When I think about the various constituencies that make up today's Republican Party, I think about the true believers who were hoovered up by Reagan back in the day.
Reagan didn't really like them, but he needed them. I mean, when the first family resorts to analyzing the random patters of background stars that were present on the day they were born, well, I think you could say that they aren't really all that concerned about the end times prophecies.
Rick Santorum is as good as it gets in when it comes to these starry eyed followers. Rick Santorum is so good that I could actually see him leaving the party after SC. I could see him running on one of those family values party tickets. He would immediately command votes from those people who don't really give a rip about the whole investment banking thing, because the day is coming, and it won't matter about investments in heaven.
I also think about the capitalist archetypes like Gordon Geckko. I mean, Mitt Romney. Truth be told, I actually think of those capitalists as being more akin to Christian Bale's Character in "American Psycho." The only difference between that character and Mitt Romney is that one of them is a robot...
and the other is Batman.
So I keep considering the feeble minded field of specious reasoners who keep getting up on stage in front of bloodthirsty Romans at the latest games in the coliseum. I hear the audience spit their words in malicious ecstasy. Ecstasy used to be a word that described religious fervor. You can see that happening with this crowd. They have a religious conviction that can't be swayed.
Ron Paul is as good an example of the paranoid conspiracy theorists who haunt the folding tables at right wing events as one could imagine. I could see Ron Paul anxiously flitting about from one end of his beige folding table to the other as he expresses his fear of the government and its minions. He has a pamphlet for you. I can see Ron Paul sliding his eyes from side to side across the room, scanning for evidence of government interlopers in search of undisciplined insurrectionists.
Newt. He is the top. The tippy top. Newt is the shining star atop the Right Wing Chritmas tree (I spelled it wrong in honor of my daughter. I thought it sounded funny when she wrote "Merry Chritmas.") If you took all of the radio waves that have been wasted on Right Wing talking over the past 30+ years, you might have enough bloviatium to create just one Newt Gingrich. Only a little bit of bloviatum exists naturally, so it has to be created in the lab, and the lab is the entirety of Right Wing talking headdom.
Newt is a word cloud of right wing fear politics and rhetorical obfuscation. When Newt says something that is completely at odds with what Newt said, it is irrelevant. He is simply a mirror to the right wing talkers of the day. He is their reason for existence.
Newt is the reason we got Bush. If there were no Newt Gingrich in office, there would be no George W. Bush listed as a former, two term president.
Newt is the pressed vinyl of the right wing. The grooves and bumps in his surface were imprinted by the kingmakers and conservative credentialists who spew their verbal atrocities and limp anger each weekday all across this country.
Their coalition is made up of sheep and wolves. Once when I was at the Seattle Aquarium, I asked why some of the fish in the huge, domed tank don't eat fish who would be their normal prey. They told me that they keep the fish fed well enough that they don't have to eat the prey.
That makes me think of the Republican base. It is made up of sheep and wolves. It is a coalition of prey and predators. Maybe that's a normal setup for political coalitions, I don't know.
Here is what we are seeing: We are seeing the conservative "superman," Newt Gingrich, destroy the structural foundations upon which the current Republican house is built. In Newt's fantasy driven storyline, he is practicing the sort of creative destruction for which he maligns Romney.
"I created you," He probably reasons, "so I can destroy you."
You may as well choose this washcloth for the Republican candidate, because it will do a better job of wiping the mats off when the thing ends. At least it is useful. At least it will really be involved in some creative absorption.