Republican Primary: Politics and Farce

Common Sense took a bit of a break while the Republican primary has been providing no end of entertainment.  On the off chance that anyone in the United States has missed the republican primary farce  here's a brief synopsis: My opponent is bad;  I'm good; Obama is bad; the Democrats are responsible for all the countries ills; the Republicans can fix all the countries ills.  That farce is pretty much it for political dialog.

On a positive note the Republican field has shrunk.  The Tea Party queen is gone.  Likewise, the pizza king.  John Huntsman, who arguably had some qualifications, could hardly draw a crowd and has quit.  The tall Texan afflicted with hoof in mouth disease and unable to remember the three, er five, government agencies he'd eliminate finally gave up.

With the cast shrunk one would think that the farce would suffer.  Not so.  We still have Ron Paul, who continues to deliver some interesting and some wacko ideas.  While he has no real prospect of being nominated he continues on.  Staunch conservative, Fox news commentator, and darling of religious conservatives Rick Santorum has discovered that there is some truth in the old adage about nice guys and last.  We are left with front runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney to demonstrate that he who has the most money gets to be the nominee.  By that measure it will certainly be Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee.

Common Sense thinks that this is no way for a representative democracy to go about the process of selecting nominees for the presidency.  There are certainly much better qualified Republicans that former House Speaker Gingrich who thinks that we are all foolish enough to believe the fantasy that he was retained by Freddie Mac and paid 1.6 million as a historian not a lobbyist.  Of course that's not the least of his baggage, but hey we've all got short memories.  Alternatively, we have former governor Mitt Romney who wants to be president so bad that he believed in health care reform in Massachusetts but now that he's a candidate and has to answer to the radical right doesn't believe in it for the USA.

At root of this farce is a profoundly flawed two party system where radical elements and big money drive politics.  Common Sense thinks that there needs to be a better way.  There needs to be a third party that represents the center and common sense.