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…