GOP Race: What A Strange, Strange Trip It’s Been…

Now that the caucus votes in Iowa have been cast, it’s time to look back on the race for the Republican Presidential nominee so far. And what a race it’s been! In a year where the pundits tell us the electorate is looking for an “outsider”, we’ve seen a lobbyist and former central banker  (Herman Cain), a disgraced House Leader with a penchant for lobbyists’ cash and affairs (Newt Gingrich) and now the king of earmarks (at least a billion dollars) and deep friend to lobbyists who lost his seat by the widest margin in the history of his state (Rick Santorum) all top the polls at some point. We’ve seen a Governor who can’t count to three (Rick Perry), a House Representative with a tentative relationship with truthfulness (Michele Bachmann) and a candidate who dropped out before a single vote was cast (Tim Pawlenty). And another House Representative who stakes out positions his opponents refuse to even consider worthy of debate, but who received one in five votes in Iowa (Ron Paul), while another candidate changes positions with remarkable fluidity to suit the mood of the electorate and is considered the “presumptive nominee” despite seemingly incapable of rising above 25% in the polls, no matter how much money he spends, how many endorsements he gets or which position he stakes out on a particular day (Mitt Romney).

Throughout the debates we’ve seen flat out lies, and lots of them: Iran has promised to launch a nuclear attack against the United States (Bachmann, and Santorum and Gingrich, to lesser extents), the HPV innoculation can lead to brain disease (Bachmann again), a panel made up of seven Democrats and seven Republicans, and which voted thirteen to one for sanctions against the House Speaker, was a “partisan attack” (Gingrich), and many more.

We’ve learned that Newt Gingrich was in favor of a personal health mandate when that view point paid (a reported $37 million to his foundation) but is against it now (at least since March). Mitt Romney was in favor of it too, and implemented it, but now considers it unconstitutional.

Rick Santorum, we learned, wants to bomb Iran and then “publicize it”, and says not a penny can be cut from the military (while the United States spends more on its military than the next twenty countries combined). He also believes the Constitution does not confer the right of privacy to individuals, including the right to consensual relations between two people in the privacy of their home (he really believes this, including a husband and wife).

The US spends more on the military than the next 20 countries combined.

We’ve seen two candidates on, essentially, book tours who suddenly found themselves leading the pack, and just as suddenly found themselves back on book tours (Gingrich and Cain).

We’ve seen a candidate who fought hard for hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for a company which immediately put him on their payroll once he was trouced out of office by a disgusted electorate (Santorum). And billed taxpayers $72,000 per year for private school for his children while in office. He now runs as the “outsider” and the “true conservative”.

We’ve seen a contender who thinks any position other than “pro-war” is “dangerous”, but who repeatedly refused when he was drafted into the military (Gingrich).

And throughout it all, we’ve watched a restless electorate switch their support from one flawed candidate to another, while the political pundits label each candidate “top tier”, until their fifteen minutes are up (see Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich and, soon, Santorum). That same electorate has sent to the top of the polls some of the most deeply “establishment”, big-government, big-spending candidates who have been working the system for years.

What a strange, strange trip it’s been…