No matter what else we agree on -- commies and real Americans alike -- how about this: Barack Obama must go. No more hope. No more change. No more handouts. No more blaming George Bush. No more using the Constitution to clean the bathroom. Just, simply, no more Obama.
Can we agree this nation cannot possibly survive another four years of lawlessness under this guy? It is absolutely true. Even the left knows it, and you'd think Republicans would be believers too. Unfortunately, you'd never know it by the candidates they field.
Republicans need one person who can beat Obama -- one -- in a nation of more than 300 million souls, most of them here legally. Republicans already have their guy, in my view, in Mitt Romney, but they are determined to screw up the works.
Oh, they say, he is not conservative enough. He's a Mormon. There's the health care thing. And he is, I'm sorry, a geek. (I won't repeat the goofy "no place like chrome for the hollandaise joke, a personal favorite.) But Romney could beat Obama. Any Republican, Rasmussen Reports polling says, could beat Obama by four points. But November is far away, and there may be as much as $1 billion for Obama's re-election effort.
To dodge having Romney as its nominee, the Republican establishment is trotting out anybody it can find for a three-ring circus.
Michele Bachmann gaffed herself into oblivion. Rick Perry's "uh-oh" moment did him in, but he took 16 minutes to reassess his campaign and headed for South Carolina. Newt? The more you know, the less you like. Ron Paul? A third-place finish in Iowa. He would have done better if his tin foil cap had not slipped over his eyes. How nuts is he? Sarah Palin likes him.
The latest sacrifice on the anti-Romney altar? Welcome Rick Santorum. He shot out of nowhere in Iowa to trail Romney by a scant eight votes into New Hampshire.
Who is Santorum? A lawyer. A Fox News Channel contributor. A staunch Catholic and former U.S. representative and senator from Pennsylvania. He has skeletons in his closet too. There's the where-was-his-real-residence thing and the where-should-his-kids-have-gone-to-school thing. That's what we know. But then there is this: He spends an inordinate amount of time fretting about contraception and non-procreative sex. He is, it turns out, not a fan.
Here is what he told a blogger at Caffeinated Thoughts.com in October, as recounted by Irin Carmon in her "Rick Santorum Is Coming for Your Birth Control" article in Salon:
"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country," Santorum said. And also, "Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's OK, contraception is OK. It's not OK. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."
We have nuked-up Iranians telling us where to stuff our aircraft carriers, American military in harm's way, a world economy in the deep end of the pool, the potential for extinguishing life on this planet likely being hauled around in a suitcase by some nut job, and Santorum is worried somebody may be having fun in bed? He is willing to send the prophylactic police, the condom coppers, the sex squad into your bedroom?
Is he kidding? It makes Obama look almost presidential.
If you worry about Romney's Mormonism, maybe you should consider Santorum's Catholicism. In the "National Catholic Reporter," in 2002, Santorum said John Kennedy's 1960 speech assuring America he would not take orders from the Catholic Church if elected president had caused "much harm in America.
"All of us have heard people say, 'I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it's not right for somebody else?' It sounds good," Santorum said. "But it is the corruption of freedom of conscience."
He would not, from the sound of that, keep his church out of our state.
Yes, continued debate among Republicans is good. It focuses national attention on the GOP at Obama's expense. But soon, Republicans must come up with a better candidate or back the one they have who can win so we can all say:
Just, simply, no more Obama.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com.
PAUL JENKINS
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