I give up. I have no idea what the hell Republicans are thinking with this nonsense. Rick Santorum? Really? I mean, let's step back a bit: President Obama was elected in 2008 riding a tidal wave of discontent with Republican mismanagement at all levels of government. Our surplus was gone we were embroiled in 2 wars and although the Democrats had control of Congress, it's not like they were doing anything useful with it. So it was a 'let's hate on Republicans' kind of year.
Fair enough. Personally, I'm independent so I played my cards carefully in '08, backing Obama for the Presidency and voting Republican for Congress. (Budgets were balanced, surpluses were made and welfare reformed when we had divided government. It's annoying and yes, it did lead to a blatantly time-wasting partisan impeachment when they should have censured President Clinton- but divided goverment in my mind forces our politicians to act like grown ups and compromise for the sake of getting things done. At least, in theory.)
Come 2012, we find that President Obama is far more liberal than people would like. Probably more liberal than the majority of the country actually is. So Republicans think the answer is to send us all wildly hurtling in the other direction? I'm scratching my head on this one.
Let's consider what the past forty-eight hours have brought us:
First, Candidate Santorum insisted that adopting English as the official language must be a necessary condition of Puerto Rican statehood. WTF? Seriously, does this guy want there to be a Republican Party in 20 years? Are they trying to hand the whole ball of wax over to the Democrats? Outside of women (another constituency that Republicans are doing sooooooo well with) the other massively crazy important voting bloc of the future is the Hispanic population of this country. This piece of idiocy cost Santorum Puerto Rico (at least I hope it does- I'm betting yes) and probably cost the GOP I don't know how many more Hispanic votes.
Can someone put a cork in this idiot, please? What the hell is the RNC thinking? What the hell are their voters thinking? At first, I just thought it was a natural reaction to the supposed socialism of the current administration. Now I'm becoming increasingly convinced that as a whole GOPers nationwide seem to be intent on dousing themselves in gasoline and lighting the match.
Look, we can worry about the details of Puerto Rican statehood once they actually decide they want to join. As it is, I'd be surprised if they do- they've got a good thing going right now, where they can enjoy the blessings of liberty, etc without any of the headaches that go along with it. But say they do: who cares what language they speak? That should be an issue decided by the new state- not the Federal government. So underlying this, to me, is further proof that Santorum is a big government, conservative nanny-stater and not the true blue All-American Conservative he's pretending to be. Eff that, peeps. Come on now...
Next up, Candidate Santorum is promising to crack down heavily on internet pornography. Because with troops still embroiled in Afghanistan, our fiscal situation perilously close to disaster and millions of people out of work, this is what the government should be doing with it's time. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Pornography is a divisive issue, to be sure, but at the end of the day smut is smut and it's ALWAYS going to be out there. Cracking down on it is not only a potential First Amendment violation (at least to me.)
So, to whit, we have a Candidate that wants to drag us all screaming back into the dark ages one hand and a frankly boring technocrat on the other hand with a white haired Nutty Professor type lurking in the background. I'm not sure I'm typical of independent voters, but I know the rhetoric is hateful, the issues silly, the politics just plain bad and another vote for President Obama coupled with votes for a solidly Repubican Congress are starting to look like frankly responsible things for me to do this November.
GOPers: What the hell are you thinking?
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