There is something truly sad about this election, although many of us who have watched elections for decades see it as far more than that.
There is a very strict commonality between some of the ideals of the current conservative movement and that of Adolph Hitler prior to the beginning of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. At the time that Hitler came in to the world political system Germany was in economic ruin. What Hitler did was to create a situation where he could falsely "blame" others convenient and not able to fight back at the time. People bought his false conservatism by the metric ton and using unrelated divisive issues he tied unrelated garbage to racism, anti-semitism, homophobia and a host of other ills that he created himself to remove focus from the real issues.
He then in the name of protecting the people put forth insanity as if it were in fact conservatism and a great moral code. He in essence legislated morality throughout Germany and this is why he was so anxious to get to peoples children. It is not difficult to convince a 7 year old of damn near anything if you are an adult. The Hitler youth he knew were going to grow up. The rise of Adolph Hitler did not take place overnight. By the time that he was forming armies his ideals had been going around Germany for years. Some of his stuff was so preposterous as to be moronic and yet it was served as if it were champagne to people who were hurting. Racial purity, homophobia as punishable by death, anti-semitism on a level nearly unheard of. In many ways Hitler used "the church" to get what he wanted and then realizing that "the church" was now his biggest threat. Clergy of all religions were placed in concentration camps if they dared disagree with his viewpoints. What never ceases to amaze me is that people nearly ninety years later are still stupid enough to buy hogwash as if it were in fact gospel.
How many have noticed that the extremists seem to be interested so heavily in morality, when in fact they themselves appear to have more skeletons in their closets than the people they portray as liberals.
Here we are a country broke for many reasons and it appears that what one hears from the "immoral minority" who are willing to tell bold faced lies not even knowing what the actual job and power of the President of the United States is. They then expect and are having surprising success trying to now tell us that we are NOT and I quote a country "Of the People, by the people, and for the people." They go on to extrapolate that major corporations which have demonstrated unprecedented levels of greed are going to be the saviors of this country.
This is nothing more than a "rerun" of the old concept of "Reaganomics". In Reaganomics one rewards and gives incredible privileges to the richest in the land and these people are so benevolent that they are going to reward every one down the line.
Reaganomics did not work and that is no secret except to extremists. Under Ronald Reagan and after preaching endlessly that there would be no new taxation and that by cutting spending we would magically fix everything he quietly and without ceremony repeatedly passed the largest tax increases first that the State of California had ever seen and finally after being elected to the White House the largest tax increases that this Nation had ever seen until George H. W. Bush had the bad idea of stating "Read my lips no new taxes". George H.W. Bush completely failing on his speech two weeks later signed a Republican sponsored tax bill that hurt the bottom and middle class while rewarding the top of the income pile very handsomely.
My definitions of the three GOP top runners:
Santorum, Religious zealot and nut job to the extreme. Incompetent for the office and merely a "puppet" for special interest groups. If elected the party will try and do a repeat of George W. Bush making the Vice President the actual boss using the controversy and open mouth of the then President to cover the actual dirt taking place behind closed doors.
Gingrich, an absolutely unmanageable man with power as his main goal. He is hated by many within the Republican party and his philosophy on life is "My way or the highway". Gingrich is a very strong personality and a sanctimonious little "Dictator". The election of "Newt" gets us another form of failure in that literally from the day he takes office virtually everything he tries to do will be roadblocked. The Supreme Court will be booked for the next 50 years as the legal challenges to his ego start to happen. While writing his memoirs he will definitely do it himself because he is the only one capable of worshiping himself to the level he will demand.
Romney, is a contrast. He is a political moderate and though his financial management is questionable in some areas, as President his own assets are more or less locked up and he would be watched very carefully on that count. Basically under Romney I see a "win some/lose some" President that will be totally "ho-hum" in every respect, but of the three he is the least likely to do great harm inspiring moronic legislation. His religion would most likely cease to be of any value to him, but, one can guarantee that the great people of the Mormon Temple would be making demands on him to try and advance their cause. Being a Mormon can be a very costly religion to belong to. If you have money or power they don't hesitate to ask. If anyone doubts that all one has to do is to look at the personal lives of a group of people with the last name of "Osmond". He is the one most likely to state his position and power to the church and to back away from them of the three.
Right now, based on what I see, the most likely person to sit in an oval office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a bi-racial man with a wife and two kids. Because he would be a "lame duck" at that point I suspect that the boxing gloves will really come off because he then has absolutely nothing to lose by fighting vigorously. There is no election to fear.
If the Republicans are thoroughly trounced at the polls and if there is a purge of Republicans from lesser elected jobs which is possible, the GOP may have the best thing happen in that it will be forced to re-examine where it has gone and go back to the ideas it actually stood for which is small government that only intrudes into one's life when necessary and stays the heck out otherwise.
The biggest problem with the Democratic Party is that they have allowed themselves to be labeled in an inappropriate manner. The Democratic Party has failed just as much as the Republicans have.
Sadly, even though some of his ideas sound good on the surface the man of the day will very likely never be Ron Paul. I see Ron Paul after this election changing his tune and running on one of the independent party tickets. I also see Ron Paul in a walker and a wheel chair still running at age 85 because that is the chance he has.
His chances are no better or worse than the election of Roseanne Barr under one of the independent parties. They just don't have the money or backing to come into the front of the class in this case.
The Gospel of Santorum is based on flawed thinking and the extremist views of a minority within the Republican Party who have led that party astray.