Ron Paul This guy is the Hugh Grant of the Republican Party: he shows up around every four years to feed us the same generic romantic comedy plot we saw last time. He has a loyal fan base that raves about his accent and "comic delivery," which consists almost entirely of mumbling through his script. And he gets less sexy and more mumbly with each four year span, but it doesn't seem to matter because the same people who bankrolled his previous movie will always be there to bankroll future movies.
Now, I admit that I like some of what Ron Paul says, and I admire him for always bringing the field back on topic. But if you are one of the Ron Paul bankrollers, please stop giving your money to him. The man doesn't have a chance to win because most of the time he forgets the nature of his audience. A father with a family to support who just lost his job doesn't want to hear about how the current economic climate is a "correction." Think of the natural response: "I've spent the last ten years working my fingers to the bone, and Ron Paul just said it's correct that I lost my job?" Yeah, I know that's not what Ron Paul means. But average Americans need someone to blame for the fact that they're living paycheck to paycheck and have a hard time paying for the rising cost of living. The "business cycle" is not an adequate villian, even if it's what's truly to blame. But, like Hugh Grant, he gets points for being lovable.
Rick Santorum In the spirit of Halloween I'm giving Mr. Santorum a hockey mask and an axe, because he is the Jason of the field. The man is nothing but a plot device. He doesn't talk a lot in debates, and nobody asks him questions. He just keeps coming forward, brutally killing all the non-virtuous candidates with wild accusations and false assessments. And the other candidates' reactions to his onslaughts remind me of what every lascivious girl screams before her demise in the previous twenty-seven Friday the 13th movies: they look at him with wild eyes and ask, "Where did you come from?" and "Why are you doing this?"
It makes sense on so many levels. Jason is like the avenging angel in those films because he kills off the characters who have premarital sex and terrible morals. In short, Jason is defending family values. He cares about the moral future of America. How many times have we heard Mr. Santorum stare into the camera with wild, googly eyes and yell things like, "Look at me! I'm the only values-based candidate!" Unfortunately, Jason always gets beat by someone more virtuous in the end. But, on a more optimistic note for Mr. Santorum, they keep making movies about him. And I'm still waiting for him to blurt out, "Newt Gingrich cheated on his wife!"
Newt Gingrich The unfortunate man who gives proof to the belief that we look like our names. I have to give him the Bruce Willis from Die Hard award. The Newtster just keeps coming back. Just when you thought his career was dead in the water, he writes another book with the same plot as the previous book and titles it with a rearrangement of words from the previous title. Then he does a book tour. He's the only candidate that can still be alive after denying allegations that his heart is not in his campaign from a Mediterranean cruise ship.
But the real comparison to Bruce Willis is in their wit. My favorite scene is when the hotel hijackers find one of their henchmen dead and dressed Santa hat in the elevator with a shirt that reads, "Now I have a machine gun. HO HO HO." Anyone can kill a henchman, and I'm sure anyone could dress the dead guy up like Santa Claus. But it's that added charm, that final HO HO HO that turns gory murder into vengeful (dare I say it?) art, and makes the audience go from gasps to laughter. No matter which hostage situation the candidates are debating-- the economy, jobs, the national debt, immigration polocy, 999-- Newt Gingrich has a quip that will make us laugh and rescue us from debate doldrums. But he is surprisingly efficient, and you are left astonished and telling yourself, "He's just one man. HE'S JUST ONE MAN!" Of all things he is, he certainly isn't newtered. Yippie ki yay mother f*****.
Michele Bachmann Not since Hillary Clinton have we seen a woman rise up and lead with grace, intelligence, and determination quite like she does. I'm referring to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Michele Bachmann is not that woman. But not since Sam I Am from Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham have I heard someone who says "I am" more than Michele Bachmann. And that's saying a lot, since Sam I Am actually holds up a sign that says I Am Sam.
Michele I Am is a federal tax attorney. Michele I Am is on a thousand committees. Michele I Am is the only person to do this or that and sign such-and-such pledge. Michele I Am is the proud parent is 23 children. Michele I Am is willing to go to great lengths to make us like her. Would you like her in a box? Would you like her with a fox? Would you like her if she promised to defund the Department of Education? At least Sam I Am stops talking about himself and focuses on important issues like green eggs and ham. But that's hard to do when your message is your resume.
Rick Perry I remember the first time I saw Keanu Reeves act. I was twelve, and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was on TBS. The movie features Keanu as Ted, an idiot teenager who stumbles upon a telephone booth time machine but, instead of doing something brilliant like Biff does in Back to the Future and buying a future Sports Almanac to bring back to now and bet on the winning teams, decides he'd rather get an A on his history report.
But then I saw Keanu in Rush Hour, and I thought to myself, "Wow. He's still kind of Ted." Then I saw him in The Matrix, which could have been titled Ted's Mom Just Died and no one would have batted an eye. After a while, all you see is Ted saving a speeding passenger bus, Ted fighting machines, etc.
Rick Perry has the same problem. In the first debate, I thought to myself, "Wow. He sounds like an idiot." Then I saw him in New Hampshire, and realized that the first might not have been a fluke bad day. It wasn't until after the opening statements in Las Vegas when he said "..a conservative of conviction. Not. A. Conservative. Of Convenience," that I realized he is a legitimate idiot of the worst kind: the kind that doesn't know they're idiots. The man says things no intelligent human would say if he were running for president. In one instance, Anderson Cooper asked him a question which he flat out didn't answer. Here is a paraphrasing of the exchange:
Anderson: But you didn't answer my question.
Perry: Hey, you ask the question how you want, and I'll answer them how I want to.
Translation: My debate prep team told me to evade questions I don't want to answer, and I just spilled the beans. Oops. I guess I shouldn't have done that.
Another similarity between Rick Perry and Keanu Reeves is the "I hope no one notices I just soiled my britches" face. If I had a dollar for every time Rick Perry looks like he just crapped his pants I would be part of the 1% against which Occupy Wall Street has such a vendetta. Now he's bringing up Obama's birth certificate again. I want Perry to get in Ted's telephone booth and zoom to the future so he can see that he never was, nor ever will be, President of the United States. Then I want to send him back to the Paleolithic era so he can be with animals that speak his language. Then I want to disconnect his telephone line and leave him there.
Herman Cain When my wife holds a baby, and that baby farts, my wife laughs and talks about how cute the baby fart was. When I fart, she looks over at me with dementor eyes and tells me I'm disgusting. This is the same double standard Herman Cain is wrapped in, only he is on the "baby fart" side. The man is like Winnie the Pooh. If piglet or rabbit had a gluttonous, obsessive-compulsive relationship with honey, it might be cute for a little bit, but after a while Christopher Robin would start to laugh awkwardly and distance himself. If Eeyore went to such dangerous lengths for honey like fighting ravenous bees and climbing trees, we would take him to the doctor for some Ritalin (maybe a Ritalin/Zoloft cocktail?). But Winnie the Pooh gets a pass on all this behavior, because he's so dawg-gone cute and cuddly.
Now imagine if Winnie the Pooh said he wants to build an electrified fence around the Hundred-Acre Woods to keep foreigners out. For a second, we might picture charred human remains. But then we would see Pooh rub his belly and say something like, "I'm so rumbly in my tumbly!" and we would smile and think that maybe he is someone we could see leading the Hundred-Acre Woods. A nine-percent federal sales tax on acorns, in addition to a state sales tax? That one whistling mole with the miner's headlight would be pissed. But then Pooh would smile and say, "Aww shucks wabbit," and everything would be better and the mole would go back to digging tunnels to smuggle illegal aliens under the electric fence.
Mitt Romney When I was twelve, my mom left with my sister for a week. I don't remember where they went. All I remember is that my dad sat my younger brother and I on the couch and said, "We are going to watch some movies I think it's important for you to see." He dumped the contents of a Blockbuster bag onto the coffee table, and I noticed a cassette sleeve with a cracking, phosphorescent green egg on the front.
"What's this one, dad?"
He explained that it represented the most fear he'd ever felt in a theater. Then he pushed it into the VCR, and for two hours I watched a rather timid alien kill each of the crew on Ripley's mining spaceship. As the credits rolled, I thought I had survived the most terrifying moments of my young life.
Then my dad put Aliens, the sequel, into the VCR.
The first alien, like I said earlier, was timid. He hid in the shadows and thought, "What the hell am I doing on this spaceship, and who are these weird creatures?" The aliens in the second movie are thinking, "Who cares where I am? Let's see how many humans I can kill in the next two hours." They know what they came here to do, and they scare me in their efficiency.
Mitt Romney part one was a disaster. He never went for the throat, and always seemed awkward on stage. But Mitt Romney part two is attacking with vengeance and purpose. My favorite line of the debates so far was when he said, "You know, it's been a rough couple of debates for Rick," after Perry tried to lob a ridiculous accusation his way. Plus, it seems like his campaign has a much better strategy than last time.
I must point out that, in an odd coincidence, Romney is going against a field that includes a bunch of white males, a woman, an african american, and an android (Rick Perry). The alien combated against a similar line up: white males, Ripley (woman), an african american guy, and an android. I don't count Private Vasquez, Jenette Goldstein's character, as a woman in this case. Google images will tell you why.
But I'm afraid this coincidence doesn't count because I just compared the best looking candidate with what has been voted the ugliest villian in movie history.
Jon Huntsman Most of my friends know I love mathematics. But most of my friends don't know the reason I love mathematics is every character Jeff Goldblum has ever played. If a director is casting for a film, and he needs a character to say a few intelligent lines but be okay with getting killed off early, he calls Jeff. Ian Malcolm of Jurassic Park is the archetype of both Jeff Goldblum's career and Jon Huntsman's candidacy for presidency.
Ian is a mathematician that, for no explicable reason, John Hammond needs to inspect his dinosaur park before it opens to visitors. He doesn't say much but, when he does, his words are nuggets of reason, like reminding Dr. Hammond that "life finds a way" even though all the dinosaurs on the island are female. Unfortunately, his reasonableness is mocked by his counterparts--"so you're saying that a group composed entirely of females...will...breed?" So who do you think gets the last laugh when the dinosaurs rip down the fences and Dr. Grant starts to find broken reptilian eggshells?
Not Ian Malcolm. In a remarkable display of courage, he stands by his instinct to save the children from the T-Rex by running into a vacant bathroom even though the party leadership, Dr. Grant, yells "Ian...Freeze!" He doesn't die, but falling banana leaves from the collapsing roof break his leg when the T-Rex destroys the bathroom. His reward for his bravery is to spend the rest of the movie in the command center, doing miniscule tasks like reading schematic maps.
Huntsman's reasonableness has made him the man under the crazy-heavy banana leaves. He's heroic because he believes in climate change ("Life finds a way...") and other beliefs considered impossible to the rest of the pack. But his reasonableness is what leads him to run into the bathroom to save the country from the T-Rex, even though the American people wonder whyy he's even running at all. Fortunately, Huntsman will survive this bloodbath, and return in four years with his version of The Lost World.
God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates reason. Jon Huntsman uses reason. Man destroys reason. Man doesn't vote for Jon Huntsman for President of the United States.
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