The ABC News Division put on a terrific Saturday night show at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, kind of reality tv meets presidential politics, a demolition derby debate among the Republican presidential primary contenders.
We were short, however, by one dwarf. Former Godfather Pizza’s CEO and Chairman Herman Cain caught the brass ring when the public wanted anyone but Mitt (Romney), and Herman topped the political polls, gaining altitude with attitude until, like Icarus, he flew too close to the hot sun, busted all records on the bimbo meter, lost his wax wings, and fell to the earth, having “overlooked” to mention to the Missus that 13 year “intimate friendship” he had with another woman.
Michelle Bachman praised Cain and then joined the Greek Chorus of caustic contenders kicking Newt around the stage for his sexual indiscretions. Perry said, if you’ll cheat on your wife, you’ll cheat on your business partners – an interesting conjunction. Newt scowled, played piñata to their scornful remarks, bowed his head, and finally said he’d sought prayerful reconciliation.
Mitt questioned Newt’s idea factory, starting with Newt’s proposal for a colony to mine minerals on the Moon. Mitt overlooked to mention Newt’s space mirrors that would reflect the sun onto our highways -- so we can save electricity. Newt explained another beaut -- to fire hard-working middle class school janitors, add them to the unemployment line, and use child labor drawn from grammar school classrooms, paying the kids less than the janitors of course.
One blogger wrote about the debate, “No, Diane Sawyer. It doesn't help. Give them clubs and don't interrupt!!”
Mitt, a man of the people, tried to make a $10,000 bet with Perry on whether Mitt changed what he’d said about his Massachusetts Health care program from one edition of his book to the next. Perry couldn’t think to say, “Make it a fiver and you’ve got a bet, or, by the way, Mitt, real people don’t make bets for 10 big ones.” Someone blogged, “Can Mormons bet?”
This tied in nicely with Mitt’s explanation about how he knew about the poor. His dad had been poor – and told him all about it. Newt hung back because, “What could he know about the middle class when he’s got a running tab to buy shiny diamond treasures at Tiffany’s?”
No dwarf admitted to supporting any government regulations. Newt did write a book in 1984, called “Window of Opportunity,” where he advocated “forceful government intervention on behalf of growth and opportunity” explaining how he opposed “a neutral jungle of purely random individual behavior.” By the time of the debate in Des Moines, however, neither Newt nor any other dwarf were concerned with how a poorly regulated corporate America killed workers in mines, spilled oil in the Gulf, broke our banks and collapsed our economy with bogus home loans.
The dwarfs refuse to increase taxes on the rich but they’re fine with increasing payroll taxes on the middle class. No one called Mitt on whether his business had been to destroy jobs, and not to create them. Mitt’s company, Bain Capital, made its fortune taking over companies, forcing some into bankruptcy, and always selling them off for a profit. Mitt was more like Oliver Stone’s Gordon Gekko who went to Wall Street, than Capra’s Mr. Smith who went to Washington.
On foreign affairs, Mitt and Newt argued about Newt’s remark that the Palestinians were an “invented people” and then they argued, like children, about who knew Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi” Netanyahu better or longer. Bachmann tried to top this sophomoric exchange by repeating she had worked on a kibbutz – and apparently never learned how to say Chutzpah.
So what’s America to do?
If you want to restore the basic bargain that our people made with its government, then you are best to ignore the dwarfs and consider what another presidential candidate said last week in Osawatomie, Kansas.
“[W]hat’s at stake,” President Obama said, “is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, [and] secure their retirement.” Obama decried how “the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk.” He proposed an “economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street.”
Now, that would be a welcome change!
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