Republicans: Striving to Lose in 2012

Election season is a lot like James Cameron's films. They're awful, contrived and no matter how much they suck, they just keep happening every so often. As the 2012 election season grows near, we can look forward to more pointless drama, absurd accusations, stupid arguments and the same charade the candidates go through every year to convince the voters that they're somehow different from each other.

As someone who used to be Republican (we all make mistakes) I tend to follow the Republican candidates more closely than the Democratic ones. I don't actually know why. I think it's a combination of nostalgia and the fact that the Republicans are just so entertaining. Say what you will about the Republican Party, but no one knows how to be flamboyant like a right-winger with political aspirations. Democratic debates are like fencing matches. Republican debates are brawls.

And Republicans are so, well, I won't say honest. They are, after all, just like their colleagues on the left; they want one thing and one thing only: power. And they will lie as often as they have to to get it. However, Republican candidates are so brazen and open about their stupidity. Liberals try to act like they can get along with anyone. It plays to their base. Republicans also play to their base: the no-compromise hardliners. This means that the candidate with the most hard-charging, arrogant, over-the-top attitude is going to connect with the voters.

I should clarify, at this point, that I'm speaking of candidates and hardcore voters. Real-life Republicans and Democrats, the ones who aren't part of the show, who just do their thing every day and are registered with their party because they think it represents them, are very nice, for the most part.

So, that out of the way, I can safely express that, despite everything I've just said, I hate Republican politics. Republicans, it can't be helped, are super-annoying. Whether you're talking about Mitt Romney, the right-wing version of John Kerry, or John "my mommy thinks you should totally vote for me (and did I mention I was in Vietnam?)" McCain, Republicans just never understand why their tactics turn off a large portion of the American people.

There is one Republican candidate, however, who is worse than all the others, and has a special place reserved in wherever it is that politicians go when they die (I'm thinking Camden, NJ).

This is Mike Huckabee, and he wants you to believe in the same God he does, and if you don't, he'll make you. According to Fox News (though usually when I deal with them I also get a voodoo Shaman priest to give a second, more credible, opinion), the top contenders for 2012 are this guy and Mitt Romney. (You know, the guy whose public works project killed a woman?)

I think we can safely assume that if this is what the Republican Party has to offer, they deserve to be beaten, as they will be. Can we reflect, for just a moment, on the absurdity, the sheer, utter ridiculousness of a man whose views are to a large degree theocratic being one of the front-runners of a national party? It's way past the time in our history when we should be trying to elect anyone, anyone who advocates religious statutes. I don't know who's running things at the RNC these days, but they need to get it through their head that it is bad for their image to put forth a candidate who has more in common with the monarchs of 14th century Europe than with the average American voter. I cannot express how much I personally disrespect anyone who tries to tell me that their religion is so superior that they have to force people to follow it. And I would hazard a very strong guess that I am not the only one who feels that way.

The Republican Party these days is a gasping, dying animal, and the only way for it to recover is to bring forth reasonable, likable candidates. That's exactly why Obama won in the first place: he was likable. (Also because he was running against John McCain, but no one is supposed to mention that because it makes Obama's victory look so much less impressive and much more like what it actually was: a pretty standard political outcome given the candidates involved.) And it's why he's going to win again.

In 2012, Obama will take the White House, and once again it will be hailed as a great victory when, in reality, the Republicans will have, like last time, shot themselves in the foot because they ran Romney or Huckabee or dead-animal hairpiece man. They will have lost. They will have been beaten. They will have deserved it.