At a Zoo Near You

What do a hippo, a rat and a weasel have in common? Well, they are all leading candidates in an early poll of potential 2016 Republican Presidential nominees (Yahoo News). At the top of the list is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who appears to have taken Scarlett O’Hara’s advice a little too seriously (“I will never be hungry again”). The governor has gained plaudits for his handling of Hurricane Sandy, combing over the fact that he is a moderate in a party that has made a hard turn to the right and that his version of “moderate” still entails attacking unions, draconian cuts and a hard line stance on taxes. Trailing behind is the opportunist Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who has flip flopped on immigration reform, only to see his party maintain their last-in-first-out policy; in other words, kick out as many Latinos as possible, build a wall to keep out anymore and pretend to care about those who stay and decide to vote (if they aren’t blocked by the new election laws being instituted across the red states after the Voting Rights Act was all but dismantled by Roberts court). The fact that he is part of the demographic they need to start making inroads with might make him a popular strategic choice, even if his gravitas feels a little the gravity of the moon. And last and most certainly least is the radical-dressed-in-technocratic-clothing Paul Ryan, who is respected by far too many in the mainstream media, seemingly because he actually, like, knows stuff (unlike many of his peers), is good looking and talks as if his insane ideas are the only pragmatic response to the problem wrought by the very policies he supports.

This all begs the question of whether the GOP has a viable national candidate at the moment and whether they can beat Hillary or whomever decides to run against them anyway. It is obviously far too early to tell, but with the increasingly obstructionist nature of the party, it’s lack of any real platform except to keep shrinking government and support corporate interest and its right-wing, antebellum approach to wedge issues, one does wonder if it is a party on the precipice of a steep decline. The sane among us hope so, but first the Dems will have to win back the House and rediscover their own, rather erstwhile progressive roots. The potential nomination of Larry Summers as the new head of the fed is certainly a step in the wrong direction on that account though, and one hopes Obama reconsiders. It does appear as if 2015 might bring us a repeat zoo spectacle no matter what we get in the interim, with the crazies running the asylum that has become the Grand Ole Party.