Four years ago, Democrats had just begun what would become several months of fierce infighting to determine their 2008 nominee. Barack! Hillary! Fairy tales! 3 a.m. phone calls! PUMAs! These days, with President Obama getting what amounts to a first-round bye, the left, including the Daily Kos gang, is free to train its fire on Republicans and their presidential candidates.
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.
Hunter: The GOP is trying to win by attrition
...The [GOP's] plot is to make primary season so stupid—and I don't mean normal, political stupid, I mean Toddlers and Tiaras stupid—that only stupid people can bear to watch any of it. Then, when the elections finally roll around, only stupid people will have survived the process. The only people left standing to vote will be people who take Donald Trump seriously, or think Michele Bachmann is a foreign policy genius, or who don't understand that Newt Gingrich looks on them less as fellow citizens than as a source of cheap potential food...
Seneca Doane: Gingrich = Limbaugh
...[Obama vs. Gingrich would be] the most honest election possible, between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party as they are right now...
...[B]eing a "not-Romney"...means, in essence, exemplifying what Republican[s] really most want in a leader: to be a shock jock. That's right, the AM radio and Fox News blowhard is what Republicans have been fed for the past few decades, and like the big shark of Jaws, it is what they have loved to crave. The quintessential Republican this year is that one who can insult the Democrats the best and make the electorate feel the best about themselves...
...Republicans -- to my mind, at some level realizing that they can't win a debate about competence and effectiveness -- just want someone who can throw a vicious punch and then snarl over their staggering opponent like a pro wrestler...
Hunter: Santorum is desperate but not serious
It's difficult to take Rick Santorum seriously. It always has been, and adding "campaigning for president" to his resume did nothing to help. The man has no gravitas and even less charisma, but comports himself as if he did. The effect is of a whiny adolescent know-it-all who is eternally peeved that society isn't recognizing his obvious superiority. Add to this a devout narrow-mindedness, a stubborn refusal to even acknowledge others might have opinions or experiences different from his own, and you get the perfect Conservative Religious Whiny Emo Teenage Mutant Candidate...
chaunceydevega: Cain was expendable
...Cain was a fantasy projection and type of racism shield, an Anti-Obama, who could soothe the anxieties of racially resentful white conservatives...[I]t was, in many ways, a genius performance. He was Sarah Palin mated with the Boondocks...
Herman Cain...combined the worst aspects of Tyler Perry's various TV and film exercises in black buffoonery, the denigrating humor of Amos N' Andy, and the tropes of 19th century race minstrelsy into one show...
...Sadly for Herman Cain, just as Michael Steele and other black conservatives learned long ago, the love and affection of the White Right is instrumental, and the devotion to their mascots is temporary, with a limited shelf-life...
Hunter: Children's entertainment isn't cruel enough for conservatives
...I can't figure out why conservatives let their children watch any television or see any movies, ever. Ever. The entire children's entertainment industry is geared towards teaching conspicuously anti-conservative messages like "caring for others." Everything's all about sharing, and learning lessons, and tolerance towards people who are different. You almost never see children's shows centered around the Randian doctrines of screw-everybody-and-take-their-money (that's left for the advertisers)...
