The SoapBoxers

One of the most interesting things about the modern Republican Party is their strange penchant for pushing and/or believing in ideas that can be factually proven as incorrect or at the very least incompatible with their “core beliefs.” I’m not entirely sure what Republican “core beliefs” are, but from what I can gather from Fox News snippets and what my friends say, they want small government, low taxes, and lots of personal freedom – or at least the freedom for their state to choose what defines personal freedom.

On the first issue, small government, let me start out by saying that the single biggest expansion of federal government since FDR came from … no. Not Barack Obama. Not Bill Clinton, either. It wasn’t Jimmy Carter. Not even JFK. The single biggest expansion of the US Government came from George W. Bush and his creation of the Homeland Security Department . The Reagan administration, after lambasting Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential campaign for governmental spending, actually spent MORE than Carter did.  So according to what they say, Republicans favor small government and lowering government spending, but according to what they do, they actually increase government size and spend more? I wonder why Mitch McConnell is so intent on criticizing President Obama for government spending, yet he voted along with the vast majority of George W. Bush’s spending, and Bush’s rate of spending was higher than Obama’s.  I don’t remember him ever once criticizing Bush’s spending record.

Next we get to Republicans wanting low taxes. This one they actually seem to deliver on, wanting to lower taxes across the board, but especially on those poor, overburdened millionaires. Yet the reasons they claim taxes should go down just don’t seem to mesh with reality. First and foremost they say that so-called “job creators” aren’t hiring because their tax burden is too crushing. Yet history disagrees with that assessment – in fact whenever the marginal tax rate on upper brackets is lowered history has shown lower growth. In fact the Congressional Research Office came to the same conclusion:

There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth.

I would love to get Mitch McConnell or John Boehner in a room and get their opinions on those facts.

Finally we get to the issue on personal freedom. One of the Tea Parties greatest cries against that “socialist, fascist” Obama is that he’s crushing our personal freedoms. As I wrote about in my last article, the NRA supported Mitt Romney in this most recent presidential election, dredging up scary stories that Obama was going to be personally taking all your guns and this was despite the fact that in Obama’s first term he actually loosened gun laws, and in Mitt Romney’s term as governor he signed a gun restricting bill into law.

In addition, Republicans seem to be on the side of banning “gay marriage” (or as my gay friends call it, “marriage”) despite the fact that no factual evidence to say it’s better or worse than heterosexual marriage. Go ahead, search the internet and find a non-biased site that offers peer-reviewed and cited facts showing somehow that men marrying men or women marrying women is somehow worse for society, children or the marriage itself. If it’s no worse for people, does not infringe upon others, and is not being forced on society (legalizing same-sex unions will not force churches to marry anyone), why is it being suppressed by Republicans?

Finally on the personal freedom issue, I was very happy to see that Washington State has legalized marijuana for recreational use. Two of the most recent Republican presidential candidates agreed with me. Ron Paul and Gary Johnson actually said they would not only legalize marijuana but also consider even more sweeping changes such as ending the war on drugs and pardoning anyone in prison for non-violent marijuana crimes.  Sadly the rest of the mainstream Republican candidates ranged from a non-stance – Rick Perry stating he’s personally against any use, but ok with states deciding medical use – to a psychotically harsh stance -Newt Gingrich sponsoring a bill that would see the death penalty used for people importing more than 2 ounces.  Seeing as there’s little evidence that marijuana is worse for you than alcohol or tobacco and much stands to be gained from the taxation of legal marijuana, including a drastic reduction in violent crime, I wonder once again why Republicans would go against their stance on personal freedom here.

So to sum it up, I have a hard time giving any support or even credibility to a political party that says one thing and then does the polar opposite. I’d actually LOVE to see a more viable Republican party because frankly I’m sick of the vast majority of Democratic politicians. As a friend of mine says often, “We don’t need a 3rd political party, we need a 2nd one.”

First we had Plum Nuts with Michelle Bachman, then there was Just Nuts with Rick Perry and now we have Black Walnut with Herman Cain. Now that his 9-9-9 plan gets more scrutiny and less simple by the minute. The current Flavor of the Month of Republican Presidential Primary voters may be on the way out soon.

Who will be the next flavor in the search to unseat The Great Divide known as Mitt Romney in the race for the nomination? Will it be an outsider not in the race right now? Chubby Hubby couldn’t become the new fave when Chris Christie said no, but is there anyone else out there to make their ideas pleasing to the palates of the voters? Very Unlikely.

With November nearing, meaning the first contest being just about two months away, it is pretty much too late to make much of a challenge for things. So there goes that notion. So that leaves us with what we currently have to find the next craving for the right. So who is it going to be? As I was watching some discussions a day or so ago on Cain being ahead of Romney in the latest poll, I noticed something else in that same poll – Classic Vanilla himself Newt Gingrich was in third place and double digits for the first time in pretty much forever at ten percent.

Is this old flavor, the new flavor of the near future? While he may start to see a continued bump as Cain goes down and Romney keeps his same numbers he has had, Newt will never win the nomination. He is not really conservative enough. Sure he did his best to shut down Washington before, but he has sat down and agreed with that down right dirty leftist socialist tramp Nancy Pelosi in the past. Shoot in the last debate he tried to be the voice of reason for the festival of kookiness this race is becoming.

Also don’t forget Newt is only running because it is time to change in his old wife with a new staffer model. So while it may become the new thing again, the voter will soon remember what cause them not to want this same old plain taste in the first place? So who will get that next bump after that? Rick Santorum’s Holy Gelato? Now that’s a flavor I would certainly like to see rise to the top, or I’ll take some more Plum Nuts, two scoops please.

With everyone, including Barack Obama, painting the sitting president as an underdog, I feel compelled to suggest that everyone is wrong. In fact, the Republicans can’t win – and here’s a candidate-by-candidate breakdown of why they will fail.

Sarah Palin – The rest of this article is intended to be taken as satire, but my words about Palin are my true beliefs.  I feel that she does not really want to be the president.  I think that she craves publicity, money, and power.  You can get this from the presidency, but you can also get it from the sidelines – and with far fewer restrictions on your actions.  You can even argue that a non-politician can influence voting patterns more than a president.  Who has done more the shape the ideology of the current Republican party  – George W. Bush or Rush Limbaugh?  I think Palin will continue to write books and continue to pop up on the TV – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her sliding into that role.  I don’t, however, see her as a serious presidential candidate.

Ronald Reagan – He’s dead and has already served two terms as president.  In spite of these obstacles, it seems that there are some in the party who feel that he’d be the best man for the job.

Mitt Romney – The most interesting thing about Mitt Romney’s first name is that it is not Mitt.  Yes, Willard Mitt Romney chooses to go by his middle name of Mitt rather than Will or Bill.  While this demonstrates toughness, especially in the face of schoolyard bullies, it does bring into question his decision-making process.

Herman Cain – Cain is unelectable, for one obvious reason.  He killed his brother, Abel.

Rick Perry – He couldn’t win the Iowa Straw Poll, even with his campaign being bolstered by TV ads from Stephen Colbert’s super PAC Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.  If you can’t win with Colbert Nation pushing you along, you certainly can’t win on your own.

Rick Santorum – He’s not even the most popular Rick in the race.  If Santorum can’t strong arm Google, how can he expect to force the legislative and judicial branches to do his bidding?

Michele Bachmann – First, there’s the name.  One L in Michele or two?  One N in Bachmann or two? Easier just to vote for Ron Paul.  Whenever I hear her name, I feel the need to take the 8:15 into the city.  Four years of Taking Care of Business stuck in my head would be four years too many.

Ron Paul  – Paul was the Pennsylvania state champion in the 220 yard run in high school.  Guess what, Ron?  The race to the White House is a marathon, not a sprint.

Newt Gingrich – Seriously, he’s named after a rodent.  Maybe Gopher Tillman or Squirrel McGee can run in ’16.

Chris Christie – Christie announced that he wasn’t going to run.  It’s probably for the best.  The GOP nominee in 2012 will likely try to sell themself as having new and original ideas.  It might be difficult for a guy with basically the same first and last name to hold himself up as the bastion of creativity.  Not that he named himself, but he has the genes of his parents.  (If you were hoping for some fat jokes, you won’t get any from me.)

One thing that really jumps out at me is all the candidates with first names masquerading as last names – Perry, Paul, and Christie (and Cain, if you’re old school).  I’m not sure what to make of this odd coincidence, except that it’s likely to be tied into the End of Days.

An astonishing thing happened last week. No it was not the Rapture, it was the fact I agreed with the theme of an article by The Crunchy Conservative. Yes I, The Angry Squirrel can not support a residential candidacy by one Newt Gingrich. I just can’t do it. Now I wouldn’t be able to support the candidacy of any person vying for the Republican nomination, but that is beside the point. Newt had a bad week and his candidacy was for all extensive purposes ended faster than he can spend 500,000 big ones at Tiffany’s, so Crunchy I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Nominating a candidate that has a shot at winning in the General Election, that’s a different story.

Now that Newt is out of the way, how does the Republican field play out? There is the constant talk of who’s in and who is out. The out side took another blow on Sunday Morning, when we found out that Gov. Mitch Daniels was the latest in the line of those seen as major players to decide now was not the right time to go after the Presidency. Also this past month, The Donald ended his desire for excessive personal attention from the media, officially announcing what we knew all along. That he was not running for President and would focus on hosting a crappy “reality” show.

Heck ever Paul Ryan has had to say he is not intending to run for the Presidency. Although he did not rule things out in the future, Maybe Vice President? He’ll need a job after 2012 after all, as I personally do not see him winning his district this time around, especially with the response to his Path to Poverty budget proposal.

It is a long ways before we even get to Iowa, so there is no need to rush to pick a candidate. No one seems to come to a consensus on who will get the nomination. After the entire field is pretty weak and all are flawed. Though I am pleased for them to have all the infighting they want on the way to a nomination. So let us line them up, look at them all and judge their worth for the nomination. Here are those in the race, officially or not.

So we have Mitt Romney. He has not officially announced yet that he running, but it is obvious he is going to be in the race. What else is he going to be doing with the over 10 million that he is raking in on a single day. Maybe he is repaying his personal coffers from his last failed Presidential bid? Despite having a monetary advantage and following the Republican principle that money can buy anything, Mitt is going to have a tough rough road to hoe in securing the nomination. He is downright boring and changes his stance on everything with however the electorate feels about something at the moment. There is also that thing about being the architect of Massachusetts’ Romneycare, which was the model for what resemblance of national health care “reform” that was actually passed by the Congress passed last time around.

Then you have Tim Pawlenty, or more amusingly known as T-Paw. The likely person to take the boring, “serious” Republican vote not named Willard. We will see how things go. While I do see T-Paw pushing Romney out of the race in the end, I am not sure he gets the nomination either as I honestly, as I don’t think there is much exciting to get behind there and I don’t foresee him being the firebrand to spew out what the majority of his party electorate will want to hear.

The more likely Minnesotan to make noise in the race if they were to get it in is Michelle Bachmann. However she is obviously waiting for Sarah to decide to throw her hat in and be the frontrunner to take the early states of Iowa and South Carolina with her downright nuttiness it will take to win over that electorate. Like I said though, she will wait for Palin to officially be in or out to decide anything as they are both the same type of candidate, an absolute moron. That is the type of stuff conservatives like to eat up though.

Speaking of Sister Sarah, she has that fire in her belly, whatever that means. That does not mean the temporary Governor of Alaska has entered into the race yet officially though. Nor has she said she is not going to run. Buying a big mansion in Arizona has not helped to squelch the will she or won’t she watch. Is that move for her Presidential ambitions, or for scoping out Jon Kyl’s Senate seat. I’d love to see that nomination race; neither would intend to say a factual statement the entire race. While in her warped little mind she thinks she can beat Obama in the general election, she is the only candidate in the race that will lose no matter what the conditions of the economy or the nation may be at time. In fact, she is the only Republican to poll losing to Dennis Kucinich. That being said I think that if she runs she has the likeliest chance at the nomination or having the most influence that with all the delegates she would have locked up regardless and have the nominee tied to her and her views for the general election.

Ron Paul? Sure he still has a following, but I do not see him as any factor I the race this time at all.

Don’t forget about the winner of the first and only debate so far, Herman Cain. Though he is “serious” candidate he stands as much chance of getting the nomination that his former employer does of being called gourmet food or not causing me to be in the bathroom for endless hours afterwards. Also he’ll never be a darling of the crowd he’ll need to woo to get the nod. He is charismatic I guess, but the Teabaggers are likely to question his birth certificate as well and would never see him as one of them. So I hope you enjoyed your one win in this process. He is correct I one thing he is not going to be running for second place, he is running for last.

That brings us to the final candidate talked about right now in the race, former Utah Governor and Obama Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. He has decided to set up headquarters in Florida, though not officially in the race yet. He is the mot serious threat to the President I the election in my eyes, but he is also outside of Herman Cain the least likely to get the Republican nomination. Despite being a fiscal conservative, on other things he will not fit the conservative bill. Huntsman believes in things like the environment and civil unions. So unless you believe the environment is ours to use without consequence and that gay people are an evil that should be exterminated, quarantined or tortured until they say they won’t be gay no more; you are not going to get very far towards winning this nomination.

So there we have it the Republican race so far. There will be drop outs and add ins as we move forward, but one thing will remain crystal clear. I cannot support the candidacy of any of them. I just can’t do it.

Can you believe it’s almost that time again? You can’t escape it. Your TV will be buzzing with commercials ending with, I’m candidate x and I approved this message. Yard signs will soon be going up. There will be debate, drama, news articles and loads of political commentary.

In just 10 months, the candidates will descend on the state of Iowa hoping to win their party’s caucus. I can see it now, corndogs, funnel cakes, corn on the cob and anything else that the media can catch the candidates shoving down their throats. Don’t forget Ma and Pa Kettle giving their two cents as to why they like one candidate and not another.

So, I’ve seen some tweets and some news stories detailing who may or may not run. This will be phase 1 of the media bombardment. We’ve already heard that Nobama is going to run again. We have been presented with the likelihood that Newt Gingrich, Sara Palin, Michelle Bachmann and now Donald Trump may run. What I don’t understand though, who the hell is Becky Rusher? She’s 36 and she’s tired so she’s going to run for president. She is all over the board on issues but appears to be fairly Libertarian. Then there is Timothy Gay, the 43 year old disabled truck driver from Ohio. He and Rusher seem to be close on some issues and both are running as Independents. Be sure to send Gay a birthday wish, his DOB is April 8^th.

Two people I hope run for the GOP nomination are Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. Neither one will likely win the nomination but both will drive the liberals absolutely crazy! It will be fun to listen to the Angry Squirrel go off another one of his rants as we all imagine him duct taping his head back together following the frustration.

So, does Obama stand a chance of winning in 2012? Yes and no. I don’t believe anyone can beat him from the Democratic side, so I believe he WILL win the democratic seat for the election. I have some serious doubts about whether he can win the election though. It will certainly depend on who wins the Republican seat. Then again, if you put an organized, motivating and melodic Independent candidate like Becky Rusher on the ballot, I don’t think the D’s or the R’s stand a chance. I’m telling you, RINGER!

Looking at the Republican candidates, I don’t see anyone that is going to really motivate the masses though. Most all of the candidates are very polarizing. Think of the names and see what your reaction is. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and the list goes on. Every one of those candidates will have big issues that will push some voters away from them. Romney is very likable to me, but he has some very liberal views and I have trouble with that as a conservative voter. Ron Paul is nuts, Mike Huckabee is hard to believe, Newt is very outspoken and he rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Palin and Bachmann, both are strong women and very attractive. I believe a lot of people are scared by those qualities. I for one would love to spend a weekend with them and talk politics. I’d love to be able to get in their heads and really see how they think, then write a blog about them. Hopefully, my opinion would not be what we see portrayed in today’s media.

I believe the front runner for the Republicans will likely be Newt. He has a lot of experience, he’s strong on the major areas of concern for conservatives and his resume is loaded. We won’t see any botched interviews with Katie Couric with him because he’s done this for years and is ready for questions.

The ultimate question that I see now is…If we see an Obama vs. Gingrich election, what will happen? I don’t think Obama can win. In 2008, there were far too many people that just couldn’t vote for John McCain. Many of my friends and relatives abstained just because they couldn’t stand McCain. I couldn’t stand McCain either, but my vote was one against Obama, not for McCain. Had everyone that normally votes for a conservative candidate voted, I believe the results would have been different. If the Republicans have an electable candidate this time, I believe the empty suit from Kenya will be packing his bags and taking on a trip to Pahk-ee-stahn (Pakistan).

So tell me, are you ready to caucus?

Squeaky…