The Island of Angry, Scary, Misfit Toys

It is interesting that Mitt has veered so strongly back to the political middle, starting with his startling performance in last week's debate. All along, I thought he was a better and more pragmatic leader than he was "forced" to campaign as during the Republican presidential primary campaign.

Obviously, it's very unlikely that I would vote GOP for president, but even if I were more independent and thought Romney was a good choice, I would never vote for him because of the crazy nut-case Tea Party wing of the GOP.  The thought that they would have any influence whatsoever with the president is a non-starter.

The GOP primary was, to any level-headed person, an ominous, depressing freak show.  Contrast the roster of candidates to the last couple of Democratic presidential primary seasons: Donald Trump (never officially I know, but he did lead in the early polls and threatened to enter the race), Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney.  I have helpfully listed these in descending order from scariest and nuttiest.

About as nutty as it gets for the Dems in 2008 is Dennis Kucinich (sorry to break it to you, Dennis, but we have a "Department of Peace" - it's called the State Department.)

In case I can persuade anyone reading this that we don't want Tea Partiers calling any shots, I thought it would be good to review the top 10 scary and/or nutty events of the 2012 Republican presidential primary season.

• Michelle Bachmann's anecdotal evidence that vaccines cause mental retardation. 

• Herman Cain endorses a lethal, electrified fence on the US-Mexico border to discourage illegal border crossings.  He backpedals, and then appears to re-endorse the proposal because it is such a crowd-pleaser.

• Newt Gingrich envisions a permanent moon base by "his second term."

• Supporters at one debate yell "yeah!" when Ron Paul answers whether uninsured poor people with life-threatening illnesses should be allowed to die.  No one chooses to condemn or address the outburst.  Paul answers that local churches and friends/family should foot the bill.

• The crowd at a primary debate boos a gay soldier respectfully asking a question via remote video.  No candidate condemns or responds to the booing during the debate.

• The crowd at a primary debate strongly applauds the fact that Rick Perry has presided over more death row executions than any governor in history.  No one addresses the crowd's reaction.

1. Mitt Romney shows what he has to say in order to build good relationships and raise money with his ultra-wealthy donors: 47% of Americans (including all those who accept any government assistance) view themselves as victims, robotically vote for democrats, and think they are entitled to "food, housing, whatever".

• At one debate, every single candidate indicated that he or she would "walk away" from any deficit reduction deal that involved revenue increases of any kind, including a deal that would involve a 10 to 1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases.

• Rick Santorum addresses a Tea Party crowd and calls President Obama "a snob" for wanting people to go to college.  He indicates that this must be so that young people can be remade in the president's image.  (for the record, Obama has said he wants all young people to get post-high school education of some sort: college or technical training, etc.)

There are many more, but I've purposely tried to focus on events that illustrate the extremism of the current Republican party, hijacked by the "Tea Party", and the kinds of candidates and pandering that they've generated.  The GOP has gone off the rails.  I sympathize with level-headed conservatives (there are quite a few of them).  Ronald Reagan himself would be considered far too liberal, practical, and bi-partisan for today's GOP.  And remember - that socialist firebrand Richard Nixon created the EPA.

I've also left out many of the slipups that I don't consider core issues (Mitt's $10k bet, Perry's brain freeze are not really relevant to their policies.)

It is time to move the country back to a more pragmatic and practical political leadership.  Yes, that could be called "moving to the left" by some.  At one point I might have thought Mitt an effective leader in that vein, but no longer after his long season in bed with the crowd that thinks taxes are much, much too high when they are at their lowest levels since the 1950's, the crowd that thinks a Republican-inspired health care plan is a socialist extremist government takeover of health care, the crowd that thinks climate change is a hoax created by liberal egghead scientists,  and the crowd that thinks fact-checkers are liberally-biased.  He may have moved to the middle, but he's still on a leash.