Bill Press (www.billpress.com) had a column entitled “You’d have to be stupid to run against Obama.” Well the stupid keep trying.
Looking at the current crop of Republicans who are falling all over themselves by sort of running and then not running, it brings to mind the reality show of some time ago called “The Last Comic Standing.”
The list of possible GOP standard bearers who are not running is growing longer by the minute. George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani (maybe in now? who knows?), Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush all said no. Haley Barbour made noises then dropped out. Donald Trump drummed up attention (for his reality show more than anything else) and then dropped out. Mike Huckabee is making more money at Fox so he said no. And now the latest favorite, Mitch Daniels said no.
So who do we have left? Well Mitt (“I sorta was Governor of Massachusetts”) Romney is still making sure he looks good for the cameras. The health care law he helped get enacted in Massachusetts will dog him but Mitt will do one of his famous flip-flops and explain it away. Maybe!
Don’t forget former Governor Tim Pawlenty, who said on CNN - “If any doofus can go to Washington and maintain the status quo. And that's what we've got in the White House and the Congress in terms of the attitude about their willingness to tackle these issues.” I thought the 2010 election sent in a bunch of radicals that were going to shake things up in Washington. I guess maybe the Tea Party people sent in a bunch of doofuses (or is it doofi?).
Then there is the Paris Hilton of politics, Sarah Palin, riding her macho hog in Washington, posing for pictures and spouting a bunch of stuff that sounds good but really means nothing – if you can understand her at all. And of course Michelle Bachmann, the Tea Party favorite who can’t keep her American history straight. I heard that the press at some point egged the two of them by floating the idea of a Palin/Bachmann ticket. That, God forbid if it ever happened, would be a sequel to “Legally Blonde” movie retitled “Legally Brunette times Two.”
What is amazing to me is that for all the apparent fervor against Obama from the Political Right, you would think there would be no shortage of people falling all over each other and willing to take him on. After all he is, according to the wing nuts, leading America down to ruin by “taxing and spending.” Meanwhile the GOP in Congress can’t get their act together to pass anything meaningful.
I go back to what Bill Press said, “You’d have to be stupid to run against Obama.” Maybe the GOP will eventually find someone stupid enough to run. Think about it.