That said, Mr. Santorum meets the qualifications to run for president of the United States.  He’s a native-born American over the age of 35.  His candidacy should succeed or fail based on the number of voters who think he’s best fit to serve in the Oval Office and only on that basis.

That, however, is not what happened in Iowa.  This morning, the Des Moines Register broke the news that rather than losing the Iowa caucuses by eight votes to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Mr. Santorum actually won them by at least 34 votes.

I have to write “at least” because the Iowa Republican Party claims the votes from eight precincts have been irretrievably lost.  Due to this, the official word on the caucuses is that it was a “tie” between Messrs. Santorum and Romney.  It wasn’t a tie on Caucus night; it was a “win” for Mr. Romney.  How is an eight-vote margin a “win” and a 34-vote (at least) margin a tie?  (Hint: It’s a “tie” when you’re trying to throw the election to Mr. Romney.)

A few days ago, pundits were saying that having won in Iowa and New Hampshire and heading into the South Carolina primary with a double-digit lead in the polls, Mr. Romney would be the first Republican to win the first three contests and had the GOP presidential nomination all but locked up.   How quickly things change.  Now the Iowa “victory” is in sincere doubt and Newt Gingrich is leading the South Carolina polls.  (We’ll see how that stands up after ABC airs an interview with Marianne Gingrich – wife number two – in which she details Mr. Gingrich’s infidelity.)

For anyone who’s confused about where all this is going, let me be clear: the Republican Party has long been the purveyor of crooked politics in this country and it’s gotten to the point where they’ve turned their nasty deeds on each other.

George W. Bush stole the 2000 election with the help of his brother Jeb, Katherine Harris and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.  In 2004, the GOP pulled numerous dirty tricks around the country, particularly Ohio and likely stole a second national election.  I worked on that election in Marion County, Florida and saw plenty of them.

Rick Santorum made Iowa his focus.  He visited every county, moved his family there for several weeks before the caucuses and staked all his hopes on coming out strong and building momentum.  He has, however, no chance of winning a general election and Republican politicos know this, so they apparently have done everything they can to sabotage his campaign and get him out of the race.

Given the way the Iowa Republicans have treated Mr. Santorum, I wouldn’t blame any GOP candidate for passing the state by in 2016.  It’s also worth noting that Republicans – first on a federal level during the recent Bush II administration and then at the state level – have been trying to restrict the voting rights of poor people and people of color, key democratic constituencies, with the unsubstantiated excuse of “preventing voter fraud” (even though they can’t point to any cases of voter fraud).

I’ve said in this space that since 2004, I’ve been pessimistic about the survival of American democracy.  We have now reached a point where the Republicans are willing to purge even candidates who swear fealty to every NRA and Grover Norquist litmus-test pledge, no matter how stupid.  Now they disenfranchise Mr. Santorum’s Iowa supporters with the “eight lost precincts,” a ruse so flimsy it would make Lyndon Johnson blush.

I don’t agree with Republicans, but this kind of Republican infighting does not fill me with glee.  It scares me, because if these people get any more power than they already have, this nation will be a very ugly place.  John Donne was right, no one is an island and the loss of anyone’s civil rights, even (especially!) someone with whom I disagree, diminishes mine.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

In a speech Tuesday, Mr. Romney said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”  The context, which is important, was health care and his point was that under the current system, one can change insurance companies if one is unsatisfied with the coverage provided.

Even if one excuses the gaffe, I think the former one-term Massachusetts governor was already deep in the weeds.  A multi-millionaire like Mr. Romney can no doubt change insurance companies at will.  Most of us have long since ceased expecting to be happy with our insurance coverage, we take hassles and hostility from our insurer as a given and are happy to hold onto any coverage we can.

I think the honest man deep within Mr. Romney understands the point about insurance and is determined to sabotage the politician who appears before the public.  (This is my superficial understanding of Jungian psychology.)

Tuesday’s gaffe is what is known in the trade as an “unforced error.”  Mr. Romney was not in a debate, he was not responding to a charge leveled by one of his opponents or a question from a reporter.  He cooked up this doozy all on his own – or with help from his honest, shadow self.

I have fired people; I never liked it. Even when the person in question had been provoking me for months, when the moment came to sit him (usually) down and give the bad news, I always felt bad about it.

For all the jobs Mr. Romney destroyed during his corporate raider phase, I imagine he rarely, if ever, dispensed the bad news himself.  Avoiding that duty is another perk of Mr. Romney’s pay grade.

Watching the video, it seems clear that the politician realizes immediately that the inner, honest man has betrayed him, since he immediately goes into hamana-hamana-hamana mode.

Other moments when the honest man came through?  I’d say the December 10 debate, when Mr. Romney offered to bet Texas Governor Rick Perry $10,000 that he’s been consistent about health care.  In that moment, the honest man was pointing out that Mitt Romney (and the other candidates) live in a world of wealth unavailable to the average American.  (It’s worth noting these two bursts of honesty occurred in regard to health care, a topic on which Mr. Romney has dissembled perhaps to a greater degree than any other.)

Another “forced error,” again forced by Gov. Perry, was Mr. Romney’s take on having undocumented workers care for his landscaping. “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake – I can’t have illegals,” he said.  Once again, the honest man inside demonstrated the difference between Mr. Romney and the rest of us who cut our own grass while pointing out that the surface man, the politician, cares about issues not for their own sake, but whether they will or will not put wind in the sails of his fortune.

Someday, I hope we get to meet the honest man inside Mitt Romney.  I think I’d like him much better than the person we’ve seen on the campaign trail.  As for many of the other Republicans vying for office this year, I’m not sure any such Jungian struggle is going on beneath the surface.  And that’s what really scares me.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

He grew up to be president of the United States, but we know him as Gerald R. Ford, Jr.  Mr. Ford’s mother left his father (who was said to be abusive) 16 days after little Leslie’s birth.  Two years later, she married Gerald Ford, Sr. and though the future president was never formally adopted, he changed his name to reflect the shift in family.

I got to thinking about this when I saw a reference to Newton MacPherson, now known as Newt Gingrich.  Mr. Gingrich’s mother wed at 16 just long enough to get pregnant, left her husband and married Robert Gingrich, who adopted Newt, a few years later.

Mr. Gingrich is trying to usher Barack Obama into unemployment.  Mr. Obama, we all know, grew up a black kid in a white family, his African father leaving shortly after Mr. Obama’s birth.  His name, including the middle name Hussain, stayed the same, but he later wrote of the pain and dislocation caused by the absence of Barack senior.

What is it about men abandoned by their fathers being driven to seek higher office?  (Mr. Ford, it should be noted, was never elected to the presidency or vice presidency, but the drive was clearly there.)  Maybe I’m overstating the case.  Mr. Gingrich has not been elected president (nor is he likely to be), but his drive too, is obvious.  The statistical universe is limited to 44, Messrs. Ford and Obama are but two.

Still, Mr. Obama governs in the political shadow of Bill Clinton, born William Blythe III.  Unlike the other birth fathers, William Blyhte, Jr. died in an automobile accident.  Mr. Clinton’s stepfather – Roger Clinton – was an abusive alcoholic.  That father figure is similar to what we know of Jack Reagan, who battled the bottle, had trouble keeping a job and was sire to Ronald Reagan, whose political shadow looms over Mr. Gingrich (and every other American Republican).

So that’s four of 44 and starting to look statistically significant.  Who else in recent memory?  John Kennedy’s father has been compared, with justice, to some of the more gruesome characters from Greek mythology; Richard Nixon’s father was said to be tyrannical skinflint who drove his sons hard.  That’s six for forty-four.  I have no idea what it was like coming up for Millard Fillmore and Rutherford B. Hayes.

They say people get the government they deserve and that government is a reflection of our nation’s psyche at any given moment.  So what does it say about us that so many of the men who are so driven to be the nation’s father figure have fraught histories with fathers – or father figures – of their own?

Clearly, it’s not about politics, since the ideological range runs from Ronald Reagan to Newt (MacPherson) Gingrich to Gerald (King) Ford to Bill (Blythe) Clinton to Barack Obama.  The gamut also runs from Mr. Reagan, who failed to recognize his own children (long before the Alzheimer’s set in) to doting family men like Messrs. Ford and Obama.

I remember reading that one factor bringing together our founding fathers (no pun intended) was that colonial America offered few outlets for people of exceptional ability.  Academia and commerce were embryonic; the military was a vestige of an empire whose locus was elsewhere.  Even the opportunities offered by colonial government were limited, but the concentration of talent in that one realm likely had as much to do with the birth of the nation as any of Britain’s foolish blunders.

Two hundred and thirty-five years on, we seem to be a nation led by men with something to prove to absent fathers.  A sobering thought as we head into the primaries.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Burlington will hold a mayoral election the first Tuesday of March, town meeting day.  Four candidates put themselves forward for the Democratic nomination.  Vermont caucuses and primaries are open to all registered voters in a given jurisdiction, which sometimes leads to mischief, but usually results in a pure form of democracy.

“You’re going to be voting soon, you need to see how this works,” I said.
“That’s twooo yeeears awaaay,” she replied.  A lifetime for teens.  She brought her phone, so she could distract herself by texting friends.

The streets around Memorial Auditorium were filled with citizens, discussing the merits (and demerits) of the various candidates.  The afternoon was pleasantly warm.  Occupy Burlington protesters formed a brass band and marched to the auditorium’s steps, politely moving out of the way so people could enter.

Inside, the atmosphere was chaotic, as Democratic Party events always and everywhere seem to be, but the mood was upbeat and the left-of-center urban Vermonters milled in the aisles, many sporting stickers or signs proclaiming their choice, but everyone cordial.

After a glitch-ridden registration period and brief speeches by nominators and candidates, thirteen hundred and nine voters participated in the first round.  State Rep. Jason Lorber, the low vote-getter despite an endorsement from the Burlington Free Press, graciously bowed out.

By now, the teenager was hooked.  She no longer rolled her eyes when I identified friends or politicians in the crowd.  “Senator Hinda Miller?  She’s the jog-bra lady!  I remember her from fifth grade!”  (For the record, the teen will deny she was ever interested.  She’s lying, but needs to maintain her side of the generation gap.  I respect this.)

A cookie from the snack bar helped maintain her mood (and blood sugar) but after four hours, I had only just dropped my round two ballot.  Back home, a neighborhood potato roast (as mentioned last week) was about to get started and since ballot counting was taking about an hour, we left.

Walking out, she said, “Remember how big the snowbanks here were last winter?”  I do remember.  I remember sitting beside them in the car, waiting to pick her up from basketball practice, listening to radio reports of anti-government protests in Tunisia following the self-immolation suicide/protest of Mohamed Bouazizi.

I walked the teen home, checked on the potato preparations (as ever, I contributed little to the feast), grabbed my bike and got back to the caucus just in time to hear that City Councilor Bram Kranichfeld had been eliminated in the second round.  He too, was gracious in defeat.

I made out my third-round ballot, dropped it in the box and headed home.  Down to two candidates, why stick around?  Most of the crowd agreed and the street corners were thick with small-town punditry as I pedaled away.

A few blocks south, Jarred and Caitlin, who still vote in New Hampshire, pulled up beside me and we cruised along updating the day’s events.  “This is what democracy feels like,” I thought.

Back yard punditry around the fire as we ate wild mushroom soup and waited for the potatoes to roast.  My cell phone rang; it was my friend Chris, still at the auditorium.  “Can you come back for another round?  It looks like neither candidate has a majority.  They’re tied.”

Tied they were – and are.  Remaining candidates Miro Weinberger and Tim Ashe agreed it was senseless to try and bring voters back Sunday night, so the caucus will continue as soon as the city Democrats figure out when, where and how.  Only those who registered Sunday will participate.

In New York and Oakland, police shut the Occupy camps.  The camp in Burlington was shut down as well, after a man tragically committed suicide in one of the tents.  Although these developments are unwelcome, they have been peaceful.

We need change in this country, change for the better.  The year which began with radio reports of a nascent Arab spring has seen governments toppled with varying degrees of violence while some undemocratic leaders violently hang on.  There have been bitter protests and riots in European cities from Athens to London.  Here in American we cling, however tenaciously, to peaceful processes of democratic change.  Let’s hope we can continue this; let’s hope our leaders recognize this and respond in kind.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Just like global warming, we’re getting used to this crap and we don’t even notice it.  It’s the effect of the 24 hour news networks, blogs (yeah, this one too) and twitter.  The entertainment business has taken over America, including our body politic.

The platforms of Republicans, either in office or just wanting, are so detached from reality that we may as well spend our time wondering whether and who Mr. Cain hit on 15 years ago as pay attention to his 9-9-9 tax plan or hear him mocking the names of Central Asian nations.

So here’s my prediction: Obama wins re-election by less than ten points, probably less than five.  Hold me to this.

Here’s why:

1 – The Republican field is now closed.  The early primaries (10 January in New Hampshire) are now too close for a new candidate to enter the race, both in terms of filing deadlines and fundraising, assembling a staff, introducing one’s self to the public, etc. etc.  One of the nine candidates now in the race (can you name them all?*) will be the nominee.

2 – The nominee will be Mitt Romney.  Strange, but true.  The only other candidate who might have had a chance was Rick Perry, but he’s made every mistake in the book and added a chapter of his own.  This man never lost an election until now.  Sad comment on the state of Texas citizenry.

(The Iowa Electronic Markets, which allow people to mix politics and gambling, have Mr. Romney running away from the pack in both Iowa and the national GOP vote.  These markets have been fairly accurate in past elections.)

3 – The stay-at-home voter.  Second prediction: low-turnout in 2012.  Mr. Obama has disappointed many sections of his base.  They’ll stay home.  Many Republicans have had a three-year itch to vote against Mr. Obama, but come 6 November, they’ll have to put up storm windows or take a nap or just somehow never get around to going to the polls because Mr. Romney would not be the candidate if “none of the above” was a viable selection.

(The folks in Iowa have also established two markets for the general election: vote share and winner-take-all.  The Republicans are slightly ahead in the first, Democrats slightly ahead in the second.  A combination of the two jives with my Obama-by-a-nose prediction, but I’m not going by the markets, I’m going by the seat of my pants, as ever.)

I’m one of those people unhappy with Mr. Obama, the only successful presidential candidate I ever voted for.  I will not stay home next year, but I may cast my vote for an obscure third-partier, as I did in ’92 and ’96.  (I did not want Bill Clinton on my conscience.)

I have that luxury.  Mr. Obama will win Vermont’s three electoral votes and the networks will call that result by 7 p.m. Election Night.  No Republican will come here to campaign in the primary or general.  Mr. Obama will not campaign here.  No presidential candidate has visited Vermont since John McCain showed up in early 2000. (Another reason to live in Vermont!)

I went to see Mr. McCain.  He put on a good show, but in retrospect, what was then vaudeville is now Vegas.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

* Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson (yes, he’s the one you missed), Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum

An example: Texas is still in the worst single-year drought in its history and the hottest summer in Texas history just ended (at least in terms of the calendar).  Wildfires destroyed an area of Texas as large as the state of Connecticut, another all-time worst.

On August 13th, in the midst of this, Texas’s Republican Governor Rick Perry declared himself a candidate for president.  He thinks – or at least says he thinks – global warming is a hoax invented by scientists as a way to get research grants.  He has not indicated whether he thinks these scientists are setting his state on fire.

Mr. Perry may be one reason Texas’s wildfires are bigger than everyone else’s.  (Texans like to boast about the size of things.)  This spring – long after the drought began – he cut 72 percent of the budget for firefighting equipment for volunteer fire departments

Salon quoted state Sen. Mario Gallegos, a Democrat and former firefighter: “Volunteer fire departments are the backbone of fire protection in this state, and they need heavy equipment and other resources to do their job.”  On the other hand, Mr. Perry did ask Texans to pray for rain in April.  God apparently said no.

The business of cutting nearly three-quarters of funds for volunteer fire companies caught my eye for another reason.  In the recent dump of State Department documents by Wikileaks, was a 2003 memo on US-Canada pipelines.  One section said: “Pipeline firms say they maintain close relationships with landowners, municipalities, and volunteer fire departments along their routes in order to enhance both monitoring of the pipeline, and emergency response. Company employees help to train local firefighters, and these two groups in combination are the ‘first responders’ to pipeline emergencies.”

Last month, that same State Department concluded the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry highly corrosive tar sands oil from Canada to Texas, is unlikely to have an adverse environmental impact.  Look again, at the paragraphs above.  Volunteer firefighters are the “first responders” to pipeline emergencies.  Friend of oil companies Rick Perry cut the budget for volunteer firefighters by 72 percent and the State Department whistles past the graveyard of “adverse environmental impact.”

In Wednesday’s New York Times, Terry Cunha, a spokesperson for TransCanada (which proposes the Keystone pipeline) says Keystone will be the safest pipeline in North America.  Words are easy and talk is cheap when it’s all just talk.  Mr. Cunha should speak to BP Vice President David Rainey, who told the US Senate in November 2009 the “best available and up-to-date scientific information” supports offshore oil drilling and that such drilling is “safe and protective of the environment.”  Mr. Rainey’s eaten those words a dozen times over since the disastrous Deepwater Horizon blowout less than six months after his testimony.

Talk is cheap for corporate spokespeople, consequences for real people are not.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Last week, Republicans who hope to be president stood silently by as their constituents cheered for the notion of letting uninsured people die needless deaths.  None of them had the courage to tell the morons in the audience to STFU.

At last night’s Republican debate, similar morons – or perhaps the same morons (the two debates were held 85 miles apart) – booed an American solider serving in Iraq because he asked if the candidates would try to circumvent his ability to serve his country because he is gay.

Whether or not you agree with our country’s wars, this man and thousands like him puts his life on the line every day on our behalf and when he says he wants to keep serving, he is booed by the very people he’s serving and not one – NOT ONE – of these so-called “leaders” will say a word in his defense.

Afterward, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman called the boos “unfortunate,” providing yet another definition for “too little, too late.”

I am more ashamed of my country today than ever before and that’s going some.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Witness, if you dare, the CNN/Tea Party Express Republican debate this week.  Cable News Network has a reputation for non-partisan, if inept, journalism, so why co-sponsor a debate with the Tea Party Express?  These people are not the League of Women Voters.  Sure, they’re a faction of the Republican Party and this was a Republican-only debate, but the Tea Partiers are known for their casual relationship to things like facts, so it might not be the best bed partner for an outfit like CNN.  How much humiliation can Wolf Blitzer stand?

Mr. Blitzer inadvertently begat the lowest moment of the evening by asking Rep. Ron Paul (TX) a question about a hypothetical 30-year-old man who chose not to buy health insurance and was then confronted with a medical crisis.  Did Mr. Paul, a physician by profession, believe that hypothetical man should be allowed to die?  “Yes!” screamed some of the members of the audience, while others cheered.  Okay, so there are assholes at a Tea Party Express-sponsored debate.  No surprise.  What was surprising (and again, maybe I expect too much) was that while Mr. Paul looked momentarily distracted, he went right on with his answer.  Neither he nor any of the other seven candidates on stage took any of their precious seconds of airtime to says something like, “Hey, let’s be clear – we don’t let people die needless deaths in this country.  I may not agree with Obamacare, but we don’t leave people out to die.”

To be fair, Governor Rick Perry (TX) – Wednesday morning – said he was “taken aback” by the cheering.  The next morning?  Really?  Did he have to check with his handlers and the overnight polls to take a stand against letting people die?  In ’88, the pundits jumped all over Governor Michael Dukakis (MA) when he calmly answered a hypothetical about his wife being raped and murdered instead of calling CNN’s Bernie Shaw a jerk for asking a rude question.

Speaking of Mr. Perry (have you noticed how I’m rocking these segues?), he was the debate’s punching bag, what with former governor Mitt Romney (MA) slugging him over calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”  Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) pummeled him over his plan to require teenaged Texas girls to receive a vaccine against human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer once women become sexually active.

Tea Partiers don’t like the government forcing people to take their medicine (even if it prevents cancer), especially if they can somehow imply that said vaccine might be a sideways permission slip for pre-marital sex.  Ms. Bachmann pointed out that Mr. Perry had taken political cash from Merck, the maker of the vaccine and even neglected to say one of his former key staffers was a Merck lobbyist a the time of Mr. Perry’s “vaccinate ‘em all!” proposal.

She could not, of course, leave well enough alone.  Hell no.  She had to jump on the express train to Kookooville and further claim – based on something some random person told her – that the vaccine was the cause of teen-onset retardation.

This person, who blurts out anything that rattles in her head, thinks she’s qualified to be president of the United States of America.  How bad can it get?  Stop asking.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

The answers (I won’t make you wait) are 100 and 98.  No statistically significant number of scientists deny the Earth is growing warmer.  About two percent deny humans are the cause.  Many of that minority are funded, directly or indirectly, by fossil fuel industries.

Kudos to presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Jr. for saying at the Republican debate last night, “in order for the Republican Party to win, we can’t run from science.”  He probably wasn’t going to win the nomination in any case, so why spend the next six months pretending to live in La-La land?

Pollsters for the other Republican candidates could have told Mr. Huntsman that adhering to good science is bad politics.  A few hours before the debate, Kevin Drum reported in Mother Jones that most Americans don’t know that global warming science is a settled issue.  He cites the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication as saying that less than 20 percent of Americans know there is scientific consensus on global warming.  Reading that, I had unsettling flashbacks to the “Elvis is alive” mythconception so popular in the mid-80s.

We don’t need reminding in Vermont.  We’ve had two hundred-year floods since May.  The last one, courtesy of Hurricane Irene (Why Irene?  Why not Exxon? Or Cheney?), destroyed 700 homes and washed out hundreds of roads and bridges.

Such calamities are never welcome, but in this third year of massive recession and government budget shortfalls, this is a real economic gut punch to the state.  Inns are closed, festivals have been cancelled, leaf-peeping season – which despite its too-cute name, is extraordinarily important to the tourist economy – will undoubtedly suffer.  (It was shaping up to be a less-than-stellar display this year anyhow, as it is whenever the summer months are dry.  Ironic, isn’t it?)

We’re also an agricultural state and crops contaminated by floodwater are unsafe to consume for both humans and beasts.  That applies to acres of cattle feed and dozens of streamside community-supported-agriculture farms in this localvore-loving state.  The dairy farmers were late getting their crops into the fields and missed their first cut of hay because of heavy spring rains.  (Ironic again?  You’re goddamned right it is.)

Contractors were already hard-pressed to finish planned road construction projects before winter, now we have several hundred new projects that beg completion before the punishing blizzards arrive.  Given the extent of damage all along the East Coast, even if we had the money to bring in workers and equipment from out of state, I doubt they could be found.

This is what the much-scoffed-at-by-right-wing-politicians computer models predict for the northeast.  Warmer and wetter, but the wetter doesn’t happen in a steady, manageable fashion.  Huge spring deluges, then months of parched soil, then more deluges.

This flood was the last thing people need as they are laid off from their jobs, as they lose their houses.  If Bill Gates breaks his leg, he can afford the finest medical care and has a dozen gadgets to keep working as he sits on the couch.  When a low-income laborer breaks her or his leg, it’s a financial crisis – via medical bills and loss of work – which may push his or her family into poverty for years.  That’s how this flood feels in this state right now.  It’s frightening.  And yet a bunch of Republican millionaires stood on a stage last night and complained that poor people don’t pay enough taxes.

Most of those millionaires deny global warming (and evolution, but let’s leave that for another day).  Worse, perhaps because the media puts a climate skeptic in every “balanced” story, most Americans don’t know there is consensus on global warming and what causes it.

In 1944, as he watched the events he would soon turn into “1984,” George Orwell wrote, “One day there will be a big, careful, scientific enquiry into the extent to which propaganda is believed.”  Even George Orwell didn’t foresee that science would be one of propaganda’s victims.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Democrats are said to be happy with the antics of the former half-term governor of Alaska. The hype around Ms. Palin chokes off oxygen for serious candidates, governors who finished their terms (Jon Hunstman, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney). Ms. Palin and fellow freak-show candidates Newt Gringrich and Michele Bachmann aid the Dems’ cause in the next year or so, tear their fellow Republicans to bits in nasty primaries, then drop out and go to work (or back to work) for Fox News. The more outlandish the campaign, the bigger the Fox contract – isn’t that the way it works?

Why would Fox News chief Roger Ailes do this? Richard Nixon’s tee vee producer came to Fox 15 years ago and built it into the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Shouldn’t he realize that by financially rewarding greater extremes of Republican buffoonery, he merely creates a market for it and eventually even dim voters begin to realize the GOP is not making an effort to address people’s real concerns?

Or does he? I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, but things seem to be working out well for the interests Mr. Ailes represents.

Unless this is your first visit to this space, you’re not surprised to learn I’ve been disappointed by Barack Obama. He campaigned to the left in 2008 and has governed to the right since 2009. Of course, his apologists say, what else can he do, given the all-out efforts by Republicans in Congress to subvert and sabotage his agenda?

Here’s how it seems to be working out: Fox News drives the Republican Party further and further to the right, creating a vacuum on the center-right that the majority of Democrats seem only too happy to fill. Why not? There are plenty of votes on the center-right, the people who used to be mainstream Republicans mined them for years. More important, shifting to the right ensures Democrats that they will qualify for generous campaign contributions from corporate America – the same life-sustaining political cash the federal courts seem determined to loose in unimpounded torrents.

In last weeks Washington Post, Harold Meyerson notes that unions are no longer offering across-the-board support to Democrats, given that across-the-board support for unions is now a relic of the Democrats’ distant past. (He also notes the unions’ are preparing for their own demise.)

We’re 17 months away from the next presidential election and pundits say no Republican candidate is likely to beat Mr. Obama. Many of Mr. Obama’s 2008 supporters are as uninspired, but whom else can they vote for (if they vote at all)?

This morning’s New York Times says no president since Franklin Roosevelt has won re-election when the unemployment rate is higher than 7.2 percent (right now, it’s nine percent). Interesting statistic, but I think it misses the point. No politician from anywhere on the spectrum has seriously addressed unemployment and our unemployment crisis is almost three years old. Clearly, they know it doesn’t matter; it only affects the little people.

Again, I don’t think this is a conspiracy, but just as natural evolution eventually produces complex organisms, so political evolution, driven by the concentrated pools of cash, leads to certain inevitable ends. In this case it’s a two-party government that acts as contractor for the corporate state.

© Mark Floegel, 2011