I have never had much affection for republicans, so I don't bother watching their coverage. I catch snippets of it here and there and the content is lacking, Mostly focus grouped platitudes and staged cleverness that are so embarrassingly asinine that they may as well have been rapped.
The last few years have not been kind to the republican party. Despite having control of our entire government and free reign on the budget process they have made it clear that they plain, old fashion suck. Everything that makes a republican a republican has been proven wrong. Gun control is hard to argue against in the wake of school shootings, Free trade took a beating after NAFTA was roundly proven to do more harm then good and then propose CAFTA which is the same greasy stuff. Don't get me started on "family values" and "fiscal responsibility".
The only trick they have left is immigration, but this was always a minor issue to them. They don't even have a consensus that I can tell, except that its bad. Some want high fences. Others say that, yeah fences are OK, but leave a hole for workers to get through because Americans won't clean a grease trap (for the record, I have cleaned a grease trap). This argument over immigration has something civil-war-y about it, should we oppress people to get low cost labor? I have an inkling that the argument for slavery was something like "There are some jobs that confederates just won't do."
I really thought they were washed up. H.W. was no reagan and Dole was no H.W. and Bush Jr. is no Dole and this crop of hopefuls leaves a lot to be desired. Yet they endure. Someone somewhere is watching this stuff and saying "That's my guy." The only reason I can think that people vote for them? I think they feel sorry for them. Like when a kid shows you a magic trick and you pretend you don't know how it works and act all surprised when they show you your card - even though it isn't really your card - you just want them to feel good. They spend all this money and make the effort to be your friend - what are you going to do? Tell them there's no Santa?
Moral: Barack Hussein Obama
