The Republican Party appears to be making this election all too easy for President Obama this year. With the constant bickering among one another and attempts to out-badmouth each other, it’s up to debate why anyone would want them to lead this country.
As in previous elections, we started out with a great deal of potential candidates, and now we’re down to just three headliners. That number will most likely fall to just two within coming weeks.
So let’s focus on the three remaining candidates: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich. First up, the former Governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney.
Mitt ran back in 2008, but quickly dropped out after being caught up in the wake of what was John McCain. He returned this year, and to much surprise, he’s managed to hang on for quite a while. He was the frontrunner for a long time, but now with Santorum’s comeback in the polls and after Super Tuesday’s results, it seems uncertain if he’ll be able to make a comeback.
He’s a big fan of bringing religion into his politics, which seems to be a growing trend with Republicans lately. Romney supports abstinence-only sex education in public schools and believes students should be allowed to participate in some sort of religious practice while in school. Now, that’s not to say that having support for one’s religion is bad, but it should remain out of one’s politics.
This also begs the question of what these candidates would think of Muslim or Hindu students being allowed to be spiritual in public schools. Would they allow them the same freedom as they would Christians? I think the simple answer to that is no.
The former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, has been fading out of the spotlight in recent weeks. It seems almost as if he’s hanging on by just a thread and his campaign advisors are trying to throw Hail Mary after Hail Mary to try to save his race. Unfortunately, these desperate efforts have done nothing but make Newt appear mentally unstable. This guy gets a bad rap, which is deserved. While he presided as Speaker of the House, 84 ethical violations were brought up against him. If one does the math, that’s one ethical violation roughly every 17 days. That’s sort of absurd. So the bad press Gingrich gets was brought on by no one but himself.
Rick Santorum, the former Senator from Pennsylvania, has really had a come-from-behind race. He started out as somewhat of a nobody and has been transformed into one of the headliners of this race. Most of this has happened in recent weeks. Like Romney, Santorum has a difficult time separating his religion from his politics. He’s pro-life, against same-sex marriage and thinks that there should be more legislation against adultery, sodomy and polygamy. In a lot of ways, he sounds like the ideal candidate from the 1801 presidential race.
These three candidates all have very similar politics, but curiously enough they all seem to completely despise one another. If the Republican Party wants any hope of winning the White House this year, then they have to stop attacking one another and start attacking the common issues they want fixed. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re going to be doing that any time soon, so we Democrats can all look forward to four more years of Obama.
