Rick Santorum's America

Rick Santorum's worst nightmare: an out gay character in Archie comics

In a recent speech, Rick Santorum described America's future if Obama wins a second term. He painted a grim fantasy of citizens huddled in their homes afraid to venture into the streets because the country had become a nightmare of violence and fornication. As the President destroys the very foundations of our great society--the family, the church, small businesses, the Rotary, the weinie roasts, Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe--vandals take over and unleash a carnival of carnality and destruction. Santorum has also made other outlandish claims about an Obama second term--the Catholic church will be forced to hire women priests to avoid sexual discrimation lawsuits, religious liberties will be eliminated, etc. And this is the man who is the Republican front runner?

Ricky is making a slight effort to sound less extremist. He did say he voted for access to birth control when he was in the Senate and he would continue to support it even though his personal convictions run contrary to the concept of non-conception. But he's basically saying he'd take America back to the 1950s when everyone went to church, no one took the pill, women stayed at home to mix the martinis, and the only gays were the choir master and the florist and that funny guy who taught drama to the high school kids, but none of them openly had boyfriends or--GOD FORBID--actually got married to each other.

That's the America he wants and many Republican voters are OK with that as long as they get their jobs at the Walmart or the Stop and Shop. Fortunatly, the economy is beginning to turn around and the polls are showing Obama's America--one where sex outside of hetero marriage is not stigmatized--is OK with most voters. Since the president's numbers have gone up, now the Republicans have nothing to talk about--except contraception.

Today's America must horrify people like Santorum. There are gays everywhere. Even Archie Comics has a gay character--the confident handsome Kevin Keller--I just downloaded the first issue of the series devoted to him onto my Kindle Fire (see related upcoming post on digital comics).

Recently my partner Jerry had lunch with a relative who is a moderate and has voted for both Republicans and Democrats and doesn't follow the news as closely and obsessively as the two of us do. The relative is disappointed in Obama for whom he voted previously and is reluctant to support again. He feels the president hasn't done enough. That's kinda fair, I can understand that. Even if you take into account the Republican obstructionism. LBJ had opposition, but he got stuff done. Anyway, the relative told Jerry he didn't like Romney and knew very little about Santorum. The former Senator from Pennsylvania didn't seem so bad. That may be what's helping Rick. Most Americans don't spend every waking hour watching Fox, MSNBC, or CNN and then pouring over political blogs and websites. They don't know every detail about these guys and they figure, hey, I'll give this Santorum a look. Maybe he's a little to the right of Romney, but so what? He seems to be a regular guy that blue-collar folks can identify with--if they happen to be SATAN!

Fortunately, Rick will continue to say more and more outrageous stuff and turn off reasonable people--but maybe not, which would be good for the Prez. He just might win Michigan which will throw the entire primary process into disarry--not that it's been a model of orderliness heretofore (Thank you, Iowa and Maine). But Mittens will win in the end, but he will be so bloodied and seen as unpopular that Obama will trounce him.