I certainly love politics, but as this is the art of the possible, it is necessary to realize that sometimes the asinine and the dangerous can still be possible. Enter the Republican primary contest. This started as a big let down as none of these candidates seemed to have any political skill. Since the start of the campaign, though, Santorum and Gingrich have really upped their demagogue game.
Rick Santorum is hoping to cash in on his so called blue collar appeal. If this appeal exists then he earned it by saying "manufacturing" more times than anyone else. His grandfather might have been a coalminer but he wouldn't be helped at all by a President Rick Santorum. Santorum actually proposes standard boilerplate trickle down economics. His concern, and he's right, is that there are some manufacturing execs who haven't made out as well as CEOs from some other sectors, and he can fix that. Workers, of course, will lose wages, benefits, and retirements. On the stump, though, he's starting to find his voice, in a race baiting, class warring, demagogue, us/them sort of way. He recently warned working class voters that they would be shocked at what "elite snobs" really said about them. I say they deserve a living wage and the rule of law applied equally to all. I say American gains in productivity need to start benefiting a wider part of our economy. This self righteous wannabe once accused President Obama of trying to advance "secularist values". These are the only kind of values a government really can advance. At least with this president fairness is one of those values.
The race, which has been a race to the bottom in many ways, feels like a final sprint to the finish. In other words, I'm not sure how much lower they can go. They're demagoging contraception, badly, but they're doing it. There may always be another GOP political suicidal crazy surge, I am frequently wrong about them. If it does happen my hunch is it will have something to do with immigration but for outrageous crazy this birth control is hard to beat.