Republicans in Disarray After Iowa

Hooray! Rick Santorum's surge in Iowa has totally fucked up the Republican primary. It's after midnight on the night of the Iowa caucuses, with 96 percent of the vote in, Romney and "Man on Dog Sex" Santorum are within 100 votes of each other. Mittens must be boiling mad. "Goddamnit!," he's probably screaming at his staff, "I thought we had this thing sewn up. Now I gotta go after a guy who lost a Pennsylvania senate race by 18 freakin' points? A nutcase who thinks contraception should be outlawed?"

Rick Perry has effectively dropped out. Bachmann is stubbornly sticking in and Newtie has become like a wounded bear, ready to slash at Mittens. Ron Paul had a strong finish but I don't think he will go for a third party candidacy because it will hand the election to Obama. The Republicans would be furious and then the party establishment would take it out on Paul's son, the senator from Kentucky.

But in the long run, Iowa is all meaningless. Look at who the Iowa Republicans have chosen before: Huckabee, Buchanan, even Pat Robertson (I think). Mittens is going to be the nominee and Santorum's victory (even if he is second it's still a victory) just delays the inevitable. What this says to me is the Repubs STILL don't like Mittens. Gingrich is out for blood and he's going to attack Grandpa Paul and Mittens. He wants revenge for the negative ads (ironically these are the result of super PACs and the right-wing judges on the Supreme Court deciding money is speech and corporations are people.) Santorum might take South Carolina, but Florida should decide everything. It makes Obama look much better by comparison.

While flipping channels from MSNBC's coverage of Iowa, I turned to two reality shows which provided ironic contrast. One was Bravo's It's a Brad, Brad World with the very gay former asst. of Rachel Zoe leading a very gay fashion-forward lifestyle with his boyfriend. The other was ABC's supertrashy Celebrity Wife Swap with fame whore Gary Busey and repressed gay minister Ted Haggard trading spouses. Here was an election with candidates looking for votes by calling for outlawing sodomy and advocating the degration of gay relationships, while on other networks gays are being celebrated (Brad) and participating in their own exploitation (Ted).