IOWA CAUCUS AFTERMATH – WAS IT IRRELEVANT?

It may be irrelevant inasmuch as how the American voter will be able to determine if they want a Tea Party America or the America we all love.

Mitt Romney 30,015 - 24.6%,   Rick Santorum 30,007 - 24.5%,  Ron Paul 26,219 - 21.4%, Newt Gingrich 16,251 - 13.3%, Rick Perry 12,604 - 10.3%

The thing that stands out most peculiarly is that the Iowa voters one-could not get behind any one particular candidate and two-which the extremist, right wing agenda of the Teabaggers prevailed and drowned out moderates and the voice of reason.

Furthermore, the insistence of Evangelicals in injecting religion into government and turning our country into a theocracy was heard louder and they were able to drown out with their shrill and odious agenda the whole process of nominating someone who might not be electable. That last point is meaningless to them because they don’t operate under the same rules of reason and common sense. These fundamentalist Evangelicals would rather see our country in ruins than for it to be the secular nation we have always been and the one our Founding Fathers intended by making very clear that there has to be a separation of church and state. 

How relevant these Iowa caucuses are depends a lot on the American people from now on into the election cycle. If the American voter is so fucking stupid as to fall for their lies, their askew agenda and the social issues at the front while ignoring the more pressing and critical problems we face…then our nation is doomed.

Will the electorate see right through this? Will they be able to tell that the Republicans have allowed the Teabagger-Evangelical radicals to drive their party to an extreme right position in order to distract the voters with issues like abortion, gay rights, a continuation of our incursion into Iraq and potentially Iran - indefinitely, obliterate social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public education so that the very wealthy can continue receiving odious tax cuts? Will the American people buy what they are selling, including the concept that “corporations are people”, and disenfranchising of millions of voters?

I have a lot of faith in the American people even though it is going to be a very long and expensive Presidential campaign; as we face an unprecedented barrage of spending on the campaign from outside (with the acquiescence of the candidate of course) all made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. These funds are already showing what corporations and anonymous donors can achieve…we have seen how in Iowa alone the “SUPER PACs” have spent more than $12 billion dollars and most of it was exclusively invested in vile, crass and negative ads.

Even some of those candidates who like Gingrich supported the Citizens United decision in the past have suffered their own demise because of it and it came from members of his own party, not from the Democrats. Now Newt can see how destructive this Citizens United can be.

It is clear that the Tea Party does not represent the center-right majority of the American people but watch out because just as they were able to show relevancy in the Iowa caucus; they can also elect senators as we have seen with Ron Paul and Marco Rubio and governors as well by appealing to racism, selfishness, frustration and bigotry…it can happen. 

 

The future of America is at stake, if the American people are awake then it will not happen…we have seen their disdain and repudiation of Teabag mentality in Wisconsin, Ohio and recently Occupy Wall Street. Let’s hope it continues and they don’t go back into that catatonic state of aloofness that has brought us to this predicament.