This has been easily the most entertaing Republican Campaign season I have ever paid any attention to.
The republican "frontrunners" are such a collection of nutbags I have spent MOST of my time laughing. And some of it honestly wondering WTF is wrong with them.
All jokes aside for a moment, they have NOBODY but they keep rolling out the nutbags: Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Mittens Romney and a few other people I just don't want to waste my time typing the names of, because they are nobodies.
One of the best things has been watching these bozos chide and attack each other as they position themselves to say anything in order to trick people into voting for them and their Anti-American agenda.
And yes, they are distancing themselves from common, run-of-the-mill, workaday Americans.
Rick Perry, a man who bears out my own harsh perspective that wingnuts have been having a 3-year-long racist tirade and have been seeking the Biggest Honkie Possible™ to run for president. I have no hard facts tying him to specific racist tirades, but as Governor of Texas we can posit that his cultural sensitivity training wasn't high on his "reasons to vote for me" list. Rick likes killing people, he likes to pray for natural events while discounting the Scientific Method.
Well, Rick Santorum - I don't know how he manages to ruin for the nomination, spending all of his waking hours talking about gay sex - has complained about Rick Perry's book in which Rick Perry
he is personally opposed to same sex marriage and the use of marijuana for any purpose, but believes under the 10th Amendment states have the right to legalize both.
"It’s certainly Gov. Perry right to believe marriage can be redefined at the state level, that marijuana can be legalized and that tax dollars should be used to give illegal aliens special college tuition rates, but that’s completely out of touch with what most Americas believe,"
In fairness to Perry, he seems to be giving a lot of Lip Service to the 10th Amendment and State's rights arguments.
Santorum goes out of his way to be a completely out of touch prick:
“Senator Santorum is certainly an advocate for states’ rights, but he believes as Abraham Lincoln – that states do not have the right to legalize moral wrongs.
One thing republicans constantly try to do is make marijuana some sort of morality issue.
It is not.
There is nothing remotely immoral about marijuana, smoking marijuana or being high on marijuana.
There just isn't.
But this is where Santorum wants to pick his fight with Perry.
From a Perry spokeperson
“The Governor is opposed to the legalizing of drugs.” But does he still favor what he says in the book, letting states legalize marijuana? “He is opposed to legalizing marijuana.” Is that a change from the book or not? “He has been opposed. [Update II (5:25 (p.m.)]: Miner sent me further clarification: “The Governor does not support legalizing any drug. The Governor supports federal drug laws where appropriate. And while the Governor is personally opposed to legalizing the use of medical marijuana, if states want to allow doctor prescribed medical marijuana, it seems to him that under the 10th amendment, they have the right to do so.” ]
Is that clear?
Perry, like all politicians, wants his cake and to eat it too so he's against mara-ju-wanna personally; however.... professionally he's down with the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.
And I'll go so far as to give the guy 1 pat on the back for getting the argument actually correct. Pretty good stunt for a republican, but it's gonna hurt him at the polls. And that's as much of a compliment as he's getting from me.
These anti-marijuana views help him with that bizarro-world minority he is so fixated on appeasing but they are going to really turn off more and more "mainstream", middle-of-the-road Americans who don't see marijuana as worse than a terrorist cell hiding in their child's Kindergarten class.
Santorum is also vying for the same set of mouth-breathers and is sticking with what he knows: hate and reefer madness.
It’s certainly Gov. Perry right to believe marriage can be redefined at the state level, that marijuana can be legalized and that tax dollars should be used to give illegal aliens special college tuition rates, but that’s completely out of touch with what most Americas believe.”
Santorum doesn't know jack shit about mainstream America.
He is a freak of the First Order. Perry is also a complete freakshow, but, at least shows me he's got some inkling that the Republican's war on marijuana is not quite as popular as the Republicans like to believe that it is.
And that is the other key point.
The Talking Point
The point of all this - again - is that the DEMOCRATIC PARTY: our side - should be talking about talking about reform.
This is quite perfect for the Dems: they don't actually have to do ANYTHING. That's a good start.
They don't have to make terribly coherent statements - just positive-sounding statements like "Yes, it is well-past time we should be re-evaluating these marijuana laws" or "Yes, we have seen this isn't working and we think we should begin a dialog on how to fix it" Or some smary politcal speech like that.
No promises. No actual laws, No actual progress (no, we don't want to threaten dems with having to achieve progress...) just talk about it.
The goal is to make life more difficult for the GOP, to force them to regurgitate and escalate the rhetoric YOU KNOW they will spew - all that reefer madness crap we here from Santorum and from Perry, even though he's slipp-slopping for politcal purposes.
It would be easy, cheap, and effective.
And the best part: Dems could do this just to mess with the GOP - not to actually try to do the right thing.
I know how that turns a politician off.