Karl writes a weekly syndicated opinion column distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.
I write this missive in the year 2014 from my small, poorly ventilated office in the Shandong Province of China where my job and millions of others have been outsourced by President Mitt Romney and his Republican allies in Congress.
Now that we are half way through President Romney’s first term in office, I’m sending this note to you through time and space in the hope that it paints a picture of the path we’ve taken since the 2012 election.
The 2012 election may not be decided by gay soccer dads and lesbian Costco moms but their quality of life will be defined by those occupying the White House and Congress in 2013 and beyond.
While much of the conversation surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of late has concerned the issue of marriage equality, there is much more to be said about the way our government treats LGBT Americans.
Over the past few decades great progress has been made in the fight for LGBT legal equality but I’m guessing many straight Americans — even those with close friends and family who happen to be gay — would be surprised to learn just how much is left to be done.
President Obama and Mitt Romney may be scheduled for their first of three debates next week, but there is really no debate when it comes to the progress we have made on jobs and how much further along on the path to recovery we might be if the GOP would just get out of the way.
Let us start with a primer on the facts for those just tuning in and our tea party brethren who fumble for their grasp on reality.
By the time Barack Obama was sworn into office in January of 2009, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs each month with the number reaching nearly 1 million some months. For that, we can thank the reckless economic policies of George W. Bush and the most corrupt and unethical Republican Congressional majority in a century.
“A bit of a sugar-high…”
That’s how Mitt Romney’s campaign responded to news this week that a spat of independent national polls have their candidate trailing President Obama by as many as 6 points following the Democratic National Convention.
If Democrats were hocking sweets last weekend in Charlotte, they appear to have sold far better than the sour lemons Republicans were offering in Tampa given the size of their respective post-convention poll bumps, or lack thereof for the Party of Medicare vouchers.
It isn’t just the national polls that have team Romney puckered.
When I first took the plunge and began a career in politics against the advice of my conservative father, I worked for people like Tennessee’s Lamar! Alexander, former Congressman Jim Nussle, and John McCain during his 2000 campaign for President.
Yes, I was a Republican. But I was young and everyone experiments at that age — I just happened to pick the GOP before making better, more adult choices.
For political junkies like me, our Democratic and Republican national conventions are, to quote Vice President Biden, “a big f@#king deal.”
Republicans today are absolutely obsessed with micromanaging women’s — cover your eyes my right-wing friends — vaginas.
Had I said that word aloud on the floor of the Michigan state legislature, I would likely have been banned from speaking any further by the Republican Majority just as it did to Rep. Lisa Brown in June when she dared to utter the ominous “v” word.
While the GOP may cringe at the word’s use, it certainly has no trouble crafting public policy that would tie women’s lady bits up with red tape.
As Mitt Romney announced his Vice Presidential running mate over the weekend, the Beltway chattering class was quick to trumpet the supposed “youthful vigor” Paul Ryan’s selection would inject in a campaign troubled by a summer of Olympic-size gaffes and sinking poll numbers.
In the hours following his announcement, Ryan was also heralded as a “gym rat” and “fitness nut” who was “almost a pro-skier.”
The political spin could not have been more blatant. For a party brimming with octogenarians but lacking in youthful appeal, the Wisconsin native is fresh, young, and even hip — heck, he listens to Nirvana on his iPod!
It is no surprise that the GOP would put Ryan’s age on center stage. It is a political tactic born out of necessity.
After Iowa and New Hampshire it is clear that Willard Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.
Ron Paul’s second place finish is New Hampshire is more a symptom of the weak field he’s competing in than his actual viability. And that “ticket” out of New Hampshire that Jon Huntsman is claiming with his third place showing? For the love of Joseph Smith, someone please tell him it’s only a Greyhound coupon.
It is beyond unlikely that any of the remaining Republican hopefuls will be able to muster the needed money, boots on the ground, or momentum to head off Romney’s eventual coronation.
That doesn’t mean they won’t try. And why wouldn’t they?
This year, the Republican nominating contest has been the gift that keeps on giving. With Christmas and the Iowa Caucuses just around the corner, and since I was not raised by wolves, I know one should always say thank you after receiving a gift. In the spirit of the season, here is that thank you.
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, one wild-eyed Iowa straw poll winner. From the “pray the gay away” clinic Michele Bachmann runs with her extremely masculine husband Marcus, to her gaffes-a-plenty campaign — who can forget the time she confused John Wayne and serial killer John Wayne Gacy? — it has been a delight watching the Bachmann campaign collapse.
We are just weeks away from the first votes being cast in the race for the Republican presidential nomination – which means it is only a matter of time before Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman enter the ranks of presidential also-rans.
Getting here hasn’t been easy for Willard Mitt Romney — he’s hardly ever led the Republican pack in the polls. No, the former single-term governor of Massachusetts has had to wait for the preferred candidates of the GOP’ tea party base to either bow out before announcing or gaffe their way into oblivion.
