Playing the Race Card

I have long suspected that Speaker Gingrich and the other Republican candidates, except Governor Romney, lacked the cash reserves or the organizational skills to go the distance. Our presidential candidates seem to need two tries to get their election operations right, as demonstrated by the failure of Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry to gather enough signatures to get on the ballots in the important Virginia primary.

This pattern makes President Obama's stunning first time victory in 2008 shine with even greater retrospective brilliance and makes Governor Romney's eventual nomination on his second try all the more likely. It's important to remember that the Republican primaries and caucuses are not winner-take-all affairs. So while our silly pundit corps will be focusing on who "won" in Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, and Nevada, the Governor will be patiently tallying up his non-winning 2nd and 3rd place delegate counts like the proverbial tortoise overtaking the flashy-dashy hares.

I have also expect that the 2012 election will turn out to be the most vicious presidential contest in recent memory. After the Democratic and Republican Party conventions next summer, the Fall 2012 election campaign is likely to descend to unprecedented depths of ugly, with both sides blaring endless propaganda smears at each other in the national and local media.

On Christmas Day the New York Times reported that Governor Romney's latest campaign theme, "The Anti-Entitlement Strategy" raises the ugliest specter of all. I confess that the Governor's explicit playing of a thinly coded race card this early took me by surprise.  Of course it was silly of me to have expected that he would have waited until much later in the game, especially when so many of the voters in these primaries will be the open and/or closeted members of the racist segments of the far right. Tacking to the right to win enough votes in the early primaries to be able to cinch the nomination later on requires that Romney be seen drinking with gusto from their bloodiest cups. 

But Judgement Day is coming. November 6, 2012. Be there!!!