If Barack Obama laid to rest the question of whether a black president could be as bad as a white one, the field of Republican presidential candidates are going a long way toward validating claims that the respective leaders of the Democrat and Republican parties are a homogenous cabal of pretending oligarchs whose supposed philosophical and political differences are nothing but colossal pretense and political theater.
While I still hold that there are some genuine conservatives in the GOP, even among prominent lawmakers and other elected officials, the capriciousness and moral superficiality exhibited by Republican presidential front-runners over the last few days has been an insult to Americans' intelligence, or whatever remains thereof.
Leading up to the New Hampshire primary this week, GOP contenders focused their strategies against the presumptive leader, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Anyone who reads this space with any regularity knows that Romney holds no special place in this commentator's heart. Nevertheless, the tawdry, transparent attacks of his rivals proved that this ruling class of elites will say positively anything to actualize their agenda, even if it threatens their credibility, such as that may be.
Advertisement - story continues below
I refer, of course, to the GOP contenders' excoriation of Romney over his adventures as a venture capitalist in the 2001 bankruptcy of a Kansas City manufacturing plant. The lack of any illegality or impropriety on the candidate's part notwithstanding, the rhetoric calculated to turn primary voters against Romney was the sort of thing we have come to expect from the Occupy movement or Obama-affiliated Alinskyite thugs.
As an aside, the New Hampshire primary itself wound up a surreal disappointment, with the saddest of the pack that started out several months ago floating, like some kind of crud, to the top.
TRENDING: 'Educational homicide': Zero students proficient in math at 40% of major city's high schools
It is sad, but moreso horrifying that the difference between the Republican and Democrat leadership is, respectively, analogous to an assailant who wants to hit you on the head from behind and take your wallet, versus one who would hit you on the head, then rape and beat you within a nanometer of death before lifting the wallet.
People in the tea-party movement understand this – or understood it. This is why they have been marginalized by GOP and liberal elites alike.
Advertisement - story continues below
Mitt Romney, who takes the concept of the consummate political prostitute to new, dizzying heights, is simply out to show the boys he grew up with (think of the a cappella number from the beginning of the film "Trading Places") that he wound up being the most successful of the bunch. Gingrich, a career politician, has grown soft in his dotage, though he remains quite glib. If so many conservatives weren't sold on his legendary intellect, his experience and operating in the "Anyone But Obama" modality, they might notice that Gingrich is the archetype of a good ol' boy insider – in any party. Then there was Rick Perry who, as many witnessed, led the pack with anti-capitalist intimations against Romney.
Conservatives and Independents at large – unlike the primary voters in New Hampshire – know that Romney is not the cure for four years of Obama policies, nor one who is likely to catalyze the sort of electoral revolution that will ultimately purge Washington of the pernicious progressive swine who have insinuated themselves therein. While Gingrich – who did horribly in New Hampshire – wouldn't be the policy abortion that Romney would, he's not the one either.
All of which makes another four years of Obama even more likely, despite the belief on the part of some conservative pundits that Americans are far too disgusted with Obama to give him more than 30 percent in a general election.
So, why would Romney, Gingrich and company risk regaining the White House with their cheap infighting?
Because their nests are already feathered. As I've outlined in earlier columns and which some people in the know believe: The ultimate Republican nominee (most likely Romney, unless he drops dead in the interim) will be taking a calculated and coordinated fall, in order to maneuver the electorate into a more pliant state for the 2016 general election and effectively defang conservatives in the GOP.
Advertisement - story continues below
And while the American people endure even more economic hardship, danger from foreign enemies, illegal immigrants, various anti-American interlopers and dilution of their personal liberties, life will go on pretty much as usual for people like Mitt, Newt, Rick, Ron and even "dedicated" conservatives like House Speaker John Boehner.
If this is difficult to believe, just remember how frustrating it was when the McCain campaign pulled punch after punch in going after Obama back in 2008. They wouldn't touch the Rev. Wright issue (with which I so generously supplied them), nor a handful of other potentially damaging political tidbits. Remember George W. Bush's complete lack of a defensive strategy against the onslaught of liberal attacks from 2005 through 2008.
If the GOP throwing the election seems unlikely, just take a look at what we've seen over the last week.