Dark days are ahead for the Republican Party. Sorry, but not a single candidate being fielded jazzes the Independents of this country, the people who actually put a president in the office.
First, let me say that I feel your pain. As an Independent, I faced an almost identical situation as you are now. As with you, I didn’t care for the standing President of the United States. He was a dolt, a lackluster leader, a fear monger, and dare I say, a liar. It may have not been his fault entirely, for I believe that he was such a weakling that he was easily manipulated by the power barons who surrounded him, coddled him and basically worked the strings of a puppet who would be president.
If you lean to the right, you probably think, hey, aren’t you describing Obama, Robb?
Well, no. I’m talking, of course, about his predecessor – George W. I didn’t care for him from Day 1. Well, I can’t say that is entirely true. I was damned glad he was in the White House on 9/11. I am still petrified with fear at the thought of what would have happened had Al “Kumbaya” Gore had been president when we were attacked. What a different world we would be in today.
But come 2004, I had seen the guy for what he was, a nice guy, not extremely bright, but a nice guy nonetheless who was letting Dick Cheney and his band of Evil Doers lead us into a disastrous war in Iraq because of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
It you want to try to defend Bush, don’t bother doing it here. I will rapture your ass. If you want to try to convince me how wonderful he was as president, get your own blog. It ain’t happening here. This is not a democracy.
Back to the subject at hand. Here is why I am so sympathetic. The 2012 Republican Primary looks like a replay of the 2004 Democratic Primary and my conservative friends get to finally understand the pain liberals felt back then.
If you don’t remember the Democratic Primary that year, let me refresh your memory. Howard Dean jumped out to an early lead. Wesley Clark was a late comer and never caught on. That left John Edwards and John Kerry.
If you want to do a little typecasting, put philandering Newt Gingrich in the role of Democratic hopeful and philanderer John Edwards and the bland Mitt Romney in the part once played by the equally bland John Kerry. Herman Cain has a supporting role as Howard Dean and Rick Perry plays Wesley Clark. As you can see, the election is already over my friends.
Mitt Romney has all the personality of a box of uncooked macaroni: stiff, hard and lifeless. He doesn’t even have any pasta or meatballs to make him vague interesting. In fact, I doubt he has any balls at all. You’ll see what I mean when he comes up against President Obama in the debates. It will be Dick Nixon and John Kennedy all over again. Obama is the superior orator and charismatic, very preacher like. Mitt is shifty eyed and lifeless as a speaker, much as Dick Nixon was. The only difference is this election won’t be as close as that one.
I don’t even have to imagine what my Republican friends are thinking about the upcoming elections. I was thinking the same thing in 2004. I knew I couldn’t vote for the standing president, but I really didn’t want to vote for John Kerry, another lifeless dolt.
So there I stood at the ballot box. Eenie, meenie… can’t vote for Bush, so it’s Kerry. It wasn’t a vote for him, but a vote against the guy in office. I knew a Kerry presidency would be a disaster, but in retrospect, perhaps not as bad as the disaster we ended up with between 2004 and 2008.
George W. could have been the worst president in the last 100 years, but Jimmy Carter beat him handily in that regard. However, George W. comes a pretty close second. Don’t get me wrong. If Kerry had made it in, he would have probably been tied with George W.
When my conservative friends try to convince me that Mitt is the guy to lead us to the promised land, I just smile. He doesn’t play well to the Independents. He never will. He’s just too two faced on the issues and makes these amazing Alzheimer’s statements such as “I don’t worry about the poor” where you are sure he’s not all there. It’s almost as if Ronald Reagan in his last two years of office has come back to life and is running for office again.
There’s just one difference. Mitt is no Ronnie. I would take Ronnie with full blown Alzheimer’s over Mitt any day.
While leads me to the point of this RobZerrvation, a letter of condolence.
My Conservative Friends,
I feel your pain. I have walked in your shoes. I have had to endure an election year much as you are now. I have stared at the slate of candidates and tried to convince myself that I was voting for the right guy. I have walked in the valley of shadows, casting my vote for a guy that was not a good choice, but the only choice available to me. I still feel the pangs of guilt for my vote in 2004 for John Kerry and sadness that we as a society of some 300 million people couldn’t find two better people to serve as our president that year than George W. Bush and John Kerry.
I feel similar sadness in the coming year. For my Republican friends stand where I once stood, having to make a choice between lesser evils, knowing that no matter which way they vote, they are on the losing side of the coin.
I offer my greatest sympathies to you all, for I know how deeply you must hurt right now, knowing that Mitt Romney, the negativist, no ideas waffler, is the best you could do – that out of 87 million Republicans in this country, this is the best guy you could find to represent you. I pause for a moment of silence in our collective grief.
Back on the Treasure Coast, grateful that Florida completed their primary while I among was hanging with my liberal homies,
– Robb