I had thought that we would hear about nothing except for the economy and jobs and the supposed miracle of capitalism from now until Election Day in November.

Nope.

The issue du jour is contraception.

Contraception because Prick Santorum, a Catholick, is Pope Palpatine’s puppet, obviously. Concerns that John F. Kennedy would take marching orders from the Vatican were way overblown, but in the case of Santorum, they very apparently are not. And Pope Palpatine is the pope who believes that the slightly more liberal reforms of the Vatican II should be rolled back. Since the Vatican II took place between 1962 and 1965, that means that Pope Palpatine wants to drag us at least back to the 1950s, if not to the good old days of the Dark Ages themselves.

The wingnuts can get a chunk of Americans on board with their anti-abortion stance, but even then, polls show that no more than a quarter of Americans believe that all abortions should be prohibited and that a solid majority of Americans believe that abortion always should be allowed or should be allowed in most cases.

On their anti-contraception stance the wingnuts also have only minority support.

Even a Faux “News” poll taken this month that asked, “The new Obama health care law requires that employer health plans provide birth control coverage as part of preventive services for women. Overall, do you approve or disapprove of requiring employer health plans to cover birth control for women?” found that 61 percent said they approved, 34 percent disapproved, and 5 percent said they weren’t sure.

But what was supposed to have been a war on unemployment and economic stagnation this presidential election season instead has become, under the “leadership” of the Repugnican Tea Party “Christo”fascists, a war on women and on gays.

Prick Santorum believes that women should not serve in combat roles in the U.S. military. Not that that is sexist or anything.

Initially Prick proclaimed that women shouldn’t be in combat because of “the types of emotions involved.” When there was a backlash because he apparently had asserted that women are too emotional to be able to serve in combat roles, he backtracked, and said no, he didn’t mean that — he meant that the effectiveness of the men in combat would be diminished because they’d be too worried about the safety of their weak female comrades.

(“So my concern is [that] being in combat in that situation [the situation of women serving alongside men in combat roles], instead of being focused on the mission, they [male soldiers] may be more concerned with protecting someone who may be in a vulnerable position, a woman in a vulnerable position,” Santorum said.)

Great “save,” there, Prick: It’s not that women are too emotional — it’s that men are too emotional about women’s inherit weakness.

Not content with putting just one foot in his mouth, Santorum’s mouth sucked in his entire body as though his mouth were a powerful black hole. He also declared:

“Women have served and do serve and do wonderful things within the military and … they do have opportunities to serve in very dangerous positions…. And I certainly understand that and respect that and admire women for doing so, but I think on the front line of combat is not the best place and it’s not maximizing what they can bring to the table.”

Because you see, what Prick Santorum believes is that contraception should be illegal and that women should not be allowed to serve in combat roles in the U.S. military. They should be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, and what he means by “what they can bring to the table,” apparently, is dinner.

Not to be outdone by Prick Santorum, Mitt Romney — whose Mormon cult, along with Santorum’s Catholick church, funded Proposition H8, which federal judges last week ruled was an unconstitutional assault of the hateful and bigoted majority on a minority group — declared at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday that by prohibiting same-sex couples from other states from getting married in Massachusetts, “On my watch, we fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage,” adding, “When I am president, I will defend the Defense of Marriage Act and I will fight for an amendment to our Constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.”

Yes, Mitt Romney is proud that as governor of Massachusetts he made damn sure that no one could come there for their equal human and civil rights, that he limited the evil of equal human and civil rights to Massachusetts only, and as president he would write the hatred of and the unconstitutional, unjust and immoral discrimination against a minority group into the U.S. Constitution if he ever got his mitts on the Oval Office, and indeed, during his CPAC speech on Friday he declared, “I can’t wait to get my hands on Washington.”

Gee, I can’t wait, either.

It is clear what the Repugnican Tea Party “vision” for the United States of America is. Just look at their remaining four presidential candidates: all four of them are right-wing, patriarchal, misogynist, homophobic, racist white men (yes, even the anti-choice Ron Paul, who is no liberal or progressive).

There is no place in the Repugnican Tea Party worldview for those of us who do not wish to continue to kowtow to stupid white men, despite the ugly U.S. history of stupid white men oppressing the rest of us.

There is no place in the Repugnican Tea Party worldview for intelligent and self-respecting women, for those of us who are not white (although we are a little more acceptable if we want to be white), for those of us who are not right-wing “Christians” (“Christo”fascists), for those of us who are not heterosexual, for those of us who are not gender- and gender-role-conforming, for those of us who do not worship the golden calf that is unbridled capitalism.

And together, we, the historically oppressed by stupid white men, are the majority of Americans.

Given that only about a quarter — certainly no more than about a third – of Americans agree with Prick Santorum’s and Mitt Romney’s hard-right-wing worldview, what this means is that under a President Romney or a President Santorum, we would have a tyranny of the minority.

And we already had that under George W. Bush, since he never was elected by a majority of the American people in the first place.

Obviously, Romney and Santorum right now are trying to out-wingnut each other for the primary season (it’s safe to write off Ron Paul, and very most likely Newt Gingrich, too), and we would expect either eventual victor to moderate his message for the general election.

But how do you forget such patriarchal, misogynist and homophobic proclamations as they are making now?

I see precious little difference between putting the Mormon cult or the Catholick church in the White House than putting the Taliban in the White House.

What all three groups agree upon is that men should rule, that women should be wholly subservient to and obedient to men, that there should be perpetual warfare, and that gay men and lesbians and other non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals, as well as non-believers, should be oppressed, certainly, but ideally, exterminated.

What I predict, however, is that the Repugnican Tea Party’s focus on social issues is going to boost Barack Obama’s re-election chances.

As much as the “swing voters” should care about the rights of women and non-whites and and non-heterosexuals and other historically oppressed minority groups, what the majority of them care about is their wallets and pocketbooks.

The U.S. economy seems to be improving, but not fast enough for the Repugnican Tea Party to ignore the economy and to instead focus instead on whom to hate and to oppress. The haters already hate. Preaching to the white-pointy-hatted choir isn’t going to sway the “swing voters,” who just want to be able to pay their bills. And, regardless of what I think about them, it’s the “swing voters,” not those of us who are committed to the far right or to the far left, who decide presidential elections these days.