Courtesy of Slate, here’s a look at Newt Gingrich’s doodles from years past. You may notice two things about them, as I did:

1. Gingrich is at the center of every visualization. You may recall that John Sununu called Mr. Gingrich a megalomaniac “whose own leadership kicked him out as Speaker because they got tired of the megalomania.” These doodles do nothing to dispel that characterization.
2. While ordinarily I wouldn’t hold one’s doodle fantasy against the artist (I myself seem to recall once drawing an image of a large knife dripping blood — and I wasn’t trying to lead Republicans), I would like clarification of this note, found in one: “If it’s not important enough to do right don’t do it.” The syntax makes the meaning difficult to decipher. Does he mean one must do something well, or not at all? Or, more ominously, does he mean that doing the right thing, the moral thing, is exigent only if it’s somehow (politically?) important? (And, if the latter, was this written before or after he greeted his cancer-stricken wife in the recovery room of the hospital with the news of his affair and his on-the-spot demand for a divorce?)

I have to say, I did find myself oddly cheery today when it was clear that the Toad of GOP Toad Hall was going to win today in South Carolina. I had been rooting for him out of hope that it would confuse the GOP race, even moreso than those of us outside that race are confused by it. In bed late at night the other evening, my wife and I were debating who is most loathsome among the main contenders. This makes for a fun party game. I think it’s Santorum, who seems oddly preoccupied by gay sex and all its permutations and who seeks to return women to a status unseen since the last Puritan died off; my wife finds Gingrich revolting in all ways. Mitt Romney seems like precisely the wrong person at the wrong time — a man who profiteered from laying off tens of thousands of people while claiming that he was somehow creating jobs — and given the state of the economy and unemployment, it seems the height of unreasonable arrogance to go around campaigning on that theme. Re Ron Paul, I actually respect and agree with some of his positions; but could he please refute that newsletter that puts him into Santorum country? It’s truly saying something when Herman Cain now seems like the hip candidate.

Whoever gets the GOP nomination — and unluckily for them and perhaps, fretfully, for us, it must be one of these candidates — he will be left to contend with a party of three tents:  Wall Street; the Tea Party; and Evangelicals. These three want very different things, and, so far, none of these candidates represents all three (or even two). I don’t think President Obama is a shoo-in for re-election; politics being what it is, 10 months is an eternity, and anything can happen. Moreover, Republican enmity toward Obama is so great that they would vote for my used handkerchief over him. But if the rest of  voters look at that GOP candidate and scratch their heads, as they must be doing today, then Gingrich and the rest will have plenty of time to do self-centered art projects at home.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2012 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Politics, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.