And so, it’s 20 some odd months until Election Day 2012 and a very small group of potentially high-profile Grand Old Tea Party (or the group formerly known as Republican) candidates show up like the early spring honey bee hoping to impress the equally small hundred or so conservative activists Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa that most Americans (that would be GOTP, Independent and the very small smattering of Democratic voters) agree with their particularly odd variation of “values”, and opposition to all and everything President Obama represents, but mostly his socialistic health care overhaul; and that all of this could somehow magically help the GOTP make historic gains in 2012.
One of the most incredible long shots in political history, except for possibly with this year’s gathering of right-wing odd balls and fruit cakes is Michigan Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who not surprisingly is a huge a tea party favorite, and who – also not surprisingly – got the noisiest reception when she told the “huge” hundred plus crowd gathered that voters are ready to overturn the federal health care law and oust President Barack Obama during next year’s election.
“The ultimate arrogance, in my opinion, is Obama-care,” Bachman said. “That’s why I am so absolutely confident in 2012. Americans have made the decision that we’re going to take our country back.”
Ah yes, the perennial GOTP favorite line, “we’re going to take our country back.” But to where do you want to take it, and for whom Congresswoman? Are we going back to 2008? Back to those happy carefree days of Bush/Cheney when habeas corpus was suspended on a whim if your name had Mohamed in it, or before our military was free from Gays and Lesbos? Or back to the pre-Camelot days before all those pesky Black people dared to eat at the same lunch counter?
Of course the Newt was there, and the deep south’s Haley Barbour and even former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain spoke to add a splash color to the Midwest white bread event as the token conservative African-American, since Justice Clarence Thomas was unable to attend due not being sure how to bill the gathering and still at least try to appear impartial on the bench.
But why Iowa you ask? Is it because it’s a field of dreams, and hopefully Newt, Barbour and company will all walk into the corn and finally fade away? Or is it simply because event organizer, Iowa Congressman Steve King, believes that his home state, the state where the nation’s first presidential caucus will take place, is the proper venue to help conservatives shape the debate as members of the GOTP begin looking for a candidate to run against Obama.
“We need to take this nation to the next level of its destiny,” King told the crowd. “You can shape that destiny.”
Of course with Bachman, Newt and Barbour that “next level of its destiny” can only mean backwards or farther off the cliff of economic collapse started during the last administration.
While Iowa is the traditional launch pad for the presidential nominating season, when one sees the sharply conservative rhetoric from Saturday’s little rally, allegedly reflecting an Iowa GOTP that’s drifted not just to the right, but to the far right, coupled with some polling data from last year showing more than 60 percent of GOTP caucus-goers there are identifying themselves as not only Christians but evangelicals, you have the makings of a gold old fashioned revival meeting, the type where Mormons – such as Mitt Romney – need not apply; of course it’s also then going to be an evangelical crowd that’s going to have a hard time getting its arms around a two time adulterer, or a deep south nominee, which leaves the nomination wide open for Huckleberry, Bachman and Palin. How wonderful.
Interestingly enough Newt insisted that most Americans agree with his conservative values, with the Newtster actually saying the 2012 election would provide a chance to end the “domination of the left and move this country back to the center-right.”
That would be the center right where family values stands for cheating on not just one but two spouses, marrying each mistress in turn and then claiming you couldn’t control your hormones because of your deep seated love of country?
Haley said the GOTP can win next year if their candidates stay focused on key issues — health care and balancing the federal budget — without getting distracted by arguments about personality. Of course by balancing the budget he means zeroing out any progressive programs, while continuing to cut taxes to the top 2% of the nation’s population and allowing defense spending to maintain its unabashed feeding frenzy.
“What is important to us is to have a new president,” Barbour said. “This election needs to be about policy.”
That’s right. It’s all about the policy of taking our country back to a time when uppity folks like foreign born blacks knew their place, isn’t that right Governor? It’s about an America where homos and lesbians weren’t allowed in polite society, and it’s about the America where the term foreign policy meant telling our allies to shut up, sit down and do what we told them to do.
During the “event”, the speakers all focused on criticizing President Obama and the Democratic Party, and the Newter even took the time to say how he “helped balance a budget for four straight years” while House speaker. That of course was due more largely to the efforts to his fellow philanderer President Clinton, than for anything he himself managed to do, between his own affairs while impeaching the President for his infidelity.
But of course, Newty also took the opportunity to attack – yet again – President Obama’s handling of the air strikes in Libya. He ridiculed Obama for consulting the Arab League and the United Nations, but not Congress, before getting involved. The Newt said he wouldn’t have approved the air strikes, even though he pushed for air strikes and a no-fly zone just a week or two before the President implemented that very policy, but said Newt, “once you get involved, you put on the pressure and you win quickly.” As compared to becoming bogged down in not one but two wars with absolutely any exit policy, clear cut goals or objectives.
Cain, who decided to be the one speaker not talking about the federal health care law, said the conservative movement is gaining strength and will help the GOTP “take back the government”.
He does understand that the GOTP’s version of “taking back” the government would mean he’d be serving them the pizza, and driving Miss Daisy around town, doesn’t he? Taking the country back doesn’t mean equality for Blacks, Hispanics, Gays or Lesbians. It’s taking the country back to the happier times of Herbert Hoover before Labor Unions and desegregated class rooms.
Seeming to be oblivious to all of this, and believing the fact that since he’s a wealthy black man meant he shared in the GOTP dream, he said the U.S. has “an entitlement spending crisis” that must be reformed in order to solve the nation’s financial woes. Being the GOTP code for throwing the poor and the elderly out on the street where they belong. Cutting social security benefits to the disabled, cutting WIC and women’s pre-natal and health care, slashing college loan programs to the poor and zeroing public broadcasting, and arts programs.
“We don’t like the radical socialist agenda that is being shoved down our throats,” he said.
And what he wanted to say is we don’t like the idea that the poor can have free health care, and have their standard of living increased, and that we have a minimum wage and child labor laws and the like, and that he could’ve made much higher profits if only he could’ve paid lower salaries or could’ve had five and six your olds slaving away in his pizza kitchens.
Meanwhile, Bach on the farm, the Congresswoman from Michigan steered things back onto the effort to repeal the health care reform law and said that American’s bad feelings for the law had created a strong tide of support for the GOTP positioning itself for next year’s election.
“It’s never gone below a majority of Americans who want to see Obama-care repealed,” Bachmann said. “This is, I believe, the greatest power grab that I have ever seen.”
Really, “it’s never gone below a majority of Americans who want to see Obama-care repealed”? While that might be true of any Rasmussen poll, in the world outside of the FOC PAC bubble the clear majority doesn’t want it repealed, and is happy with the law. And are you really serious when you claim this is the greatest power grab you’ve ever seen Congresswoman? So, one can only assume you either haven’t paid any attention to the whole political coup thing in Wisconsin? Or, you wholeheartedly agree with it?
Bachman exhorted the hundred or so listeners that the stakes in next year’s election are enormous, and that “what we are going to determine together, here in Iowa, is quite frankly whether we will pass the American Dream on to the next generation.”
Of course that’s the American dream of white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian evangelicals. Not the one that includes people of color – except to clean the house, repair the roof, pick the vegetables and maybe collect your garbage. It’s also not the American Dream of any of those darned Muslims and their Mohamed; it’s not the American Dream of religious freedom, unless you strictly uphold to the idea that America is a Christian nation; of course it’s a Christian nation that is largely denying the Christ, and his teachings regarding caring for the poor and the sick among us, and of brotherly love etc. It’s the Evangelical Christian American Dream of the Old Testament where Gays are stoned to death, and only white people get to be President. It’s the American Dream of preemptive warfare and unending tax cuts and never having to pay the bill for the Wild West diplomacy.
