Barack Hussein Obama has a couple of things going for him. First, everything he has done so far he promised to do when running for office. The far left might be uncomfortable with the continued wars and the compromises on health care and the economy, but he has stayed on point as best he can given the ferocity of the opposition. He also offed Osama Bin Ladin, something the previous administration forgot to do as it focused on short term profits for Haliburton and Iraqi oil reserves.
His willingness to compromise has disenchanted some and placated no one on the right side of the aisle, and seemed therefore at times an actual weakness. Everyone south and west of Washington D.C. wants to blame him for not providing a quick fix for a financial crisis so deep and appalling that it rivaled the one left to Franklin Roosevelt by the hapless geek, Herbert Hoover. For Obama, the rock has appeared to have met the hard place.
But:
The second thing the president of the United States of America has going for him is a gaggle of republican candidates who make Maury Povitch seem civilized and in touch with the vital issues of the day.
Where did they find these babbling monsters? More importantly, how can any of them survive the fractured and schizophrenic mob that their party has degenerated into?
The list is a litany of fools, beasts, and suspected left wing moles.
Every time doubt and anxiety creep into the wavering hearts of the democratic faithful all they have to do is take a gander at the alternative being offered to America.
The republican party has made a fundamental strategic mistake. It saw all those racist fools in the street, thought they were a majority and sold out to them.
The tea party is the final refuge and last gasp of an aging, rapidly shrinking anglo-saxon cadre who are driven mad by the inevitable. The days of unchallenged white rule, unapologetic American imperialism, and buyer beware capitalism are done. The movement is in fact the death throes of 1950's America. Not the age, but the attitude held by every baby boomer who didn't grow long hair or move left in the 1960's. They are the devoted sons and daughters of Nixon's silent majority and they are the last generation to have attended segregated public schools.
The inherent problem both parties have is that the far edges tend to control the nomination processes, but can't deliver national elections. This election cycle that conundrum is moot for the democrats. It is not for the republicans.
Rick Perry might get rousing ovations in front of a tea party rally when he rants about social security being a failed socialist program that needs to be abolished. However that speech won't play as well at the retirement home in front of those who depend on those monthly checks and who actually vote.
Let's face it. Bachman isn't acceptable to even the least lucid members of that crowd. For all their moral outrage at such charges, Cain is black and therefore out of the mix. Ron, heroin should be legalized, Paul has gone off his nut. Romney is the member of a non Christian cult and his health plan is the one Obama's is based on. You can google Santorum's name, but once you start reading the gag reflex will kick in.
No these republicans either can't pass the purity test, or connect with any sort of middle of the road mind set.
Corporate republicans, the old power base, have submitted to what amounts to twenty-first century brown shirts baying in the streets. They mistakenly thought they could control this run away train and now they are stuck on it, doomed to ride out the trip and wait for the catastrophic derailment.
Ladies and gentlemen, barring some unforeseen disaster, President Obama is headed to a second term.
Bet on it.
11-4-11
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