The Associated Pest

It’s certainly been a riveting past couple of weeks, particularly in the political arena; the biggest stories being the establishment of John McCain as the undisputed front-runner for the Republicans, and the surprising deadlock between Obama and Clinton for the Democrats–with many pundits cautiously predicting Obama to gain further ground.

What shocked many–including whack-job conservative fire-breathers like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh–is that McCain had it so easy. The so-called “more conservative” candidates (Romney and Huckabee) got smoked by about five hundred delegates. But how did that happen? This is a conservative nation, if you hear talk-radio tell it.

The only problem is that it isn’t. This current administration has covered itself in the conservative banner and colors, in effect hijacking the vocabulary–and now “conservatism” has become synonymous with expensive wars fought under false pretenses, lying officials serving jail-time, and drilling for a few meager drops of oil in national parks–go figure that shit out, but if you ask someone who still likes Bush to tell you what “conservative” means to them you will not hear one word about fiscal conservatism, not today. You’ll just get an angry rant about abortion or immigration, and an insistence that Bush has a some sort of direct line, red Bat-telephone straight to Jesus.

It isn’t shocking that Republicans have ignored Coulter and Limbaugh–they are nothing but ugly, angry talking heads who will say anything to sell books and boost their ratings. They have been totally irrelevant to the national conversation for years, the mid-nineties probably. In fact, most thinking people realize at this point: Just do the complete and total opposite of whatever Rush and Ann are telling you to do, and you pretty much can’t go wrong.

Their hilarious backflips and pitiful, shrieking protests over the party’s failure to put forth another idealogical nut-job who’s politically to the right of Mussolini have done nothing but signify to Republicans that they actually just did something right! If these two are angry, surely Baby Jesus is happy. They are powerless entertainers, no more influential than an endorsement from Billy Bob or Sean Penn, and their freak-out has done nothing but encourage more support for McCain–even from me!

Keep in mind, six months ago I would have told you I might not vote for a Republican–EVER, EVER AGAIN. For a while it seemed like they were all either pure-evil or trying to sleep with young boys while on a meth-binge (Ted Haggard, Jim West, the other R. from FL, forgot his name, Mark something.) With the advent of McCain, they’ve actually put someone up who I think is basically a good person and actually is with the national opinion on a few of the big issues.

I still won’t vote for him–I’m backing Obama this year–but I might at least have to do some thinking and a little more research before I voted for Hill-dog over McCain. Even if I was a registered R (And I’m an Independent, if anyone is wondering), I would have to think about the D’s this year just to teach the GOP a lesson: “Don’t you ever, ever do that again. Any of it.” And I have to thank Rush and Ann here again–most reasonable people know these are foaming psychopaths, their-anti endorsement of McCain turned into an ACTUAL endorsement.

I know McCain has his problems–like his brilliant comment to stay in Iraq for 100 years–but, if he wins, I may not flee the country in terror to live out his entire term in Indonesia. I won’t freak out. I’ll be bummed Barack didn’t win, but I won’t wig out the way I might have if a soulless asshole like Romney or a complete idiot like the Huckster had done it (sorry–in 2008, running a man who thinks Adam named the dinosaurs is a national embarrassment).

Like I said, I still won’t vote for him–the GOP may never get me back (I voted for W. in 2000. Shut up, I was like 12.), but they succeeded in putting forth the only Republican I could even *conceive* of voting for–a genuine war hero, and a seemingly good man (let’s just forget about his ex-wives for right now). It’s the only thing they could have done to reach out to all the people they’ve pissed off (roughly 70 % of the nation). Too bad for them, it’s still not going to be enough:)

Last 5 posts by Steve

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