FinermanWorks

Romney Wins Illinois Primary

Coasting to victory on the slogan “Nauseating but Sane”, Willard “Mitt” Romney expressed his appreciation of Illinois’ culture.  “There’s the freedom, and pioneer courage, and the American spirit in a deep dish pizza.”    His campaign then paid everyone in the audience one hundred dollars to pretend that they hadn’t heard that.  The gesture was praised by Fox News as Romney’s plan to revive the economy.

The rising price of gasoline was an issue during the primary.  (In a completely unrelated story, Koch Industries is donating another $500 million dollars to the G.O.P. this year.)  Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich each offered his idea of an energy policy.  Romney’s plan reflected his own entrepreneurial achievements.  “Each day, I personally ooze four barrels of oil.  Even if I use half of that on my hair, that still leaves two barrels for America.  I urge my fellow citizens to follow my example and start oozing our way to energy independence.”

Santorum’s proposal reflected his traditional values.  “We should burn heretics.  Use them instead of street lamps and headlights.  And they are biodegradable.”

Gingrich’s plan was as expansive and visionary as the man himself.  “We have all these alien technologies in Area 51. Whatever engines the Romulans are using in their warships, we should adapt to our spacecraft and cars.  If lithium is supposed to work on me, why not in our impulse hyperdrives and fusion ion thrusters?  What we don’t have yet, we can get by waterboarding  the Ferengi.”

It was rumored that Governor Romney had a rational response to the Santorum and Gingrich plans, but his campaign suppressed it for fear of offending the Conservative base. 

Yes, I am referring to Abraham Lincoln. In case you were wondering, my other favorite Republicans are Teddy Roosevelt, Jimmy Stewart and Adolphe Menjou. True, it is not a long list. I could include three personal friends, but these days–out of embarrassment–they claim to be Libertarians. And yes, I do like John Wayne, but I never can forgive him for being a draft dodger. Neither could an naval veteran named John Ford, who used to ridicule Wayne about “being a sissy”; in fact, he once even made John Wayne cry.

Of course, modern Republicans would not want to be associated with a pair of liberals like Lincoln and Teddy R. It is surprising that their heads are still on Mount Rushmore. (You can imagine Halliburton getting a no-bid contract for that project.) But, oh the irony, the Republicans were once the liberals of American politics. Granted that liberalism was confined to one issue, but it was the biggest issue of the day. The Republicans were opposed to slavery. Some advocated its outright abolition; however, most Republicans had the temperate approach that we expect from liberals. They just opposed the expansion of slavery into new states. You’d think that would be a moderate, unoffensive compromise. Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas really are not ideal for cotton. But the South would not recognize even economic practicality as a limit to their cherished “institution”. If the South was not free to have slaves (freedom is a relative concept), then the South would leave the Union. Of course, it was constricting itself to the same geographic confinement proposed by its Republican enemies, but the South’s gray matter evidently was limited to uniforms.

Once the Civil War was won and slavery was abolished (replaced by mere serfdom), the Republicans had lost their reason for being. However, they so enjoyed power that decided to improvise a new platform. The now defunct Whig party had an incestuous affection for business, although its war hero candidates usually could camouflage the financial self-interests. That philosophy and strategy suited the intellectually-bereft Republicans. And they happened to have a new generation of war heroes, starting with Ulysses Grant himself, to front for the robber barons and their pet politicians.

Aside from Teddy Roosevelt, an aristocrat who took his noblesse oblige quite seriously, the Republican Party is essentially the same kleptocratic, stagnant-quo of the Grant adminstration. It is occasionally stirred by a social awareness but always confuses self-righteousness with morality. That is how we get Prohibition, McCarthyism and the Patriot Act.

I imagine that Abraham Lincoln would have been on Richard Nixon’s and Dick Cheney’s enemies list. And he would have been flattered.

P.S. Adolphe Menjou was a wonderful actor. Consider his fascinating performance as the diabolical general in “Paths of Glory.” Menjou was so suave and knowing, and he could convey all his cynicism with just an arched eyebrow. It was a remarkable feat of acting.