If you believe the rhetoric at CPAC, perhaps you have been smoking the RepubliCrack TM too long. Of course it was no surprise that the adaptable Willard Mitt Romney once again won the CPAC straw poll and has been anointed as the GOP's great white...dope. What is shocking is how the favorite of wingnuttia, Ron Paul, tied for third place with self-appointed spokeswoman of the Republican Party, the "articulate" Sarah Palin.
Romney, seen as the savior by Mainstream Conservatives, won the straw poll with a meager 20 percent. Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindhal, fresh from his universally panned rebuttal to President Obama's speech to Congress, took second place with 14 percent. Next were the duo of Paul and Palin which tied at 13 percent. Disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was fifth with 10 percent, which sounds great for the delusional Georgian who will no doubt use that result to shakedown Republicans for his predictably inept and guaranteed failure should he actually decide to run for President. Before you start crowing about that fifth place result, Newt, you should realize you had exactly one percent more than "undecided."
Watching the Republican Party implode is like a slow-motion train wreck. I must admit that it is extremely amusing to see the party that once bragged about a permanent majority in Congress reduced to highlighting the views of a 13 year old and Joe the illegally licensed Plumber as its chief spokesmen.
Right now the party is led by an African American who was chosen by default as head of the RNC when his chief opponents were a man who mailed the now infamous "Barack the Magic Negro" parody CD to every prominent Republican in the country and a man who joined the GOP because he was opposed to desegregation.
It is actually worse than that because the GOP continues to insist that: President Obama is illegitimate both in terms of citizenship and in election results; which were no doubt aided by that nefarious socialist front, ACORN. Moreover, the Republican Party only got creamed last November because they ran a candidate that wasn't conseervative enough.
So the same tired ideas the party has in its limited playbook: tax cuts for the wealthy, more tax cuts for wealthy corporations; and the insistence on a "free market" that has never existed even when it was envisioned by Adam Smith in 1776 when Wealth of Nations was published. Note to conservatives: when you establish tariffs and corporate welfare, you are undermining the non-existent free market that you claim to worship.
Predictably, the GOP is clinging to these failed ideas without acknowledging that these ideas and the idiots tha created them actually caused our economic collapse. The current leadership in the GOP would rather we all stand in souplines, so they can crow "we told you so," while they have obstructed every effort to correct the problems they caused.
Personal responsibility is a Republican Mantra...for unmarried, single women that get pregnant because the "Christian" pharmacy refuses to stock birth control. Personal responsibility does not apply to loan officers at mortgage firms that falsified incomes and grossly inflated appraisal values for homes because they profited during the early days of the Ownership Society, but now the taxpayers must bail them out because they couldn't help themselves.
Naturally, the strategy for this is to blame both a Carter Administration law that ended the practice of redlining loans and the immorality of homeowners that defaulted on these mortgages. Regardless of whether or not a person or family can afford a home, the ultimate responsibility must fall with these banks because it is their money — except when they fail and we are stuck with Lemon Socialism.
As Eugene Robinson noted on Countdown, what was once considered the fringe element of a mainstream political party has been turned upside down. Now the mainstream of the Republican Party is dominated by wingnuttia.
Much like former President Bush, these wingnuts seem to live in a buble outside of the reality based world:
More than 1,700 people cast ballots in the 2009 CPAC poll, 57 percent of who were between the ages 18 and 25. Of the respondents, 95 percent said they disapproved of the job that President Obama was doing, only four percent approved. Meanwhile, 70 percent approved of the job Republicans in Congress were doing, 29 percent said they disapproved.
To put it another way, about one in every seven that participated in the CPAC straw poll supports the radical agenda of Ron Paul. There is no comparable dynamic at work in the current Democratic Party. The last time a fringe candidate received so much support in the Democratic Party was 32 years ago when Red baiting Henry Scoop Jacksonmisjudged the anti-Vietnam War movement and was a doomed candidate to eventual President Jimmy Carter:
Jackson raised his national profile by speaking out on Soviet-U.S. relations and Middle East policy regularly, and was considered a front-runner for the nomination when he announced the start of his campaign in February 1975. Jackson received substantial financial support from Jewish-Americans who admired his pro-Israel views, but Jackson's support of the Vietnam War resulted in hostility from the left wing of the Democratic Party.
Jackson chose to run on social issues, emphasizing law and order and his opposition to busing. Jackson was also hoping for support from labor, but the possibility that Hubert Humphrey might enter the race caused unions to offer only lukewarm support.
The fact that whacko Ron Paul is seen as the top choice of 13 percent at CPAC and Gingrich another 10 percent would be like Netroots Nation or another Democratic group having a conference and then announcing that the straw poll went as follows:
First, Al Sharpton, 20 percent; Second, Bernie Sanders (technically not a Democrat), 14 percent; Larry Flyntt, 13 percent; Roland Burris, 13 percent; and rounding out the top five, former Congressman turned sexual predator Gary Condit with 10 percent.
For that to happen, the sky would have to be yellow and the sun blue, but that seems to be what happens when you get addicted to RepubliCrack TM.