making unions a quaint thing of the past) and someone who just wants to be something.

Romney and Gingrich, moreso than the also-rans, are coldly ambitious. Beneath that transparently disingenuous veneer of affability and reasonableness squirms two wannabes who would literally cut the tendons above their grandmothers' heels if they thought it would augment by one iota their chances of getting into the Oval Office.

And, as always, the biggest thing they have going for them is the "R" after their names and their dedication to getting that Muslim, Kenyan, Commie nigger out of the White House. And Gingrich has the edge simply because he's not Mitt.

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special Republican Clown Car edition

Before I proceed to the linkitude, I want to congratulate my and longtime friends Gabriel (my original blogbrother) and Dennis on 19 years of showing those irresponsible, hedonistic red staters what love and commitment look like.



Now, our shirts are clean and pressed and our haircuts are precise, so let's start the show:



Tom Degan, who can always be relied on for some damn fine rantin', makes me want to go downstairs and dig out Mr. Brilliant's copy of "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" for some summer reading now that I have a brief breather of living like a normal person.



Addicting Info has the Bachmann/corn dog photo you've all been waiting for. And Down With Tyranny has even more fun photos from Crazytown, Iowa.



More hilarious Iowa Straw Poll photographs at Princess Sparkle Pony's photo blog. Nothing like people with a million dollar line of credit at Tiffany's pretending to be Just Like Iowa Farm Folks.



Batocchio: Thou Shalt Not Question Supply-Side Jesus.



Beeryblog identifies America's dummy belt.



At Driftglass, a Photoshop job that should give you nightmares. Especially since the homonculus you're looking at is going to be the next president.