Rick Santorum had reached his limit. It was now late December, which meant he had been running for president for more than two years. Two years, and all he had to show were an asterisk in the polls and a very embarrassing Google problem. True, when he’d bought the house in Virginia and moved his family from Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, he had trusted the Family Values crowd to hail him as a hero. They would thrill to the red-meat speeches of Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich occasionally, but merely as amusement. They would stand by the man who had sacrificed his Senate seat on the altar of homophobia.
But lately, Rick had begun to worry. He had trouble finding endorsements in Iowa, and when he did, they always seemed to be connected to horrible extremists. He lay awake at night, tossing and turning underneath his Ronald Reagan security blanket, tears welling in his eyes as he pictured loving gay and lesbian couples, their sworn vows unshaken by the damage to the institution wrought by Amy Koch and Kim Kardashian, finally settling into a comfortable and happy life in the suburbs.
It was more than the bigoted mind could bear! Visions of unapologetically liberated women haunted him! Daytime fantasies of coming home to a hot meal and a pipe while Karen slaved away in the White House kitchen permeated his thoughts, and the thing was, they wouldn’t understand the danger America was in. He, Rick, alone understood this. He had intuitively grasped the looming threat of gay marriage, abortion and progressive taxation on the imaginary America of his youth. He had ridden the fear into the Senate twice. His country needed him, and he wasn’t there. Awwww…
The idea came to him on the Monday before Christmas. He had just finished making some girl cry at a speech in West Des Moines when she asked him if he trusted her with her own body, and checked the inbox to see if there was at least a word about Romney saying he’d been brainwashed on Iraq or Newt ditching Callista while she was in the hospital. There was nothing but an e-mail from a couple of his old friends from the death-to-abortionists circuit, offering to send deformed fetus dolls to all Iowa voters on his behalf for the right price. At least they cared enough to write. It was a Mississippi organization. You could win any Republican primary with that kind of support behind you.
Then it struck him! He didn’t have enough momentum to attract the support of the religious right in the accepted fashion, true, but why not buy it for himself? It was absurdly simple. He would offer money to an influential nutjob, who would then endorse his candidacy. The next day Rick went to The Family Leader and offered the necessary sops. He promised to ignore any and all Supreme Court decisions not written by Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia, arrest any woman who set foot within five blocks of a Planned Parenthood clinic without documentation that she was not pregnant, and leave a large donation just right for an organization like The Family Leader. He judged that with a lot of money to promote the endorsement he could win quite handily. A few signed copies of his book, some coffee from Maid Rite, and it would probably be as good as a holiday in the Hawkeye State.
By Tuesday afternoon, Rick was set. Bob Vander Plaats had thoroughly endorsed him, although The Family Leader did not endorse a candidate as an organization. He’d marked himself the Family Values Candidate, and as he sat curled up before the CNN cameras, resting on the cheap non-union made chairs from Vietnam that they had thoughtfully provided, he tried to picture the look of awe and happiness on Karen’s face back in Virginia as she set down her vacuum cleaner and frying pan, turned on the television, tuned in to Fox News and saw her boss…erm, husband finally victorious in Iowa. She would cheer for him, and then get back to the kitchen. If only he’d thought of this before! Suddenly rough hands gripped his package and he felt himself borne up…until he realized it was just his usual nervous fantasizing just before the TV cameras were turned on.
Michelle Obama had just finished setting her hair. It had been a very rough week. She had to remember to turn off the news next time Jim Sensenbrenner appeared. Jim had been nice enough about it, though. After it was over he’d given her some semblance of an apology and, after all, his rear end was five times the size of hers and even though, no, he didn’t respect women at all, he did feel an affection for all the money they spent on Kotex since so much of it ended up in his pocket. And after all, they were grown adults. Oh, and what Sir Mix-a-Lot could teach Jim. But all that seemed many years ago.
Barack Obama, her very very best friend, walked in from the West Wing and into the living quarters. “Oh, god, it’s absolutely balmy outside, nothing like Chicago!” “Cut the crap, Barry, you’re from Hawaii!” Michelle tightened the belt on her cotton robe with the silk outer edge. Barack ran his finger over some powdered sugar on the dresser, licked his finger and made a face. “I’m not supposed to be eating those donuts, but” he wrinkled his nose, “last time I caved in to Fox News they just found other things to criticize.” Michelle started to pat herself under the chin, an exercise she’d seen on television. “God, don’t even talk about that.” She got up from the table and went to the sink where she picked up a bottle of Centrum one-a-day. “Want one? Supposed to be better than steak,” and then attempted to touch her knees. “I don’t think I’ll ever touch a donut again.”
She gave up and sat down, this time nearer to the small table that supported the telephone. “Maybe Bill will call,” she said to Barack’s glance. Barack nibbled on a cuticle. “After 2008, I thought you’d be through with him.” “I know what you mean. My God, he was like an international lothario, Russian hands and Roman fingers, but Hillary stands by her man and so he’s out to get us all the way to the convention!” She gestured, raising her arms upwards in defense. “The thing is, after a while, you get tired of fighting with him, you know, and after all we kicked some butt on health care when he couldn’t get anything through Congress, so I guess we’re even. You know what I mean.” She started to scratch. Barack was giggling with his hand over his mouth. “I’ll tell you, I felt the same way, and even after a while,” here he bent forward in a whisper, “I wanted Hillary to be Secretary of State so she’d always be out of the country!” Now they were laughing very loudly.
It was at this point that some intern from a well-connected family knocked at the chamber door. When Michelle Obama opened the door, he told her to turn on CNN right away. He left with a tip that Michelle had had handed down from her mother about standing up straighter than that when you’re at someone else’s door. “What do you think is on CNN?” Barack asked. Michelle stood with her arms folded behind her back. She stared at the blank television screen at the far end of the living room. “I dunno.”
Inside the studio, Rick quivered with excitement as he waited for his cue. Barack ran his fingernail over the remote control for the television. “Why don’t we at least turn on the TV long enough to make sure it’s not Sensenbrenner again?” Rick felt his heart beating. He could see the soaring poll numbers already. It would be soon.
Michelle walked to the television and bit the bullet. “Ah, God, it’s Santorum!” “That schmuck!” said Barack. Rick trembled with expectation. “Well, we might as well see what he’s whining about now,” said Barack. Both of them tried to listen to Rick’s spiel, but it was too loaded down with puritanical bigotry as usual. “Argh,” said Michelle, groaning, “he must have slicked his hair with Vaseline this time.” She turned to the television again. “My god, you’d need a power drill to remove all that makeup.” They tried again. “He can’t get a grip.” They both stood still, breathing heavily.
Why don’t we just turn it off?” said Barack. He reached for the remote, but before he could flip the channel, Michelle stopped him. “I got an idea.” “What?” “Just watch,” said Michelle, touching her finger to her head.
Back before the cameras, Rick was so transfixed with excitement that he could barely breathe. His skin felt prickly from the heat, and he could feel his heart beating in his throat. It would be soon. Michelle stood quite upright and walked around to the other side of the television. Then she sank down to her knees, folded her hands in her lap and listened to Rick. “What he talked about was he needed money to promote the endorsement and that that would be important to do that." Yet the candidate added: "There was never a direct ask for me to go out and raise money for it." CNN further reported: "Vander Plaats said he'd like to have the money to do television advertisements to promote his personal endorsement of Santorum, and he urges Santorum backers to contribute money for that purpose." Out in the wintry wonderland of Iowa, the news went right through all the newspapers, through the county central committees, through the caucus chairs’ consciousness, through the Republican noise machine, and (thud) right through the center of Rick Santorum’s already miniscule support, which scattered every which way and caused little rhythmic arcs of poll numbers to spatter across the landscape like that frothy mixture of spermicide and fecal matter that is often the result of anal sex.
(See here if you are unfamilar with the allusion. And happy holidays!)