Maybe We Should Raise the Voting Age to 48

Newt ruined the whole thing, at least for me. I like to think I was an early endorser when he was still in the wilderness and everyone thought he was a loser.  Then this morning I wake find that Newt is polling in the teens in the latest CNN poll, down 19 points since a few days before Christmas. His support has basically shrunk in half. Wal-Mart t-shirts manage the washer cycle better than this. Mr. Positive has given up all pretense and now fights like a hyena for his scraps. I guess I, like millions of other fickle Republicans, will have to withdraw my support. Effective immediately.  

I would like to point out that that unlike the Republican electorate (with any of their leading candidates) I have been with Newt for almost three months. The repub voters have picked a new dance partner at every opportunity, I have not.  After the phony bus tour/ vacation they loved Sarah Palin (riding 19% in the polls in June), but she decided not to throw her head, ah… hat, in the ring. She said she felt she could be more influential on policy as something other than holder of the highest elected office and most powerful political figure in the world.  Also there’s the fair and balanced money thing. Before that when he was birther-ing it up they loved Trump. He actually led the polls in April. Then in May after Obama released his birth certificate Trump dropped out. Apparently that was his strongest issue.

Then Bachman won the Ames Straw poll and for a few weeks she ruled the conservative roost, until she (whoops) suggested vaccines caused mental retardation because a woman told her that at a rally. Since that neatly fit her the-government-is-the-greatest-danger-in-our-lives-bulls*** she ignorantly ran with it. Not quite ready for prime time, I guess. Then Perry burst on the scene. In August he led the polls. People will remember the list of three departments he wanted to eliminate—perhaps better than the candidate-but in truth he blew up before that. Lately he has been going after gays, grappling for the intolerant hateful Jesus vote. Good luck with that. Intolerance always works.

Cain was with us for far too short a time. Here again, people will remember most what perhaps is most unmemorable, the philandering, the harassment, and the absurd denials.  My favorite Cain moment I have to say is the pre-Libya meltdown at the health forum with Newt when we wiped his face, looked to the sky for an answer, and then finally turned to his opponent and said, “You go first, Newt.” Cain led the polls with nearly 40% before imploding.

Then we had Newt, and now we have a surging Santorum, peaking at the right moment with a puncher’s chance, and a classic Iowa ground game. Other than Romney, and Huntsman-- who has about as good a chance of pulling off an upset in Iowa as a reanimated Richard Nixon-- every candidate has had their shot. All the candidates are scurrying for the far right. This is because of the Tea Party and because Romney has a healthy lead with moderates and so called independents. The former Massachusetts governor has “soared” to a less than amazing 25% in the CNN poll, one point less than his 2008 total in 2008, when he lost to  Huckabee who was over 30%.

I keep thinking that the silly season is over, or nearly so, and then another sunrise brings the dawn of a new day and with it another wild gyration in the race for the Republican nomination. On the heels of the story of the sinking Newt, we also hear that Bachman’s Iowa campaign chairmen appeared with her at a rally in the morning. So far, so good. There he is looking on seriously at a rally. Then later the same day he defected to Ron Paul. Just to make it wonderful Bachman then held a press conference where she accused the defector, her senior political operative in Iowa, of having zero scruples and taking a large sum of money for the defection. 

CNN also reported that the American right gun crowd, driven by a fear of Obama’s hidden motives, is on a gun buying craze. This despite the fact that Obama has done bubkus on gun laws since being elected. There were 2.5 million applications for background checks in November and December alone, both months a record. Gun owners are the looniest of the loony right, especially those fixated on their second amendment rights. Such is the righteous rage of the extreme and growing right in this country that they see phantoms of Armageddon even in fields where wild daisies grow unnoticed and intended.  It’s not as nutty a situation as say, oh, Palestinian police breaking up a riot of broom wielding priests at the sight of the Nativity (true story), but the right wing gun nuts are mighty a scared and they ain’t waitin’ for the president to unilaterally throw out the second amendment and pry their guns from their gold dead hands bla, bla, bla. F***, some people are just so batsh** nuts it really discourages one any hope of political reconciliation.

So considering the childish attention spans, the schoolgirl adolescent drama over guns, death panels, and other fantasies, and frat boy realism brought to the issues healthcare for the uninsured and the death penalty in Texas and I have a modest proposal: Raise the voting age in the Republican primaries to something north of 50. AARP already reports that over 50% of the republican vote is north of 50, but it seems to me that the current crop of voters is just too immature to be weighed down with such a momentous decision as to who will be the next President.