
Can anyone make sense of the Republican circus now spiraling to its climax like a mid-West twister about to snake down from the under belly of a cloud and wreck the landscape? What a
tempting field for future PhDs in politics, psychiatry, mass hysteria, and side shows.
A Republican pundit called three of them “protest” candidates whose rise in the polls indicated dissatisfaction with the field. These are Michele Bachmann, who lives in her own delusional world, Herman Cain, a carny barker to whom “truth” is inconvenient, and Rick Perry, whose fragile hold on his own thoughts makes you wonder how he survived as a military pilot, unless his C-130 had a flawless autopilot so all he had to do was take off and land. Okay for a Texas governor, but not for the U.S. President who may never stop piloting the ship of State.
Ron Paul has never risen to the top, but his supporters will stick to the end. Rick Santorum’s smarmy religiosity and “right to life” mumbling scares all except fellow ideologues. And Jon Huntsman may yet get his 15 minutes of fame.
Some feel sure that Mitt Romney will be the last man standing. A candidate as substantial as a hologram may confort panicky Republicans who can turn him into anything they please. But he lost many at a debate when the moderator asked, “How many here do not believe in evolution?”
Most hands shot up, and then, as if measuring the crowd, Romney slowly raised, his, a sheepish smile on his handsome central casting face. Does anyone imagine that if all hands had stayed down, Romney would have raised his? If he picked up a few Tea Party pawns, he lost more reasonable Republicans. Would a man who flutters in the wind make a good President? Which way would he flutter when facing powerful world leaders and the stakes are life and death?
The current flavor of the week is Professor Newton Leroy Gingrich, PhD, academic, historian, idea man, and smartest guy in the room. Despite his present high standing in the polls, one pundit dismissed him saying, “The problem for Newt, is that he doesn’t wear well.”
Now that is serious, because politicians, like actors, must wear well, Try to imagine Newt in a starring role: Hamlet? The Godfather? Terminator? How about The Man who Came to Dinner? I’ve got it! The Bogart role in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. At least he’s mean enough.