The surge of Santorum, which neither the media nor bloggers can stop themselves from saying (likely with the pun intended), seems to come from the fact that "likely Republican voters" are split into people who want to win an election and those who want to run an ideologue. It's obvious who will win the nomination, right?
Absolutely not.
Santorum has the unique ability to appeal to the dumbest person in the room because he plays to their sensibilities - say the most outlandish thing possible, talk up the religious angle, and do it while being charming. Santorum is, of course, the current
The GOTea has a habit of shooting itself in the collective foot by nominating candidates who will either immediately or in the long run drag them down into the depths of irrelevance. Such recent examples include Christine "I Am Not a Witch" O'Donnell, Rick "Umm...umm...umm..." Perry, and Sharron "You Look Like Asians, To Me" Angle.
In each of the above examples, these candidates were portrayed as the rising stars of the Republican party, embodying the ideals and beliefs so strongly held by its membership, which doesn't bode well, considering none of them seemed able to control the sheer tsunami of "stupid" with which they kept pounding our political shores.
It should be noted that, by and large, the GOP continues to run primarily male candidates for elected office, and I'm not sure that it has anything to do with the GOP being an "Old Boys Club," but more with the fact that almost every example of a popular conservative female has turned out to be one or both of the following: (1.) Profoundly stupid; (2.) Batshit crazy.
Let's take stock of some of those candidates -
(1.) Michele Bachmann - Michele isn't stupid. She knows how to play a room like nobody's business. She is, however, batshit crazy. She was called the "Queen of Rage" by Newsweek Magazine (on their cover - the phrase appears nowhere in its article), and was portrayed in the photo as a crazy person. Not far off the mark, there, Newsweek. Michele is primarily a 2.
(2.) Jan Brewer - Jan represents the other side of that coin. What she says isn't so much crazy as what she does in office. Brewer has yet to make a political decision that hasn't been met with a lawsuit (that's a generalization; don't bother fact checking it), and managed to get reelected despite a disastrous debate performance that didn't seem to make a dent in her lead, whatsoever. Not surprising given Arizona's penchant for anti-immigrant sentiment. Jan Brewer seems unable to form coherent policies, much less speak in a manner that leaves her looking like a Rhodes Scholar, so that makes her primarily a 1.
(3.) Sarah Palin - Sarah presents observers with an interesting conundrum: is she stupid or crazy? My guess is a little bit of both. Certainly, she is savvy - no one can drum up the support of the undereducated like Sarah Palin. She can work a room, easily, but does so by putting on a show that displays her lack of intellectual curiosity. To watch her speak in public is to watch someone play a game of LSD-addled mad libs; her resignation speech was more like a poetry slam than an actual speech, only in that it was incomprehensible. Sarah is both crazy and stupid, which whips "likely Republican voters" into a mullet fantasia, and they will run to her defense at a moment's notice.
These three women are not, of course, representative of the entire spectrum of conservative women. I'm certain there are several quite intelligent, completely sane conservative women out there who would be a credit to their sex. These women, however, are not what the GOTea wants, right now. They want an ideologue; they want someone who won't "compromise" their ideals and beliefs for the greater good; they want someone to stand up for...well...something.
The real reason behind our current surge of Santorum is that he's not the craziest (Paul), he's not the most educated (Gingrich), and he's not a Mormon (Romney). Even more to the point is that he is favored amongst "likely Republican voters," which sounds strange to me, given the considerably lower voter turnout to from the last election cycle.
For a party who claims that the Obama Administration is disastrous for our nation, they seem equally unenthused about their candidates...and not without reason. The extended primary season does them no favors, and the endless series of debates has done nothing more than force them into a situation where they can't help but say something crazy or stupid. It's hard to give the same answers over and over, again, and expect to attract new people in the age of the "24-hour news cycle" (we say this, but I'll be damned if I can ever find a news site that publishes news between the hours of 9 PM and 9 AM).
The GOTea candidates have no choice but to say something crazy or stupid at these debates, because it's the only way they're going to catch the attention of EVERY likely voter. With any luck, they believe they'll manage to reach out to another crazy or stupid person who shares their belief, and they'll win a vote in the general election.
This strategy rarely works. Despite what my faux conservative friend tells me, the GOP candidate really shouldn't provide much of a challenge to Obama in the presidential election. He already has all of his best attack material on video, and the best part is that he didn't have to say a single word to get it.
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