The Big Top festivities that take place in the citywide Ringling Brothers event that is Washington, D.C. has long been populated by clowns of any and all political stripes, from the reactionary right to the bleeding-heart liberal, with all manner of conmen, poseurs, frauds, imbeciles, and the uninformed filling up the wide middle. But the particular clown car I'm thinking of today - filled to bone-crushing capacity and eager to spill out over the airwaves and state fairs of our great land - is at the moment a strikingly partisan vehicle, made up solely of the hucksters and hacks who will soon vie for an attempt to unseat the current president and restore sanity (fiscal and otherwise) to the sagging republic. The early moments of political campaigns are always chock full of eccentrics and also-rans-before-they-ran. But the lineup offered so far by the noble Party of Lincoln gives every indication that this presidential race is going to get much worse before it gets better, and that it may not even get better at all.
Some fellow political junkies welcome the sad spectacle of the likes of Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann jockeying for position in the Footrace of Idiots that inevitably leads to the White House. As Trump courts the birther industry and Bachmann blabs on into the ether, these progressives see the doom of Republican hopes in 2012 and an easy reelection for a president they may be somewhat disappointed in yet have not once considered voting against. It's easy to see their point. But you'd have to be some kind of nihilist to wish Trump or Bachmann to get within even forty percentage points of the presidency, and I'd argue you'd even be a nihilist if you welcomed them into the race. Obnoxious frauds like Trump and Bachmann serve no purpose other than poisoning the well, delivering the toxic sludge of their opinions into the public record and rendering useless huge swaths of American discourse as surely as if they were aging nuclear reactors on slow leak.
I hold out hope that moderate voters of all political persuasions unite to institute a blockade against our supposed front-runners, allowing for a conservative race that might resemble something other than deluded kindergarten bullies shouting to be heard over the recess bell. How about Mitch Daniels? Can't say I'd vote for him - can't say we agree on many things other than our shared commitment to civility in discourse. But Daniels would bring with him experience as a governor, which means experience in compromise (are you listening, Scott Walker?) and budgetary matters. Daniels would offer philosophical differences with the current president, not question his place of birth or whether Bill Ayers penned his autobiography. He could very likely diagram a sentence concerning entitlement programs without using socialism as the noun.
Some progressives fear Daniels more than they fear Sarah Palin, as they suspect the genial Midwesterner has a greater shot at the nomination and the presidency than the Wasilla shill. And no doubt as the race progressed, I'd find myself edging farther and farther away from the Daniels brand and closer to my own preferred candidate as the rhetorical heat increased. But it's no betrayal to the cause to wish for an honorable adversary, to believe that debates are enhanced when honorable individuals take up opposing viewpoints, or that the country would be better off in the hands of an imperfect conservative than it would be if the likes of Palin or Santorum even made it onto the ballot.
Having made this hopeful endorsement for somebody along the lines of Mitch Daniels to climb aboard, it might be best to consider the five clowns currently generating buzz in the fetal stages of the 2012 presidential race. Rather than offer much in the way of commentary, I've decided it would be easiest to simply dole out enough rope and step out of the way. Only a few ground rules were set in place before I tracked down these five individual quotations / exchanges that serve as an encapsulation of front-runner ideology. Sarah Palin was ineligible for inclusion, as she seems content to remain on the sidelines for the time being. Candidates were limited to a single example, so as to keep Donald Trump from unfair advantage. Statements are limited to those made in the last few months, to both reflect current positions and to acknowledge the savvy recent move by Newt Gingrich to delete every Twitter update he composed prior to July 22, 2010.
MOST BIZARRE AND DISINGENUOUS ATTEMPT BY SECULAR BILLIONAIRE TO COURT THE CHRISTIAN VOTE - DONALD TRUMP
Trump: Well I get sent Bibles by a lot of people.
David Brody: Where are all those Bibles?
Trump: Actually, we keep them at a certain place. A very nice place. But people send me Bibles. And you know it's very interesting. I get so much mail and because I'm in this incredible location in Manhattan you can't keep most of the mail you get.
There's no way I would ever throw anything, to do anything negative to a Bible, so what we do is we keep all of the Bibles.
I would have a fear of doing something other than very positive so actually I store them and keep them and sometimes give them away to other people but I do get sent a lot of Bibles and I like that. I think that's great.
- Interview with David Brody for 'The Brody File,' Christian Broadcasting Network, April 11, 2011
MOST FOLKSY ADMITTANCE TO WISHING VIOLENT FASCIST ENFORCEMENT OF RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA - MIKE HUCKABEE
I almost wish that there would be a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, at gunpoint, to listen to every David Barton message.
- speech given at 'Rediscover God in America' conference, March 24, 2011. David Barton is an evangelical revisionist historian and Christian Nationalist who promotes the institution of biblical law
BEST PAWNING OFF OF SEXUAL MISDEEDS ON A RIGOROUS CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE BY A THRICE-MARRIED ADULTERER - NEWT GINGRICH
There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them.
[I] felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness. Not God's understanding, but God's forgiveness.
- interview with Christian Broadcast Network prior to appearance at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, March 7, 2011
MOST IMPRESSIVE FAMILIARITY WITH THE BROAD SWEEP OF HUMAN HISTORY AND HOW IT RELATES TO MEN HUGGING AND KISSING EACH OTHER - MICHELE BACHMANN
In 5,000 years of recorded human history ... neither in the East or in the West ... has any society ever defined marriage as anything other than between men and women. Not one in 5,000 years of recorded human history. That's an astounding fact and it isn't until the last 12 years or so that we have seen for the first time in recorded human history marriage defined as anything other than between men and between women.
- statement given during speech at Iowa Family Leader Presidential Lecture Series, March 7, 2011
MOST UNIQUE MICROECONOMIC THEORY AND PROPOSAL TO ENSURE THE LONG-TERM HEALTH OF SOCIAL SECURITY - RICK SANTORUM
The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don't have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.
- interview with New Hampshire radio station WEZS, March 29, 2011
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