Iowa’s Real Lesson, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #236

August 15, 2011 Mike Gold 4 Comments

Back when comedian Dennis Miller began his drift to the right, he said he was backing Ross Perot for president. I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but Miller said every presidential race needed at least one crazy little fuck.

Dennis Miller was absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean we have to actually vote for the bastard.

If you caught the Iowa Republican straw poll vote results on radio or teevee, you certainly walked away with the knowledge that Michelle Obachmann won the contest. That’s because liberals can’t believe anybody would vote for this massively hypocritical zealot. You probably heard that Tim Pawlenty dropped out, copping the 2012 Rudy Giuliani Award for fastest flame-out. 15 months before the election must be a record.

But, as usual, you have to dig a bit to discover the real story. The Iowa straw poll is not an indicator of the next Republican candidate; it isn’t even a good indicator of who’s going to win the Iowa caucus next February 6^th. It reveals the condition of the candidate’s organization and provides a basis for short-term fund-raising. It also launches that one element that is most critical to a political candidate, more important than campaign contributions (and I’m truly sorry to destroy that liberal fantasy). It’s called momentum.

And this weekend, the momentum pushed this year’s crazy little fuck, Mr. Ron Paul.

Paul came in second in this weekend. Not just second, but a very close second. Obachmann received 4,823 votes and that represented over one-fourth of all votes cast and paid for. I’m not being cynical here: folks had to pay $30.00 a piece to cast their vote.

But Ron Paul received 4,671 votes, a mere 152 votes behind Ms. Holier-than-Thou. That represents, oh, over one-fourth of all votes cast and paid for.

Not bad for a guy who stands opposed to abortion, the separation of church and state, withdrawal from the United Nations, NATO, the World Trade Organization, and NAFTA. He’s the right-wing poster boy on immigration issues. He’s a “strict” constitutionalist (which, of course, means his interpretation of the Constitution), and is a leading advocate of the Free Trade fantasy. Ron Paul sued President Clinton over the Kosovo war, and he famously stated “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”

In fairness, Paul also opposed the Iraq War and a war with Iran, he stands for habeas corpus for political “detainees” and has been opposed to the Patriot Act, torture, a national identification card, warrantless domestic surveillance, and the draft. And didn’t President Paul used to make the Mounds candy bar?

In the past, Ron Paul has run for president as a Libertarian, and this seems right to me. As a Republican, he’s part of the highly successful Tea Bagger movement to hijack the Republican Party – along with Michelle Obachmann.

Paul’s 4,671 votes in Iowa last weekend represent nearly a 350% increase over his performance in 2007. Big Mo loves Ron Paul.

Make no mistake about it: It was Ron Paul who actually won the 2011 Iowa Republican straw poll.

Last night, media metaphysician Mike Gold resumed his Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind rock’n’blues show, which streams four times a week on www.getthepointradio.com and is also available on demand (or soon will be) at that very same venue. He joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com, where he also holds the mythical title of editor-in-chief. And he’s involved in a hot-shit top secret project that we won’t talk about. Maybe ever.

Most important, Mike will be at the Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend (August 20 and 21^st), joining all sorts of people who are actually famous enough to deserve being there. Drop by the Insight Studios booth and say hello. Bring barbecue beef.