Where? Where? Where? Where? Where Do They Go from Here?

It's now been 17 days since the 2012 US presidential election took place...and the Republican Party has spent all of this time wondering just what happened (and why it happened).

Party officials (along with their cheerleaders on the nation's AM so-called news and information radio stations) have spent this time not only licking party wounds...but also trying to nail down the reason(s) why Willard M. Romney couldn't put it in his hip pocket despite an early lead on Election Night.

Some in the GOP think the party couldn't end Barack Obama's presidency because Romney didn't choose US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to run alongside the former Massachusetts governor. Others feel the loss was due to the "emasculation" of Romney's campaign.

The man the son of a former Michigan governor did select as a running mate, US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), racked it up to "urban" voters...while WMR himself, in that now-infamous (or famous, depending on your point of view) conference call to his campaign team, chalked the 2012 results to Obama supposedly giving "gifts" to Hispanic Americans, African Americans, young voters of all ethnicities, and women of all ethnic backgrounds.

Regardless of your socioeconomic background, what would YOU do if someone offered you an actual, honest-to-goodness freebie?  

Next door in Iowa, you've got Matt Schultz, its secretary of state, who's trying to get its lawmakers to join all those other states in getting voter suppression (oops...I mean voter ID) laws put into place. ("You know...if All Those Other People hadn't turned out for this year's election...")

Only a few brave Republicans have had the guts to blame the party's overall message for why we'll have to wait until 1-20-2017 for the country's 45th commander in chief to give the inaugural address.

Yes...I could really dig all of this GOP self-evaluation and all this soul searching among the current trustees of the party of Abraham Lincoln and of Teddy Roosevelt and of Dwight Eisenhower if it were heartfelt and not mere lip service.

I keep turning on my TV set and finding US Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) trying to prevent UN Ambassador Susan Rice from accepting the State Department's top gig because they don't like how Rice has handled the Benghazi affair of 9-11-2012.

McCain thinks Rice isn't qualified to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. (And that's hilarious of McCain...especially when you consider his 2008 decision to have Sarah Palin run alongside him in the former Navy pilot's effort to prevent the creation of an Obama administration to begin with!)

It all smacks of Business As Usual as far as I'm concerned. You see, if McCain and Graham can get Obama to change his mind and ask US Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to take over from Rodham Clinton on 1-21-2013...well, Scott Brown can keep his own seat in the US Senate (this time as Kerry's replacement).

So much for the Republicans' loudly-proclaimed slogan of 2008: "Country First." 

Democrats, independents, and other non-Republicans have shown themselves more likely to put America first.

With Republicans, it's- with very few exceptions- party first. (One of those exceptions has been New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's work alongside BHO in the Garden State's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.)

Another major component of the GOP message, besides "Party First," is: "It's every man for himself. It's every woman for herself. I've got mine. You go get yours.

"In fact...I want yours, and I'm going to keep you from getting yours!"

To top it all off, Republican lawmakers and aides go to great lengths to make anybody who isn't a Caucasian-American man feel unwelcome. (Todd Akin's and Richard Mourdock's sexist remarks come to mind...as do racist jibes from Newton Gingrich, John Sununu, Donald Trump, Ryan, Romney, Brown, Palin, etc., etc., etc.)

And these same Republicans have the audacity- the unmitigated nerve- to wonder why they can't get votes from people who aren't Caucasian-American men!

I remember when the Democrats ended up having to retool their party after Richard Nixon crushed George McGovern to keep the job he'd always wanted. That year, 1972, the Donkeys held a telethon.

And on that telecast, one of the speakers (I think it was Phil Donahue) said that, instead of the Democrats holding this telethon to pump money into the party, "John Wayne ought to have a telethon for war!"

It took a lot of years...but the Democratic Party remade itself into a party that not only cares about civil rights, but also cares more about America's middle-and-low-income citizens than the Republicans do.

Let's face it: The Elephants MUST retool if they're going to remain a viable major US political party (let alone win presidential elections again).

The Republicans can crow all they want to about having won seven of the last twelve US presidential elections.

Fact remains that this party has now LOST four of the last six US presidential elections.

If the Romneys and Ryans and Boehners and McConnells ever learn that, as Mom used to say, "You draw more flies with honey than vinegar," their party will have a chance to get back to winning the most talked-about political job there is. 

But only as long as the Republicans REALLY mean what they say and say what they mean.

You See a Pattern Here?

When I got home from work late last night, I turned on MSNBC.

And I found out, from watching The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, that Taggart Romney- the new de facto campaign manager for his dad, the ex-governor of Massachusetts- appeared as a guest on The Bill LaHaye Show, heard on a North Carolina talk-radio station. (The appearance took place shortly after this year's second presidential debate, held this past Tuesday in Hempstead, NY.)

Bill asked for Taggart's reaction to "the President of the United States calling your dad a liar."

Taggart told the listeners that he wanted to jump out of his chair at the debate site and...punch out one Barack Hussein Obama.

And he would've done it if it hadn't been for all those Secret Service agents.

Well, Taggart Romney would have to punch out a whole lot of people...starting with Lawrence O'Donnell himself. (And Lawrence said so toward the end of his own show last night...and even invited Tagg to take a swing or two or three!)

Tagg, you might as well catch a plane to come here to Omaha to punch me out, too.

After all, the last time I put up a post, I mentioned that your father (whose own dad- your paternal grandfather- used to be Michigan's governor, and had that job from 1963 to 1969) struck me and millions of Americans as an out-and-out liar.

George Romney had more class in his right pinkie than Willard M. Romney has in his entire body.

When Romney the Elder ran for this country's presidency in 1968, he proved he could afford to run for what was then Lyndon Johnson's job by releasing a tax return of his from each of the previous dozen years.

Willard Romney doesn't have the guts to turn in more than a pair of his own income tax returns.
(I STILL believe he's got something to hide!)

How about WMR's taking credit for the recovery of America's auto industry- the very industry that helped George and Lenore put food on the table for little Mitt and themselves, let alone made the family wealthy?

Yep, we're talking about the same Mitt who grew up to, a year after his stint (2003-07) as the governor in the Bay State ended, put an editorial in The New York Times to call for that very same industry to go bankrupt!

Getting Taggart's father to commit to one stand or another on abortion is harder than nailing Jell-O to a brick wall. Same for getting him to take a stand on the Lilly Ledbetter Law...the first thing BHO signed into law.

But what really took the cake this past Tuesday night was- besides his constant bullying at the debate- his lack of command of the facts on the Benghazi uprising.

Taggart's father/political client got away with pushing PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer around during the first 2012 debate (at Magness Hall in Denver, CO)...but couldn't get the same results with the next debate moderator, Candy Crowley (who hosts CNN's State of the Union program).

All Crowley wanted was the truth about how the White House handled the killing of four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stephens. 

After all, if you're going to cast a ballot during an election, don't you want to know the truth about the people vying for the offices that are up for grabs?

The truth is: Willard M. Romney says and does anything to win an election. He enjoys saying different things to different groups of people on the campaign trail.

And that means he said something completely different in Denver on 10-3-2012 (with 68 million viewers watching on TV) than he did in Boca Raton, FL about five months earlier (in a closed-door speech meant for 25 of his fellow bluebloods...a speech that, as things turned out, got televised around the world, for crying out loud!).

I don't like being bullied, coerced, or forced into anything...and I've got the feeling that US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his new puppet (that's right- Willard M.) will do lots of bullying, coercing, and forcing to America's rank-and-file citizens should this year's Republican ticket take the Big Prize.

According to a composite of the various opinion polls out there, that very thing could darned well happen. (They've got WMR leading BHO, 47.7% to 46.7%...even if the composite doesn't take this week's debate into consideration.) 

And if that result holds true on 11-6-2012, I feel it's going to be the beginning of the end for America as an independent country, let alone the world's most influential, most powerful, and most talked-about nation.

The stakes are too darned high.

I can't help but ask: "Do you REALLY want a bully in there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?"