The Newt and I

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary by trouncing multiple Mitt Romneys (Mitt, NotMitt and other combinations in between). This was definitely a blogworthy event. Hence I approached the Gingrich campaign for their comments. To my utter surprise I was actually invited by the candidate himself for a confidential interview. 

Me: Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your fantastic victory in the South Carolina primary. And thank you very much for giving me this privilege as an Indian American blogger of American political matters.

Newt: Thanks. But the reason I gave you an exclusive interview, which must remain confidential, is because I have a lot to learn from you guys. 

Me: ? 

Newt: ‘You guys’ means Indians. Now you must be wondering what the great Newt can learn from the Indians?

Me: Indeed Mr. Speaker. I am all agog to hear this.

Newt: You see, we in America have a lot to learn from Indian politics. We are just beginning to get good at all this politics of identity that you people have perfected for decades. Look at your esteemed politicians such as Mayawati, Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh, Karunanidhi, Sharad Pawar to name just a few. Americans are making a big deal about the 1.6 million dollars that I was paid by Freddy Mac for teaching them History. Compare that to the amount of money made by each of these great leaders of Indian public. And they didn’t have to do stupid stuff like teaching history and all. I met an Indian politician recently and told him about the ruckus Americans are creating about my 1.6 million dollars from Freddy Mac. He felt sorry for me. He felt sorry because he said that in India a corporator, which is equivalent to a city council member in America, makes more than that in one year; and they don’t even have to pay taxes on it. Each one of these great Indian leaders is a billionaire and still people don’t give a rat’s ass about it and still vote for them. This is something we are just beginning to learn in American politics. Now after all this fight I was able to win South Carolina because I followed the basic rules of Indian politics. 

Me: ?? 

Newt: As an avid student of history, I analyzed the success factors for each of these great Indian leaders. And what did I find? I found that people don’t give a damn if you take bribes, spout nonsense or boink another woman while your first wife is battling cancer even though you attack another guy for being unfaithful to his wife. All that is forgiven if you make them feel that you belong to their group. In India that group is called a caste. America being a relatively new civilization hasn’t had the opportunity to invent castes but we are learning fast. 

Me: ???

Newt: Take the pro-lifers for instance. So anybody who opposes abortion at any cost is considered to belong to the caste of pro-life. If you really belong to the pro-life caste, your caste members will vote for you even if you do a Freddy Mac every month. Take anti-gay-marriage. Anybody who vociferously opposes same sex marriage belongs to the caste of anti-gay. These people vote by blocks just like people in India. I have established myself as anti-gay. I am definitely more anti-gay than Romney is.

Me: ????

Newt: (In his natural condescending manner) Let me explain it to you. Romney has had only one partner in his life, admittedly she is from the opposite sex. But how can you guarantee that if he had had another partner, that would have been a woman too? With me, I have proven, not once, not twice but thrice, that I will definitely go for the opposite sex. Can you say the same about Romney? Or for Santorum or Paul?

Me: ?????

Newt: I am telling you, I have this thing in the bag. Just watch me in Florida. I have already proven my membership of the anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-Romney castes. Now in Florida I have to belong to be the anti-Palestine caste for the Jewish retirees, anti-Castro caste for the Cuban immigrants, anti-Republican establishment caste for the tea-partiers and that should do it. Romney won’t know what hit him.

(A noise of some heavy object hitting the ground)

Newt: Can somebody get a glass of water for this Indian guy? He seems to have fainted due to overexposure to my brilliance.

Character Dheela Hai

I have sympathy as well as admiration for Newt Gingrich. Let me start with the admiration bit first. If you have read enough Agatha Christie, her famous Hercule Poirot, uses a French expression sometimes, called ‘mot juste’. It means the ‘perfect word’; the word that describes a situation perfectly is called ‘mot juste’. For example, if you are describing the quality of having an amazing gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible guts and 'presumption plus arrogance’, then the ‘mot juste’ to describe it would be the Yiddish word ‘chutzpah’. Now I hereby bestow a new phrase to the French language. It is ‘personne juste’, or the ‘perfect person’. If you want to point out a person that exemplifies a particular quality or who embodies a particular word then it is ‘personne juste’. And Newt Gingrich would the ‘personne juste’ to describe the word ‘chutzpah’. This guy is on his third wife, second religion and first presidential campaign. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before (:)) but Newt was boinking his second wife-to-be while his first wife was battling cancer, all the while pompously and sanctimoniously trying to Impeach Bill Clinton for being unfaithful (at least ‘orally’, as the story goes) to his wife. This guy practically invented the Republican attack machine with blessings from the likes of Lee Atwater. While he was the speaker of the House in the 90’s, he made negative campaigns the staple of his diet. For this guy to pompously pledge a ‘positive campaign’ and expect the others to follow his dictum is chutzpah of high caliber. And such chutzpah is to be admired, even if grudgingly.

Now let’s come to the sympathy bit. Gingrich started his Iowa campaign in a spirit of brotherly love for his fellow Republican contenders. Newt didn’t attack Romney at first even though Romney was the anointed torch-bearer of the GOP establishment. (This was inexplicable to the presumptuous ex-speaker. How could a Massachusetts Mormon moderate be the choice of the Grand Old Party? This was like Pandavas making ‘Shikhandi’ the commander of their forces in the Mahabharata war. Shikhandi was considered half a man because he used to be a woman in the past life. Romney is considered not-even-half conservative because he used to be almost a liberal in his past life. When maharathis (great warriors) like Newt were available for this American Kurukshetra, why would the GOP settle on a mere conservative-by-convenience instead of the original conservative like Newt?). The mischief was first started by the Romney camp when his super PAC, sensing a potent danger from Newt in Iowa, saturated the airwaves with vicious negative ads against Newt, attacking his ideological and other minor (!) indiscretions. And now when Newt’s campaign returned the favor with interest in South Carolina by attacking Romney’s vulture capitalism, the GOP stalwarts were throwing hissy fits and lecturing Newt on being an irresponsible Republican? This is like the Hindi song ‘main karun to sala, character dheela hai’. Loosely translated, the song complains that ‘everybody does hanky-panky but if I do it, people question my moral fiber’. Newt gets my sympathy for being tarred and feathered by the so-called right wing establishment for the same sins that they conveniently overlooked when committed by the Romney campaign.

While the establishment Republicans were busy accusing Newt of having a ‘dheela character’ (dheela = loose or questionable), the real conservative Christian evangelical voters (CCEV’s ) of the Bible belt have always been questioning Romney’s ‘dheela’ conservatism. They understand, innately, that Romney is just another Obama with a different skin color (and a different religion, to boot). And these CCEV’s would be going against their grain and everything that the Bible stands for (or so they think) if they let the political expediency of winnability against Obama dominate over the real conservative roots of a candidate. And they are sick and tired of the corporate Republicans taking them for a ride for all these years. They prayed for Mike Huckabee in 2008 but the corporate Republicans favored John McCain. They favored Pat Buchanan in 1996 but the corporate Republicans foisted Bob Dole on them. And what was the result? A Democrat won in both instances. CCEV’s have realized that it is futile to try to win an election by anointing a RINO (Republican in name only). If the internecine warfare between Santorum, Perry and Gingrich could be avoided, they would find the real NotMitt to defeat the Mitt who is trying to impersonate as a NotMitt.

Disclaimer 1: I am NOT equating the Republicans with Pandavas in the analogy of Shikhandi, lest anybody gets ideas that Obama is Duryodhana, or worse, that the 5 remaining jokers in the pack (Romney, Santorum, Paul, Newt and Perry (oops, he dropped out as I am typing this)) are Pandavas or worse still, they are all secretly married to Michelle Bachmann. 

Disclaimer 2: I am NOT equating Newt with Salman Khan in the ‘character dheela’ analogy. Salman has much better tastes in women.

Deep Inside a Romney Strategy Session contd..

As an Indian American blogger of American political matters I was given a special observer seat at a recent campaign strategy session by Gofernor Mitt Vhomney’s Stoff (this is how the words ‘Governor Mitt Romney’s Staff’ sound when you speak with your tongue firmly in cheek!). Anyway, I thanked his campaign staff profusely and took my seat as an observer and here is what transpired at the strategy session (please refer to the previous post for a description of the participants in the strategy meeting):

The meeting started amicably and everybody congratulated the Romney-Mixer for achieving the great feat of making the candidate appear many things to many people in Iowa and New Hampshire. However, there were distinct undercurrents of dissatisfaction just below the surface. The Estrat (the evangelical strategist) was given a contemptuous look by the Mstrat (the moderate strategist), who, in turn, let out a torrent of some Biblical curses (or was it verses?). The Hstrat (the Hispanic strategist) excitedly said some nasty things to the Istrat (anti-illegal immigration strategist) but thankfully he said them in Spanish hence the Istrat couldn’t understand them. But he responded by waving the Arizona law in Hstrat’s face and threatened to have the Hstrat arrested for being an illegal alien. The Hstart countered by citing Romney’s own record of employing illegals to tend his lawn. The business strategist, Bizstrat and the Blue-collar strategist, Bluestrat were always at each other’s throats but had kept their uneasy truce for the fear of being fired. The campaign manager (CM) had to restore order within minutes of opening the meeting by separating the warring strategists from each other’s throats. 

Then the chief polling officer (3CPO) prepared to reel out his polling data of the key issues in South Carolina. Everybody knew that South Carolina was the real test of their team. This was for 3 main reasons. Firstly, the Romney-Mixer had turned the knobs far enough left on many issues to suit the New Hampshire market. Now he would have to turn them around far enough right to suit the South Carolina market. This was not an easy task. Secondly, they knew that Santorum, Perry and Gingrich were already ‘far out’ on the right side and had vowed to make their last stands in South Carolina; at least Perry and Gingrich had vowed so. Thirdly, Ron Paul, the perennial nutcase had suddenly loomed as a threat. The team didn’t even have a strategist that could counter Paul and the Mixer would have been clueless how to mix the existing ingredients that would make the Romneys look like or unlike Paul. It was imperative that 3CPO came up with very fine poll numbers or the Romney team would meet their first defeat. The tension was palpable in the room.

The 3CPO began, “I have the following data. 16% of the Palmetto state wants Romney to be Romney, 28% wants him to be not Romney, another 15 % want him to be Baptist or Presbyterian but there are another 6 % who want him to continue as a Mormon. 12% prefer him to be a Catholic while 19% said they would send him to purgatory if he tries to pull a Newt on them at this late stage. And anyway, Romney’s Confessional would be outright insipid compared to Newt’s colorful one. 62% want him to give them affordable healthcare but 80% want him to repeal Obamacare even if it is affordable. 60% want him to attack Iran while 75% want him to bring back the troops. 35% want him to cut Federal budget and 45% want him to get them jobs, in Federal Government preferably. 20% want him to attack Newt for being anti-party while 30% want Newt to attack him for being anti-conservative. 25% want him to be like Ron Paul when Paul talks about the federal spending. 20% want him to be like Santorum when Santorum is frothing at the mouth against gays, abortions and liberals. 15% want him to be like Perry when Perry is not debating or doing math. 10% want him to be like Newt when Newt is asleep. 5% want him to be like Huntsman but they didn’t know who was Huntsman.”

“Oh Maah God! I ain’t so good at math mahself but that one there is gonna add up to a million percent, you betcha!” the Blue-collar strategist exclaimed. He used to work for Governor Perry and taught him math back in Texas.

3CPO delivered his polling numbers of the Palmetto state in a single breath (like Shankar Mahadevan’s Breathless) and slumped in the chair. Just then there were two distinct sounds. One was the sound of a soft thump when the Mixer fell down in a heap with a dazed expression on his face. The other was the electrical cracking sound that came from the Mixer’s Romney-mixing machine as it short-circuited automatically after hearing the polling numbers.

Deep Inside a Romney Strategy Session

As an Indian American blogger of American political matters I was given a special observer seat at a recent campaign strategy session by Gofernor Mitt Vhomney’s Stoff (this is how the words ‘Governor Mitt Romney’s Staff’ sound when you speak with your tongue firmly in cheek!). Anyway, I thanked his campaign staff profusely and took my seat as an observer and here is what transpired at the strategy session:

Note: All the comments in parentheses are mine. They are also made with my tongue firmly in cheek but if I transcribe them the way I transcribed the words ‘Gofernor Mitt Vhomney’s Stoff’, then most of my readers (about thwee or foub mibbion of them) will not understand them. So I am sticking to how they would sound as if my tongue was not in my cheek. My readers should take a note.)

Note 2: The strategy session happened after the NH primary where Mitt Romney got 20% of the vote and NotMitt Romney, also played by Mitt Romney, got the remaining 19%. (The Academy of Motion Pictures is seriously considering nominating Mitt Romney for playing several roles simultaneously, successfully. Kamla Hassan is rumored to have applied for apprenticeship with Romney for taking tips in order to better his performance in dasavatharam. The Academy is waiting for the Republican nomination process to be over before doing their own nomination for the Oscars. Other serious contenders include Rick Santorum posing as a semi-liberal in California, Newt Gingrich posing as a conscientious candidate since his conversion to Catholicism and as a devoted and non-fornicating husband since his marriage to Callista, Ron Paul acting as a decent human being by disowning his own bigoted newsletters and Rick Perry playing the role of Albert Einstein in an upcoming Telemundo serial.) This gave the Mitt Romenys a total of 39% vote in the New Hampshire. A great victory for the many Mitt Romneys any way you slice it.

Participants:

Campaign manager: One of the many campaign managers for the Romney campaign (the extra campaign managers are going to be fired sometime when the campaign has made enough profit on their services. This is called the Bain Capital strategy.)

CPO: Chief Polling Officer; also called 3CPO by the rest of the staff because he speaks in many tongues (this quality is much prized by the campaign and the candidate himself. After all, the entire campaign is based on the candidate’s uncanny ability to successfully speak different languages to different people).

Estrat: Evangelical Strategist, responsible for the many Romneys’ evangelical postures. He makes sure that every Mitt Romney is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, pro-gun, anti-planned parenthood, anti-Hollywood, anti-gays-in the-military, pretty much anti-everything.

Mstrat: Moderate Strategist, responsible for the many Romneys’ moderate postures making sure that every Mitt Romney is exactly opposite of the above.

Bizstrat: Business Strategist, responsible for the Romneys’ business-friendly postures. He makes sure that every Mitt Romney is pro-business, pro-small-business, pro-big-business, anti-regulation, anti-taxation, pro-NAFTA, and so on.

Bluestrat: Blue-collar Strategist, responsible for the many Romneys’ blue-collar-friendly postures. He makes sure that every Mitt Romney is exactly opposite of the Bizstrat. 

Istrat: Anti-immigration strategist, responsible for the many Romneys’ anti-immigration postures. He makes sure that every Mitt Romney is anti-amnesty, anti-NAFTA, anti-those-businesses-that-hire-illegals, anti-Spanish language, anti-in-state tuition fees for illegals etc.

Hstrat: Hispanic Strategist, responsible for the many Romneys’ pro-Hispanic postures. He makes sure that every Mitt Romney is anti-everything that the Anti-immigration strategist does. 

Mixer: This is the most important post in the Romney campaign. This guy is responsible for mixing the ingredients from all the above strategists and creates a new Mitt Romney for every public appearance of the candidate. He has a machine with a bunch of dials and knobs that Mitt Romney sticks to his head before every campaign appearance. Then the mixer feeds in the data from 3CPO and does his magic with the dials and knobs. Out comes a new, highly calibrated Mitt Romney that appeals to the particular audience. This guy gets paid by the percentage of vote the many Romneys get, minus the vote percentage attributed to the original Mitt Romney. This guy started with 99% Mitt Romney and 1% NotMitt flavor back in the days when Mitt Romney was the Governor of Massachsetts, and today in NH he has almost surpassed the original Mitt Romney percentage (as I explained before, Mitt Romney got 20% and NotMitt got 19%). This guy’s goal is to reverse the original ratio he started with. By the time the Romney campaign conquers the other Bible belt states, he will have achieved his ambition. 

To be continued...

From Iowa to New Hampshire

The Iowans finally settled on Rick Santorum as the official not-Mitt Romney. However, Mitt’s campaign of dissimulation by faking himself to be not-Mitt Romney also bore fruit by dint of the millions he spent on this image makeover. Roughly the same number of Iowans believed that Mitt Romney was not Mitt Romney as those who believed that Mitt Romney was Mitt Romney but Rick Santorum was not Mitt Romney. Also Iowa showed the rest of America that the state contained about 22% people with a questionable grasp on reality by voting for Ron Paul. This figure was later used by Iowa’s perpetual Governor Terry Branstad to demand more federal funds for the care of patients with mental issues. 

Michelle Bachman garnered only 6% of the vote and once again showed exceptionally unsound judgment by dropping out of the race. Bachman’s exit has considerably reduced the leeway to several humor columnists and bloggers. I am sure that I could have collected a substantial amount of money from like-minded people for Ms Bachman to stay in the race, just to get her to expound her theories on other topics similar to vaccinations. With that, my secret wish for another masterpiece like ‘Who’s Pricking Bachman’ (similar to ‘Who’s Nailin Paylin’) or some such corny title faded away. Perry garnered 10% of votes. These 10% had severe mathematical challenges and could not count beyond two; hence they never realized that Perry could not name the third colossal example of federal waste. Jon Huntsman (who dat again?) was perplexed when he actually garnered some votes and mumbled something in Chinese. The most interesting result was the 13% garnered by Newt. Within a couple of weeks, Romney’s Super Pac had pulled down Newt from a front-runner to an also-ran. Newt didn’t take this lightly.

When I was in college, one of our most beloved movies was Tezaab where Madhuri Dixit took our collective breaths away with her ethereal beauty (and much else!). But the movie also had other highlights. One of them stayed in my mind. This is when Munna (Anil Kapoor, the protagonist of the movie) and his pals visit Lotiya Pathan (the villain character played by Kiran Kumar) in his den and destroy it. Just before the interval, Lotiya Pathan surveys the destruction of his empire with a boiling rage and solemnly swears thus: ‘ab Lotiya ki zindagi ka sirf ek hi maqsad hai, Munna ki tabaahi!’ (Henceforth, Lotiya lives for one and only one goal in life, to destroy Munna!). When Mitt Romney’s Super Pac practically destroyed the nascent and ephemeral Newt Gingrich rise in Iowa polls, Newt vowed something similar. Henceforth he would live for the sole purpose of hurting Romney, the fake conservative, the moderate Massachusetts manipulator, the epitome of everything that was wrong with Republican Party in Newt’s exalted opinion. This was going to be just another war of Northern Aggression, where once again the son of soil from Georgia was going to be locking horns with the carpetbagger Yankee from Massachusetts, but the Georgian was damned if he was going down quietly. And anyway, as a History professor from some third-rate college in the South, Newt’s grasp of history was tenuous at best, the millions paid to him by Freddy Mac for giving them history lessons notwithstanding.

And Newt had legitimate grievances against Romney. Newt believed that a few connubial indiscretions were hardly worth commenting upon, especially by his own Party-people. What are a couple of discarded wives and a few extra-marital dalliances, between the torchbearers of the Conservatism? Newt felt that the attacks sponsored by Romney’s Super Pac were a transgression of the oath of a positive campaign that Newt had taken. Nobody had the temerity to ask Newt if his oath of positive campaign was also reciprocated by others in the field. And Newt’s oath of a positive campaign can be summarized by an apt Hindi proverb: ‘Sau choohe kha ke billi chali hajj ko’ (The cat dons the mantle of penance after gorging on a hundred mice. I think the flavor of the Hindi proverb is impossible to impart to an English translation). But in spite of Newt’s height of hypocrisy, he remained a potent threat to the rest of the Republican field. They, especially Romney, never knew when Newt might don a suicide bomber vest and take down the entire Republican field in an orgy of mutual recriminations gleefully thrown about at a nationally televised debate. They wanted the ex-speaker to stop speaking altogether. Bill Clinton had a Schadenfreude moment when he recalled how he had cautioned against this ex-speaker when he was not ex and was merely boinking his soon-to-be ex-wife (the one who had cancer) and also his much later-to-be ex-wife while simultaneously ranting about Bill Clinton’s ex-tra curricular activities. But Newt, like Lotiya pathan, was way past sensible politicking and was baying for Romney’s fake conservative blood. He found some investors (rumor has it that the Obama-camp gleefully orchestrated the financing of Newt’s post-Iowa revenge trip) who financed his Revenge Super Pac that launched TV ads that could really hurt Romney, especially in the general election. Newt always believed in scorched earth policies.

During all this time, Rick Santorum enjoyed his moment in the sun. Finally the thick-headed Iowans had figured out that he was not Mitt Romney, even though he lost that race by 8 votes. He took it as a nationwide endorsement of his bigoted policies of anti-abortions (even though he and his wife had come within a whisker of having their own abortion, in fact, the purists might have accused the Santorums of having opted for an abortion when they opted to inject Mrs Santorum with a drug that probably eventually caused her miscarriage), anti-homosexuality (which he equated with bestiality, polygamy and a host of other Biblical transgressions), anti-federal spending (even though his signature was there on the famous ‘bridge-to-nowhere’ earmark and hundreds of other earmarks) and many other typical right-wing shibboleths. This is a special feature of the Iowa caucuses – they always throw up the most rabid candidates. Mostly they make the rest of the sane America throw up in disgust. 

So on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, it still looked like Mitt Romney and his other avatars were likely to romp home, in the granite state at least. Gingrich looks set to self-combust at the altar of revenge, Rick Santorum looks set to eventually self-combust in his zeal to appear like the Old Testament disciplinarians, but that would probably require the Super Tuesday. Ron Paul would peter out somewhere between the Granite State and the Super Tuesday as he always does. Huntsman would make a feeble showing in NH but being a Mormon businessman would realize the futility of throwing good money after bad and retire after endorsing the front-running Mormon. The Iowa caucus was the fun time, from NH onwards the fun will diminish unless either Gingrich or Santorum continue to stand up. I know I will be rooting for either of them.

From Debates To Iowa

From Debates To Iowa

So the debates started in earnest. Iowans and also most of the Republicans all over America were looking for a candidate who could fulfill a single simple condition, that the candidate should not be Mitt Romney. (Mitt Romney is persona non grata among the crazier wing of the Republican party. This is because Mr Romney sometimes makes sense. Sometimes he even appears human and thinks like a decent human being. Such qualities are considered anathema by the crazier wing of the Republican party. This is like a Congressi Chief Minister suddenly praising Narendra Modi for good governance. Such a hypothetical Chief Minister would be ostracized by the Sonia Party within 3 seconds).  Iowans immediately found someone who met this simple condition.

Iowans first fell in love with Michelle Bachman. This was quite easy. Ms Bachman does sport an attractive profile though she doesn’t have the ursine oomph of Sarah Palin. Nobody is likely to make an artistic masterpiece like ‘Who’s Nailin Paylin’ (Google this at your own risk J) for Ms Bachman. They had already anointed her as the queen bee during the Ames Straw Poll. This demoralized Tim Pawlenty so much that he withdrew from the fracas in favor of Mitt Romney. Bachman enjoyed her spot in the sun by making outlandish statements against the Sheep in Wolf’s Attire (Shiwa). As soon as the Republican establishment got a whiff of what the Crazy Iowans might do, they got into high gear and printed a lot of damaging attacks on Ms Bachman. This was not very difficult. The lady has a repertoire of crazy things to say, each new one crazier than the previous one. When the Mitt-supporting non-Iowa Republicans made the Iowans sufficiently embarrassed for supporting a cuckoo lady, the Iowans started looking for somebody else who fulfilled their single paramount criterion – that the said person should not be Mitt Romney. They found their next hero.

Herman Cain became the next darling of Iowa’s likely caucus-goers. He talked sense or at least he talked more sense than the rest of the field. And he met the most important characteristic of not being Mitt Romney. This honeymoon lasted a week or two. During that time several ladies came forward to claim that Herman Cain had fooled around with them. Initially the Iowans thought that it was just the Democrats being jealous of another black man getting more attention than the Shiwa (Sheep in Wolf’s Attire). But pretty soon it became clear to everybody (except to Herman Cain) that he kept his mouth open during the debates and his fly open most other times. Iowans’ hopes of finding somebody who was not Mitt Romney were once again dashed.

In the meanwhile, the Romney camp was getting restless. Romney’s poll numbers remained steadfast on 23% in spite of pouring millions into Iowa. His inner coterie came together to discuss the problem. After many outlandish suggestions, one lackey suggested that Mitt should himself become somebody other than Mitt Romney. This suggestion was duly accepted after focus-grouping it thoroughly and Mitt embarked on disguising himself as NotMitt. He had practiced this trick several times while attacking Shiwa’s healthcare plan, which was actually Mitt’s own healthcare plan. He started courting Iowans during campaign stops by appearing as somebody else. But Iowans were not fooled that easily. They continued their search for someone who was not Mitt Romney by ignoring the Mitt Romney who was trying to be not Mitt Romney.

This turned out to be Newt. This caused much amusement in every place but Iowa and Newt’s own campaign. The Romney camp especially did a lot of ROTFL. They thought that Newt couldn’t possibly meet the stringent requirements of the conservative value voters. How could a guy (Newt), who had divorced two wives while conducting extra-marital affairs, his first wife was battling cancer while Newt was boinking his second wife, while still married to the first wife, all the while trying to impeach Bill Clinton for not being faithful to his wife. But Romney camp had misunderstood the conservative value voters of Iowa badly (CVV’s of I). CVV’s of I, didn’t care if you fornicated while preaching against adultery as long as you attacked Democrats and liberals with vilest epithets. And Newt had done the latter part very effectively all his life. But Newt’s colossal hypocrisy was not the only arrow in Romney’s quiver. Newt’s baggage was much bigger, bigger than the United Airline’s abandoned baggage center at JFK, almost as big as United’s Misplaced Baggage center. When Romney couldn’t make headway with the CVV’s of I by pointing out Newt’s connubial indiscretions, he brought in the heavyweights of the Republican Loudmouth Brigade. Ann Coulter wrote three scathing columns on Newt’s ideological indiscretions. The National Review editors burnt their midnight oil to find the least offensive way of telling the Iowans that they were freaking idiots to even consider Newt. Usually the National Review people spend their time telling the liberals that they are freaking idiots (when the NR is in a charitable mood; most other times they begin by calling all liberals traitors), so this was a new experience for them. In addition, Romney’s Super Pac (this animal is a legal and Americanized form of what we contemptuously call corruption in India) spent millions of dollars telling the Iowans the gory details of Newt’s connubial and ideological indiscretions. All this did have an effect and the Iowans’ hopes of finding someone who wasn’t Romney were dashed once again.

In the meanwhile, the Romney camp’s most feared candidate had spectacularly destroyed himself by just being himself. Rick Perry governs Texas and has been doing so since the last incumbent of that August throne emptied it in order to occupy an even bigger throne. But it is quite apparent from the last two occupants of that August throne that this particular August throne doesn’t require much in terms of IQ from its occupants. And Rick Perry gave ample evidence of that during just a couple of debates. His most elucidative moment came when he famously forgot one of the three wasteful federal departments he wanted to get rid of as part of his topmost agenda. This is like forgetting about Chrysler when Michigan Governor talks about the American Auto industry. Rumor has it that Mitt Romney (I don’t know which one, the original or the one who is trying to be non-Mitt Romney. I can never tell the difference, I guess most of the America can’t either. Hence the Mitt is still stuck at 23%), himself, gave the rest of the week off to his overworked staff to celebrate Rick Perry’s brain freeze. With Cain’s fly blowin’ in the wind, Bachman being neutralized by dubious vaccination stories, Perry having self-combusted, Paul being a lunatic fringe anyway, Jon Huntsman (who dat?) being unknown to most caucus-goers, Romney was getting comfortable and even contemplated dumping the other avatar of himself, the one that claimed that it wasn’t Mitt Romney at all. But Iowans, once stuck to an idea (or to a Governor), don’t let go of it easily. Enter Rick Santorum.

Rick Santorum was an angry conservative. He was pissed off at Iowans more than even Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity’s wrath against Obama. He said to himself, are these Iowans idiots or what? All they are looking for is somebody who is not Mitt Romney and they can’t find me? I have been practically domiciled in this state since they kicked me out of Pennsylvania. I have railed against abortions, gays, and liberals all my life. I am as ‘not Mitt Romney’ as any human could possibly be. The only way for me to be any more ‘not Mitt Romney’ was if I changed myself into Rita Santorum. By God and Jesus and all that is holy, let there be light and let these idiot Iowans find me. The Iowans finally heard Santorum’s pleas and anointed him the final ‘Not Mitt Romney’.

To be continued…

American Politics - A Primer to the Nomination Battle

Indians are a 'political' lot. Most of us are interested in 'raajneeti' to some extent. This blog tries to give some basic facts about the current American Political scenario. At the least, it will make you aware of what is being discussed around the coffee machines in your workplace, if your workplace tolerates such a discussion.

First, a very brief primer on the American political system (the basic civics lesson), the major players, parties and other entities that are relevant to American political discussion:

America follows a "presidential' form of government that is quite different from the system in India.Indian system is a parliamentary democracy where the head of the govt (President) is a titular head - that means he (or she as the current case is) does not have any power and the power is concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister (or his Soprano 'bossini') who, in turn, is not at all elected by the entire nation. Out here in the US, the President holds all the power, even the power of commuting the death sentence of a US citizen or the power of raining death on Iraqi innocent civilians (thankfully or ironically, he doesn't have the power of raining death on US Citizens or commuting the death sentence of innocent Iraqi civilians, but be that as it may). The President is also elected by the entire US in an election that lasts exactly one day. After this election, the President is elected by some kids who attend a college for a day. They call it an electoral college and the kids (who else goes to a college, even electoral college?) are called delegates. It is a bit complicated and I will explain it in detail a bit later. Anyway, suffice it to say that a bunch of random people come together and elect their President and Vice President. Sometimes they make mistakes and elect Sancho Panza and Count Dracula but nobody notices it for 8 years as happened from 2000 to 2008.Other times they elect a sheep in wolf's clothing (I was tempted to show my insensitive nature by recalling a famous nursery rhyme about wool and stuff but I may be sued for all kinds of transgressions. In America you need to guard yourself from drunk drivers and sober lawyers, not necessarily in that order.)

America has only two political parties. This is as inexplicable as the electoral college. This is like having only two employers when you are looking for a job or having only two restaurants when you are looking to eat outside or like having only two movies to watch when your are in a mood for entertainment. Clearly this 'backward' country has never seen the likes of Lalu, Mullu, Karuna, Bhenji, Pawar and sundry other party chieftains of sundry other political parties, else the hoopla about the lack of a 'third party' would never have arisen.

The two parties are called 'Democrats' and 'Democrats'. They are alternately also referred to as 'Republicans' and 'Republicans'. Some clever people have coined portmanteaus such as 'Republicrats' or 'Demolicans' to describe them. There is also a large number of illiterate Americans who believe that there are two political parties called 'Democrats' and "Republicans'. These illiterate Americans actually decide to vote for one of the two, every 2 or 4 years. It takes all sorts to make a world as the saying goes.

At any point in time, there is a sitting President or the incumbent. If he is a Democrat, then some of the craziest/phoniest Republicans come together and conduct a series of verbal battles against each other (this is called World Wrestling Federation. Some illiterate Americans call it Presidential debates. As I mentioned before, it takes all sorts to make a world). Legend has it that in the early days of the Republic, this was done with actual weapons (E.g. Alexander Hamilton V Aaron Burr, and before some pedant objects to this, I know that Hamilton and Burr were not exactly doing Presidential debates but what the heck!) and rumor has it that a lot of Southern states are lobbying to reintroduce this wholesome Christian practice. Down South (American South that is) they are big on Guns and Jesus. Jesus would be proud.

So the battles between what are termed as 'Presidential Hopefuls' begins about 15 months before the actual dust-up between the incumbent and the other chosen one. So this time around, Barack Obama being the sitting President, and inexplicably calling himself a Democrat, the Republican crazies had a chance to get into these internal battles. 4 Years ago, Barack Obama and HillBilly Clinton and many other democratic crazies had gone through a similar ritual. So anyway, this time around 9-10 crazy Republicans (as declared by them. I need to explain this a little more. They declared themselves to be Republicans. Then they declared each other crazy and then they declared each other not Republican enough. Go figure!) decided to fight it out amongst themselves to earn the right to battle the Sheep in Wolf's Clothing. Some of the more pronounced crazies decided to stay away from the fight now that they already had failing TV shows, millions of dollars in speaking fees and very Christian daughters (who were knocked up before Christianly permissible) who were on the Dancing with the Stars show. The stunned silence at this announcement at the SNL headquarters was soon forgotten and turned into glee when other new crazies came into the fray. SNL refers to Saturday Night Live, a program where funny people make fun of politicians, celebrities and such. It is quite hilarious. In India people watch the Parliament channel when they want to get their laughs.

The initial field of hopefuls (declared and undeclared) and their brief descriptions is given below:

Herman Cain: Can't keep his zip shut
Michelle Bachman: Can't keep her craziness shut
Rick Santorum: Can't keep his Jesus shut
Rick Perry: Can't keep his stupidity shut
Newt Gingrich: Can't keep his mouth shut
Mitt Romney: Can't keep his pseudo-conservative credentials open
Tim Pawlenty: Can't keep his wallet open
Jon Huntsman: Can't keep his audience's eyes open
Ron Paul: Can't keep the Federal Reserve open

Donald Trump: Can't keep his birth certificate open

This is like the racist nursery rhyme called 'ten little injuns'. The 'ten little injuns' was known as something else in the old times, in fact Agatha Christie even wrote one of her famous crime mysteries with that name. The publishing house had to change the name in 1940. Anyway, the 'ten little injuns' song goes like this:


Ten little Injuns, standing in a line
One toddled home and then there were nine.

And then it goes on reducing the injuns one by one, just like the white settlers did to real Indians (or Native Americans) but much more violently than the cute little song suggests. So the first one to go was Tim Pawlenty who got scared because he was considered a little less crazier than Bachman and Paul by some corn farmers of Ames, Iowa. Soon he realized the stupidity of relying on the opinions of some corn farmers in some boondocks place. Because afterwards he spent the rest of his days watching in amazement and kicking himself repeatedly on the shin, while the crazy Iowans propped up nuttier candidates for the simple reason that they were not Mitt Romney.

Then Donald Trump went away when his tax attorneys told him that he could not deduct his election expenses from his income. He railed and ranted about the injustice of such a system where an honest billionaire could not bring his tax bill to zero. He vowed to get to the bottom of this conspiracy as soon as he had found the next ridiculous reason to question President Obama's birth certificate. That left the field open to 8 candidates who immediately proceeded to bicker and bite each other while maintaining a facade of civility and amity.

To be continued ...