The desperate hunt for the Not-Romney continues.
There is a wonderful graphic at the National Post, which shows decided Republican voters candidate preference over the last eight months (sourced from here), and which I shall link to, rather than showing, lest armed men batter down Cole’s door in search of evidence for multiple copyright fraud charges and be eaten by Tunch.
It looks a little like Elvis’ colon on burgers-and-blowjob night. In turn, Bachmann, Perry, Cain and Gingrich’s columns distend horrifically as they become the next Great Republican Hope, stuffed full of Republican dreams, and are, in turn, discarded. Even little Ricky (and we know what he’s stuffed with) gets a go.
The Republican Party (as unfortunate a band of Bigots, Bums, Bankers, Bastards and Baby-obsessives as you could ever hope to avoid meeting) has spent the last 8 months roaming the hills, forks and hope at the ready, reading from a blank map and trying to sniff out the Snark.
They know that, in addition to being handy for striking a light, the mystical Snark will remove black stains and bring back the Baby Jesus.
Unfortunately, they don’t know what it looks like, so every time there’s a rustle in the bushes, half of them crap themselves, while the other half immediately proclaim the finding of the Snark.
Of course, all they’ve managed to find so far is a bandersnatch, a dodo, a badly soiled jub jub bird and, most recently, a rather unpleasant Newt that keeps rubbing up against people and shitting on the carpet.
Some of them still appear to think that Newt is the real thing.
However, others have spotted movement under a Santorum tree, and have set out again to hunt, fluffing Ricky the whole way. What a rogues’ gallery they are.
It would also of course help Santorum’s chances to replace Gingrich down the road as the alternative to Romney—an outcome that, I suspect, might well result in a better race for the nomination and a healthier situation for the ultimate Republican nominee.
In the general election, I want to beat Barack Obama and send him into a prosperous retirement with his family. In the primary, I want a party leader who demonstrates the kind of integrity and consistency that only Santorum has shown. He worked hard for my vote, and I only wish I could be in the state to cast it on Tuesday.
Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values — not just in word, but in deed.
And once the not-Romney alternatives were winnowed to Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, I think it became clear which of the two men stood a better chance of competing with Romney in states like Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
Some guy at National Review:
When the “internals” are analyzed, Santorum rates particularly high on personal character, on sincerity, and on steadfastness of principle. Those are bedrock traits that, over a long campaign, help secure a voter’s comfort level with a candidate. A comparison with Reagan is in order here. While Santorum certainly hasn’t shown Reagan’s preternatural communication skills or sheer — almost magical — personal likeability, what matters in a race against a weak incumbent in a weak economy is that voters give themselves the psychological go-ahead for changing something as important as the president. Fear of the unknown runs strong. Even against an absurdly weak Jimmy Carter in 1980, it was only in the last week that voters swung sharply Reagan’s way: They needed reassurance, from watching his demeanor in debates, that he wasn’t the nuclear cowboy the Left tried to portray. Santorum’s palpable decency and sincerity can offer a similar reassurance against Obama. Someone as volatile as Gingrich cannot.
Jesus. I bet it took him a week to get the taste of Rick’s arse out of his mouth after that tongue lashing bath.
Every morning I pray (to several gods of my acquaintance) for the same thing as Bill Kristol and Michelle Malkin.
“Give us Santorum, Lord,” I pray. “Let us be awash in it.”
I hope they find their Snark.
“But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!”
Geoduck
Maybe you meant “tongue wash” instead of “tongue lash”? One letter, diametrically opposed situations.
Comrade Mary
YOU MADE ME FOLLOW A LINK TO THE NATIONAL POST! /sobs
Anyway, I checked the colour for each of the skidmarks and was surprised to find Santorum was tv period-product-blue. I wonder what they were trying to say?
It’s not just desperate conservatives choosing Ricky. Booman makes his surprising case here.
BGinCHI
Morrisey:
Translation:
I want a K Street savvy bigot who is afraid of sex and couldn’t beat Casey in his home state, even with the latter’s charisma registering below my insurance agent.
Trinity
“Let us be awash in it”….um, euuuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwww.
Odie Hugh Manatee
You say this like it is a bad thing.
It’s not.
Scott
But Santorum knows how to control his emotions.
Well, he has in public. Santorum strikes me as the kind of guy who does a lot of digging in his basement.
dmsilev
I posted this link this morning, but it’s actually on-topic here. Erick Erickovich has pondered the available choices, and decided that the best one was sweet, sweet oblivion:
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
But just to be safe, let’s send a Fire Angel after their loathsome asses. As long as Merlin doesn’t mind, that is.
StringonaStick
Santorum as the rethug nominee? Oh please, make it so!
I’m sure his “palpable decency and sincerity” will make the average voter more than comfortable with Ricky’s ban-all-birth-control platform. People will eat that shit up with a spoon!
Benjamin Franklin
Carnival Barkers selling the same old snake oil.
The frenetic anxiety is palpable. They know the ‘Great Society’ started with
a humble ripple through the body politic. The Wave Theory of social reform must begin with a pebble and concentric rings. They are smart enough to know this. Single-payer is their worst nightmare, and they can’t let the nascent reform succeed. Actually, a 2nd term for Obama is their worst nightmare (edit)
The Moar You Know
Another sideshow. The nominee will be Romney. And at long last, the Republican faithful will learn the true meaning of “going to war with the Army you have, instead of the Army you wish you had.”
Betty Cracker
Well, I personally thought he was a blithering ninny. But then again, his profligate deficit-spending and tax increases were magically erased from Republican memories as if through some sort of Jedi mind trick, so there’s that.
Benjamin Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
Shinseki wept…
RSA
Wow, that is some seriously bad
chartjunkchartsmear.Frankensteinbeck
That’s nice, but Obama is a strong incumbent. A very strong incumbent. I know that they’re blind and deaf from having their heads stuck up their asses, but… well, I guess they’re blind and deaf from having their heads stuck up their asses. It’s just hard for me to believe.
MattF
They really don’t like Romney. I’ll give them that.
Cat Lady
That’s some
frothbubble they live in.Arclite
Dougy got a Moore Award!!
What a loser you are, Chris. We didn’t take an apolitical thing (breast cancer) and make it political (withdrawing funding for PP). All we did was get enraged by the political maneuverings of the Komen foundation. THEY made it political, we just got pissed off about it.
rlrr
@Betty Cracker:
Republicans want the St. Ronnie of faith, not the Reagan of history…
Arclite
@Betty Cracker: My grammy liked him and voted for him, “Because he was handsome and looked good on TV”
Legalize
Yawn. The nominee will be Weird Willard. The 27% will support him without question, and they ill declare that it has always been thus. The snark hunt always ends when the daddy-figure in the shiny black boots and finely pressed uniform snaps his fingers. Then they fall all over themselves to get in line.
Mike in NC
@dmsilev:
EE is no slouch in the weight department, from the pictures we’ve seen.
DanielX
O dear, yet another Santorum, um, comeback. Editorial note for the 117th time: it’s all too easy to use double entendres when writing about Little Ricky, god bless Dan Savage’s perverted heart. But I digress. To the issue, then.
This would be the Rick Santorum? Also known as Man On Dog, Frothy Mix, and The Man Who Lost By 15%?
Aye, the very same!
This would also be the man who opposes not only abortion, but contraception as well. And who, moreover, comes right out and says why: because contraception is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to the way things should be.” Well! We certainly can’t have that. You people out there better understand this right now: In the event of a Santorum presidency (Cthulhu forbid) you will only fuck in Santorum-approved fashion and for Santorum-approved purposes. The latter of course being limited to producing more Men Of God like Ricky himself. No fucking for fun, and especially not for you Scarlet Women out there who tempt Godly Men from the Path Of Righteousness with…nastysweatyfunmonkeysex with no unpleasant consequences. (Bless you each and every one, especially the woman I saw at the Mousetrap Lounge the other night wearing a skirt narrower than some belts I’ve owned, but that’s another story.)
Other candidates – well, some other candidates – are occupied with and thinking about issues like, oh, the economy, global warming, terrorism, energy supplies, nuclear weapons, etc. In Little Ricky’s brain, those parts that would be occupied by these issues are instead taken up with…sex. Naughtyness. The horizontal bop. In all its many, varied, and delightful forms, 99% of which appear to be distasteful at best to Brother Santorum and at worst ought to be outlawed.
Opposed to abortion, opposed to contraception and opposed to sex for any purpose other than conception? Well, that’s certainly a winning platform, and I can understand why Bill Kristol, for one, would proclaim the appeal of a candidate who espouses such a position. One more example of Bloody Bill’s unerring judgment and sagacity, of course…and this asshole holds prime real estate on the editorial page of the country’s most prestigious newspaper.
I am staring into the abyss. Sarah, you and I have simply got to get together for drinks. One. Or two. Or several. And for chrissakes don’t tell anyone about the controlled substances.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
The guy is near. That must mean he’s weak, he can’t possibly out think a bunch of pasty white guys. That’s unpossible!
redshirt
“Sweet Meteor of Death” would be the best candidate the Repukes have put up yet. Does he have a SuperPAC yet?
Comrade Mary
“Oh, sweet meteor of death, at last I’ve found thee …”
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Arclite:
Huh, my grammy did too. Maybe we’re cousins! And then she voted for Clinton, also because “he looks like a president.” It was that Annie Leibovitz photo on the cover of Newsweek that did it for her. I shudder to think how she’d react to a Mario Testino photo of Romney. Sadly, she’s gone now, but there must still be millions like her who judge candidates only on height, width of smile, and breadth of shoulder. And melanin.
The Bearded Blogger
In order for Santorum to come from behind, Mitt needs to slip up badly. Only if Mitt’s stench of out-of-touch millionaire robot becomes unbearable, will the GOP tolerate Santorum. Even if Santorum becomes more slick, his being the nominee depends on the big movers in the GOP deciding that Mitt is a lost cause.
jibeaux
They could just go with the Onion and nominate a guy with a paper bag over his head, his identity to be revealed only if and when he wins the presidency. They don’t identify the Onion as satire anyway, might as well pick up some tips from it.
The Bearded Blogger
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: It’s weird how Mitt can check all the boxes on a list of handsome requirements and yet look inherently slimy… I hope people who vote based on looks can perceive that
jibeaux
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: My experience canvassing Dem & Ind voters led me to believe, anecdotally, that while there may be some independent voters who are just very centrist and feel torn on many issues, there seem to be more who are just completely irrational and are as likely as not to make a voting decision on whether someone sighs during a debate or what they said about some obscure meaningless thing. It’s kind of….maddening.
dmsilev
@redshirt: You have to admit, a platform of “fiery apocalypse followed by global ruin” is far more upbeat and optimistic than just about anything currently on offer from the GOP. And besides, a large rock caught in Earth’s gravitational well is a far better debate performer than Rick Perry.
Tone In DC
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
LULz.
wasabi gasp
Nutter butter coming from behind.
Tone In DC
@Villago Delenda Est:
More LULz.
DanielX
Also, too – Rick Santorum has a face that expresses…sanctimony. Self-righteousness. Smarm. I see him face (not in person, thank god) and the first thought that comes into my head is backpfeifengesicht*.
*For those of you who are not German scholars, backpfeifengesicht means a face that cries out for a fist in it. Think W in full smirk or Richard Cheney in full snarl.
A truly useful and descriptive word. Pronounced back-fife-feng-geseekt. Don’t say you’ve never learned anything here at Balloon Juice.
The Bearded Blogger
@dmsilev: It actually captures the underlying feelings of the GOP nicely. An apocalypse platform is what the gooper base, led by crazy Glenn, yearns.
PeakVT
I can’t believe they left off Tim Pawlenty.
The Bearded Blogger
@DanielX: English is my second language, but wouldn’t “fuckface” be an adequate english translation from german?
DanielX
@Betty Cracker:
Of course they were, straight down the memory hole. Lubricated by finest grade 5W30 Santor-. Oops, another case of BOHICA. Jeezus, I have got to stop this…
r€nato
@Arclite:
if you protest the SGK PP decision, YOU are making it political.
if you dare to take notice of the war waged by the 1% on the 99% over the last 30 years, then YOU are the one waging class warfare.
if you dare to call out the racism which is rampant among the right and especially teabaggers, then YOU are the ‘real’ racist.
Do you see the pattern here? Not a coincidence…
redshirt
@dmsilev: Heck, I’m a fullfledged Obot and here I am thinking of jumping behind SMOD’s campaign. It’s equal opportunity, really.
Suffern ACE
@redshirt: It’s the promise of the great mass drunken orgy running from November 8 through inaugruation day that sucks you right in, isn’t it?
redshirt
@Suffern ACE: Oh darling, the Parties were to die for! And then we all died.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
After the whole tea bagging escapade, they want someone named Santorum? really?
FlyingToaster
@The Bearded Blogger: It would need an enhancing adjective, like “frat-boy” or “rat-bastard”, to get anywhere near the virulence of Backpfeifengesicht. IMHO.
We really don’t have good compound descriptors of our 1%. So we end up using their names, like Santorum or Romney.
Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs!
I was actually sort of a root-for-Newt guy, but okay, I think I could learn to love the Sanatorium.
So, fuck yeah! Go for it, GOOPers!
Don’t worry, America’s going to LOVE your anti-sex, bringer-home-of-dead-babies candidate!
Arclite
@r€nato: Heh.
R-Jud
The Lewis Carroll references in the OP are pretty frabjous. Ta, SP&T.