Santorum: Another in a Long Line of Republican Oddities for 2012

The GOP candidates  for the Presidential nomination in 2012 seem generally to have a quota of quirkiness about them.  But, as I see it, most also  have signs of  outright mental instability about them. This goes beyond political preference to me--Ronald Reagan was a man I profoundly disagreed with on many subjects, but I little doubted he could pass a basic psychology  test in his adult prime and probably would have been an o.k. guy to have as a neighbor to wave hello to as one set out for work---the older retired Republican guy next door who actually thought that socialism was a real "threat" in American politics and for whom you quickly changed the subject  to baseball if he asked you about your views on global climate change  (Lest he decline to look in and feed your dog when you went away for a few days on a trip.) .

 His successor in the White House George H.W. Bush also seemed quite sane, if a little out of touch.  I guess coming from a banking family and living much of your adult life in a dry oil patch of otherwise joyless scrub-land called Midland, Texas  could do that to anyone. 

And I think Mitt Romney is sane.  I know some of a non-religious bent will take issue with that but he was, after all,  governor of Massachusetts, a state where if you can't play nice with Democrats you can't play.     He's got the heart of an investment banker but he's capable of a sensible thought even as I disagree with him on most points.   

  It could be as I get older I see fewer clothes on the political emperors. But it would seem that the GOP top ranks are now filled with "outliers" like Herman "9-9-9" Cain, Newt "Lunar Colony" Gingrich, Ron "Government? What For?"  Paul, Michelle "Mandatory Vaccinations are Evil" Bachmann  and now the latest quasi-front runner, Rick Santorum.    Are the ranks of conservative voters so desperate that they want to not only defeat Obama but also elect a  borderline personality to further drop America back into the status of a three-legged mule in the grand parade of great nations?

What is up with all the love Santorum is getting?    Does this guy seem Presidential to anybody? To me, he's a little moral tyrant looking for a throne.    He's like that  nerdy kid in the third grade who told on you for throwing a wad of paper when the teacher came back to class.  He's the guy somebody met in college who gets his bigger friends to jump you in the parking lot of a local bar for talking to his girlfriend---because he was  off playing video games with his nerdy pals  and she looks bored. He's the guy who gets your mom fired on the  job for forgetting to put gas in the company car after a trip---while he's off diddling with the boss' secretary! 

 

   Can a man who thinks that  birth control is morally wrong be elected?Can a chicken-hawk dweeb who speaks as if he is the second coming of Winston  Churchill of 1940 to his opponents' incarnation of Naziism really be nominated, much less elected.

 Even Alan Simpson, former Senator from Wyoming and a fellow Republican who served with Santorum in the Senate in the 90's had this to say about the guy in a recent interview with CBS News:

"He is rigid and a homophobic," Simpson said. "He said, 'I want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage,' and they said, 'Well, what about the people who are already married?' And he said, 'Well, they would be nullified.' I mean what is, what's human, what's kind about that? We're all human beings, we all know or love somebody who's gay or lesbian so what the hell is that about? To me it's startling and borders on disgust."

 I'll say.  And this is Alan Simpson folks.  From the big red, white and blue state of Wyoming.   And he's not alone. He's not alone either.  Here's  Jeb Bush, a would-be power-broker in his  party, despite the disasters in the financial sector of the economy in 2007-2008 presided over by his big brother in the White House.  Jeb had this to say on the current crop of Presidential primary nominees.   

 "I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I'm wondering, I don't think I've changed, but it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are."       

There seems little to be cheerful about with Santorum, a man  who views modern life with the sort of disdain one would expect from a cloistered member of the clergy or a cold-hearted secularist demagogue like Mussolini who wants only to please the frightened enough to get his foot in the door and then strut around like a king. (Oh,no wait. That's Gingrich. Sorry Rick.)  

Anyway, I am hopeful that the voters of Michigan will select Mitt Romney as their candidate and save us from the thereat of an "outlier" candidate who, given the price of gas or the situation in foreign affairs, just could sneak into office  and do much more mischief than the "establishment" or the people could bear.