The Chris Christie Syndrome

*Written by Rob Rimes.

The 2012 presidential election is coming fast. We’ve already had a half dozen or so primary debates for the GOP cats who are all fighting to get the nomination that will pit them against their inevitable rival Barack Hussein Obama. We have ten current candidates in the race right now. They are Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum and Thaddeus McCotter. Tim Pawlenty was also in but he dropped out in favor of being Mitt Romney’s ottoman.

However, even with all these candidates in the race, the Republican voter base just isn’t happy. In fact, they have spent more time debating over who else should enter the race instead of debating who between the current candidates should win the race. Every month seemingly comes with a new golden boy or girl as their frontrunner but after a short amount of time, the GOPers turn away and start looking for the next super-candidate to jump into the race and dominate. This whole approach is fucking ridiculous. As Jon Stewart said on ‘The Daily Show’ recently, it’s like ‘American Idol’ in reverse where you keep adding wild and wacky contestants instead of eliminating them week-to-week.

This week’s widely wished for presidential party crasher is New Jersey governor and union-smashing hero Chris Christie. Hell, last week it was Sarah Palin, before that it was Donald Trump and now they are even talking about Alan Simpson who, no offense, comes across as the love child of the Crypt Keeper and Emperor Palpatine. In a race seemingly being determined by hair care products and youthful panache, Simpson doesn’t stand a chance. Then again, neither does Christie. Trump at least has celebrity, even though he is still a douchenugget. Palin has that grizzly mama fashion sense and a legion of middle America followers that write and sing horrible church songs about her. Still, you probably aren’t going to find your Republican Kennedy among any of the choices, including well-aged Ken dolls Perry and Romney.

So with Rick Perry being somewhat of a bust after being shoved down our damn throats by Fox News and websites like the Daily Caller, conservative media outlets are now jumping on this Chris Christie bandwagon. Why? Does it just make for good television and headlines or are Republicans THAT unsatisfied with the near dozen candidates in the race? Could it just be because Republicans are too damn fickle? Then again, being that the GOP is made up of a large number of god-fearing folk could they really just be looking for their messiah to slay the progressive beast? Didn’t any of you people read ‘Dune’ and ‘Dune Messiah’? Frank Herbert spelled it out for you, men are men and thus cannot be gods (disregard the latter books about Leto II for this example to hold any weight.. k, thanks).

Republicans remind me of some comical tribe from a movie that thinks every outsider that comes into their village is some sort of deity and when that deity doesn’t pan out to be what they expected, he’s thrown on a fire and they go on searching for the next god to take his place. Right now, Chris Christie is sitting on a tiki throne as Rick Perry is being barbecued while still digesting his hearty meal of Mitt Romney short ribs. Somewhere in that mix, someone is picking Michele Bachmann from their teeth.

The point of all this is that this whole approach is fucking careless, dumb and lame. Are you people really looking for the next Ronald Reagan? Because the Reagan you think you know didn’t really exist (read this). Are you looking for the next Barry Goldwater? It’s not like you elected him in the first place back in ’64. Besides, if Goldwater is what you want, what the hell is wrong with Ron Paul? Good luck finding anyone closer than him! In fact, Paul is even better than Goldwater but you think he’s crazy and too far out there. The problem is, you people have absolutely no idea what you are looking for. The Republican Party has had such a bad case of dissociative identity disorder since the Nixon Era that the party has no clear cut distinctiveness. At least with the Democrats you know exactly what you’re going to get and shit man, they are usually always pretty fucking united.

The media keeps taking their eye off the ball in play and keeps looking ahead at what is potentially around the corner without carefully analyzing what is happening in the moment. This tactic is incredibly disrespectful to the candidates currently in the race. The media and the people that drink up the media are basically telling those who have jumped in this race that they aren’t any good and that they aren’t going to get any play because the search for the perfect candidate must continue at all costs! This candidate doesn’t exist however. There is no Republican candidate that is going to step up and bridge the gap between all the small sects within the party. What these shitcocks seek is not just improbable, it is impossible. They can continue to subscribe to this foolish mysticism but in doing so, they are polarizing their voting base even further. How about backing your party as a whole, let the current people in the hunt continue to hunt and let the chips fall where they may? I mean fuck, we are still a year away from knowing who the hell is going to face Obama. We’ve got time and in that time, the cream will rise to the top of this steaming cup of joe.

Let’s stop spending most of our time talking about hypotheticals and dream candidates and lets start working with what we’ve got. If Chris Christie decides to run, fine. Personally I think he’s a shit candidate but whatever. Same thing goes for Sarah Palin, Donald Trump and Emperor Creepy Dude. I don’t know about you but my guy is in the race already and there are a few others I would consider voting for and I’m not even a Republican. There is a full smörgåsbord of candidates with very different flavors already on the ticket. Stop thinking about dessert fatty and focus on the meal in front of you!

Besides, the media just loves to build people up only to shit on them later. Rick Perry is the most recent example of that. Granted his debate performances have been underwhelming to the GOP crowd but what can one expect when he was built up to be Jesus in a three-piece suit with a Texas accent? No one can live up to the hype Fox News and other conservative media giants created. Realistically, it is the media that is playing you. Stop worrying about who makes the hot anchorwoman wet and start worrying about policy and the stuff that matters. Fuck the hypotheticals. It’s already late in the game and if a candidate isn’t on the primary stage yet, they probably aren’t going to be and really shouldn’t be. If they haven’t made up their mind when we’re over a half dozen debates in, they probably aren’t going to be an effective decision maker when it comes down to running this country.

Personally, I am not happy with about 75 percent of these candidates and that is probably going to go up to 80 percent in the very near future. Philosophically they don’t add up but this is also my opinion, yours may be different because we’re not all perfect. The super-candidates the media keeps trying to create are only going to be more of the same. We’ve got every flavor on stage right now. Every base is covered, we don’t need to create sects within sects at this point. To add more shit to what is already mostly a pile of shit isn’t going to freshen things up. In fact, it will just turn a couple of turds into a fat bag of crap. Let’s sift through the crap we have now, pull out the useful stuff and polish it up. Otherwise, let’s just keep playing these stupid fucking games and then stand around like dumbfounded maroons when Obama wins the election next year.

But fuck it, what do I know? I’m just one of those Constitution loving crazy Ron Paul people.