Michelle Bachmann lost big time at the Ames Iowa Straw Poll. Man oh man, did she take a licking.
After bribing people with a/c, food, a petting zoo, Randy Travis, and giving out 6000 tickets she bought herself, Michelle only received 4823 votes. That's a negative 1177 return on her bribery investment on the tickets alone.
Ron Paul was just short 79 votes of breaking even, getting 4671 votes back from his handout of 4750 tickets.
The big winner, much as I hate to say it, was Rick (I'm not a Republican I just play one on TV) Perry, with his 718 write-in votes, none of which (?) were paid, fed, air-conditioned, petted, or sung for. Second was Romney with 567 votes, ditto.
Yet the media gushes for Bachmann, applauding not her popularity with the people, but, actually, her buying power.
There was much talk the past few days about "the retail value" of Bachman, Perry, and Romney (in alphabetical order). This during a time when most Americans can't afford to pay retail, and found out, during the wholesale selling of the Tea Party in the past election, that those goods were a pretty bad investment.
Other than Tim Pawlenty rather wisely deciding that being in the middle and neither winning or losing meant his campaign was dead in the water, the big, big loser was the conservative American electorate majority. The fringe element is still winning all the attention because a strong, non-incorporated, realistic, sane, Republican leader is nowhere to be seen.
That's more than a damn shame, it's a frightening one.
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
The only candidate I have seen so far who has an issues agenda that reflects most of the interests of mainstream Republican thought is Buddy Roemer. I don't agree with him on everything, but he makes his points clear and concise. He is adamant, even though it hurts his chances, to avoid the one thing that makes running for office in this country a despicable practice - he avoids corporate high end money by doing the amazing - he limits contributions to $100. Most people would say he has a chance in hell, but I think better a chance in hell than a chance we'll have to put up with hellatious Republican candidates.
We need the Republican mainstream to be strong so it can be a partner in the checks and balances of working WITH the Democratic Party - or we need to see partisanship dismantled altogether. We have reached a point with technology where the second option is possible: Americanselect.org will allow people to match the issues they are concerned with to the candidates who are most likely to meet those issues for them. Right now the website allows people to measure how much the issues mean to them, and match their concerns to the concerns of the nation. Soon, candidates will sign up and show how their issues match the electorate. I don't know if Americanselect.org can be successful in presenting a third option ticket that reflects the needs of the majority of Americans, but this is a great start in understanding what most Americans are looking for.
Most of my issues are met by Democratic agendas, but not all. I am not interested in seeing a weak Republican field coming up against President Obama in the 2012 election because I want both sides pushed to do their best to meet the nation's needs. The past decade has been filled with embarrassing Republican stupidity, the likes we have never seen in this country before. It's not fair to Republicans, it's not fair to the Democrats who need to work with Republicans for the betterment of the country. The Republican Party has become the party that cheats on its own electoral base, and, in turn, on America as a whole. Something's got to change.