January 20, 2105--Mitt Redux

Just as I was slipping into despair that my favorite sitcom would not return for another season--the Republican Clown Car--what with no Herman (Pokemon) Cain and no Michele (pray-away-the-gay) Bachmann, how would I spend the next two years? Stuck with House of Cards, Shark Tank, Dancing With the Stars, and God help me, Girls? I might even have to develop a taste, I moaned, for the Home Shopping Network.

But I can calm down. Things are beginning to shape up.

No only are Bachmann and Cain making noises that they might in fact run for the 2016 nomination but there is also Rand Paul (who looks like a clown), Ted Cruz (who looks like Joseph McCarthy), Jeb Bush (who looks like George W. Bush), Scott Walker and Paul Ryan (both of whom look like Eddie Munster from the Munsters), Chris Christie (who, in spite of his lap-band surgery, still looks like he belongs more in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade than the White House), Donald (you're fired) Trump, and who can forget Rick (love-the-new-glasses) Perry, especially if he's on the same meds he was using in 2012 when he reminded us that the American revolution occurred during the 16th century.

Then, of course, thank you Mitt Romney who is back for a third run. Etch-A-Sketch Mitt who this time around promises to run a campaign devoted to "lifting people out of poverty." The same Mitt who three years ago called this same 47 percent of the population "takers."

I'm sure some of his Republican opponents will remind us that this is the same out-of-touch Romney who drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car, offered to bet Perry $10,000 about his position on health care reform, and in his new zillion-dollar California house has an elevator for one of his wife's Cadillacs.

He may have been a gaff-prone candidate (I confess to looking forward to the inevitable new ones) but every poll of likely GOP voters shows him doing much better than even Jeb Bush when it comes to a potential race against Hillary Clinton.

If Mitt and the rest of the cast of the nomination-seeking candidates don't do it for you, there is also now a new rising star--African-American neurosurgeon Ben Carson who already has a long list of fun quotes, including a recent one that claims that "Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery."

It continues to amaze me how Republicans manage to find black politicians who are as regressive on race as their GOP country-club colleagues. It's clearly a comfort to the Fat Cats and the source of mid-winter amusement to me.