Perry leaves race, endorses Gingrich

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 1 Comment

"Is he the fat one? Yeah, what the fuck."

It was a classic story of the cruelty implicit in the American dream: Rick Perry, born son of struggling ranchers and once a serious contender for President, is now reduced to being the millionaire governor of Texas. His meteoric rise A) lasted about a week and B) only made his fall more vertiginous—and all for the simple crime of never knowing what he was doing. Perry has formally withdrawn his candidacy for the Republican nomination and, in one last act of electoral incompetence, instructed his followers to support Newt Gingrich. That’s like your dog running away and, as he goes, suggesting that you play fetch with the microwave. In a completely unrelated story, it turns out that Rick Santorum actually won Iowa.

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Now Romney knows why you cry

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 1 Comment

Almost

Mitt Rombot is programmed to relate to you. So why are you a dick? Speaking at Myrtle Beach during his I, Too, Am a Normal User campaign, Rombot estimated his income tax rate at “probably closer to 15% than anything.” Examples of anything include 38%, 25%, 14% and 16%, so we’re talking 15%. As Reuters ace Sam Young notes, that ballpark figure suggests “that one of the wealthiest people to ever run for U.S. president pays a much lower rate than most Americans.”  Don’t worry, though: President Rombot would never implement policies to reinforce the staggering wealth discrepancies that have defined his entire operations log. This failsafe switch prevents that.

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Understand the entire 2012 GOP in one Hill article

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 4 Comments

Jon Huntsman lost momentum after the Republican base realized that was just his last name.

Combat! blog endorsee and suicidally reasonable Republican Jon Huntsman has ended his campaign for the presidency, shocking no one. Okay, maybe he shocked the editorial board of the The State, the South Carolina newspaper that just endorsed him for the nomination. Everyone else was cool. Rick Perry is statistically more likely to find himself alone with Santorum and Paul, and the rapidity with which the whole field can order Chinese food will be compromised. Otherwise, it’s like hearing Foghat broke up. Huntsman wasn’t exactly a force. As the Hill puts it:

Although he came into the race with a fair amount of hype, his campaign failed to gain traction from the start. He struggled to gain momentum in the polls and fundraising. And he failed to shake off his association with the White House, given that he served as Obama’s ambassador to China.

Only in the Republican Party of 2012 would an association with the White House be considered an obstacle to the presidency. In fact, that Hill article might be a microcosm of the whole race.

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Romney Fever: Contract it!

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates, Uncategorized 6 Comments

The most interesting picture of Mitt Romney I could find

I don’t know what happened, but Rick Santorum has somehow lost the New Hampshire primary. Given his landslide tie for victory in Iowa, I am forced to conclude that some sort of irregularity or even a natural disaster prevented people in New Hampshire from voting. Perhaps it relates to these reports I’ve been getting out of New England. It seems people out there have been succumbing to a kind of mass hysteria—Romneymania, they call it—in which registered Republicans suffer a Romnomaniacal episode and, you know, give up.

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Billionaire casino owner gives Gingrich $5 million

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 11 Comments

Sheldon Adelson orders a round of healthy white babies

The Gingrich campaign is giddy like it’s new staffer day on the news that Sheldon Adelson has given them five million dollars. Of course, Adelson didn’t give it directly to Gingrich; that would violate federal campaign finance laws one thousand times in a row. The billionaire casino magnate and Chinese bribery defendant gave $5 million to the Winning Our Future Super PAC, which is of course not controlled by the Gingrich campaign in compliance with US law. As of yesterday, Winning Our Future had bought $3.4 million worth of advertising time in South Carolina. Presumably, the ads will urge each voter to read about the candidates and make a list of which leadership qualities he or she considers most important. Or they’ll call Mitt Romney a pussy.

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