144 Or Less / 12-17-11

If you mean to sign a pledge defending marriage, but instead you end up offending it, you might be Newt Gingrich.

First of all, I'm sorry -- really sorry. Secondly, you should rethink your decision to sign this.

This is, in short, the latest Republican-sponsored quixotic battle against same-sex marriage.

Given that you cheated on your first two wives, once while you were impeaching Clinton for lying about sexual indiscretions, then also while another was fighting off cancer (successfully!), you're better off signing an overt declaration of war on marriage rather than a laughable oath to "protect" it from committed people who would like their children to grow up in a stable home where two loving parents don't have to explain to their children why the government disallows their union.

Long sentence there. Shorter ones now.

Now go win the nomination, you double-talking sleazebag. Please.

(Word count: 144)

And Now It's Ron Paul's Turn / 12-17-11

Not his turn to win, mind you. Don't get your man-panties in a bunch. Or even your lady panties. Which is somewhat redundant, come to think of it, and why wouldn't you think of it?

(I'm glad I don't have to be as serious for this one as for the Romney one.)

My last two full posts have laid out why Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich won't win the 2012 Republican nomination. Since those guys account for about two-thirds of Republican voters, that means Ron Paul, who generally places third in national and state-by-state polls, is the new favorite to oppose Obama next year... right?

Yeah no. Not happening. Whatever the opposite of "right" is. Is there even a word for that?

It's not going to be Paul either. (Waiting for your objection. Noted. Waiting for your next question.) Then who? (There we go. Thanks for participating.)

To be totally honest, I haven't figured that one out yet. Possible future post, yay! No, for now, I'm just excluding people one at a time. In much the same way that I've been methodically honing my impressions of God by excluding traits -- God is not male, is not the world's manager, is not Santa Claus, is not summoned by our prayers to magically heal and protect us, is not fighting a proxy war through us against some red dude with horns and a pitchfork -- I also have been trimming the Republican field of candidates.

Which doesn't necessarily mean I'll finish this journey with a good answer. Why should it?

Redirecting. Ron Paul will not be the nominee for a variety of reasons, none of which is convincing enough on its own, but when combined with its buddies, gains extra power. Yes, just like the Constructicons. I was thinking that too.

1. Paul is 76 years old. I'm not being ageist. I'm being realistic. Everyone else is being ageist. The oldest presidential candidate to ever win a first term was Ronald Reagan, who was 69 years old in 1980. (Modern technology has permitted Reagan to age only six years since then!) Paul is in good health. He's a doctor. He's a spry 76. But he'd be 77 and five months on Inauguration Day, and people don't put people in office when 80 is right around their corner. Not in this country, anyway.

2. Paul isn't a Republican. (This is probably a good 1. reason, but I wrote 1. first, so this is 2.) He wears the R label, but only because he's not a Democrat either. He's a Libertarian Lite. A Conservative Constitutionalist. (A con-con, if you will. I will. I already did.) Here is his list of positions. You put him in a box, if you can find one the right shape. He voted against the 2011 Republican budget as drafted by Paul Ryan. Good for him. But you could say that loyalty to the party brand is not his forte.

You know, that's practically a disqualifying offense on its own. Practically.

3. Paul is ignored/laughed at/derided/choose your term/mocked by the mainstream media. Hoping for this to change is pointless. Should Paul win three early states (Iowa, NH and Nevada are certainly fertile ground for him, and the February calendar is caucus-heavy, which bodes well for him too), Paul's most unpopular traits will certainly get highlighted. Mind you, this will not deter his most hard-core supporters, but it will help empty the bandwagon pretty quickly.

4. He doesn't look the part. Voters like their candidates to look presidential, and Paul's rumpled suits, 5'10''-or-so height, and semi-grouchy mannerisms are a turn-off for too many people. It's shallow. It's also hard to deny. Although if denial is one of your specialties, go right ahead.

5. He's a sure loser in the general election. Paul's right on the national pulse when it comes to certain things (lower taxes, against wars of choice, pro-civil-liberties, slashing foreign aid) but is so very extreme in his proposed budget cuts, his contempt of labor unions, and his plans to scrap the Federal Reserve would make for so very many effective negative ads it's not even funny. (If the inevitable ads were funny, like Jack-in-the-Box-meets-Old-Spice funny, then it's all worth it, he should totally score the nomination.)

The above reasons don't preclude a major role for Paul in the process. I can see a scenario where he finishes with the second-most delegates, and another where he is offered the vice-presidential slot on the ticket. But in only the most far-fetched parallel universe is he the Republican nominee.

In conclusion? Sorry Noah S., Matt L. and Mike G.

But if not Ron Paul, who?

The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas / 12-14-11

My last post ended with "If not Romney, who?"

Glad you asked. Turns out Newt Gingrich enjoys a double-digit lead in national polling for the 2012 Republican nomination. He leads in Iowa, where they'll be voting in three weeks. He leads nationally. He leads in Florida and South Carolina, states which hold the other January primaries, by an average of 19 points. Real Clear Politics does a poll of polls every day, and here's their latest one, showing Gingrich with a 12-point cushion. The predictive model at Fivethirtyeight.com, which rose to prominence in 2008 with its statistically rigorous look at the election, predicts he'll win the first caucus.

Newt Gingrich has stolen Christmas from Mitt Romney and is now the undisputed front-runner.

Yes, that Newt Gingrich. Yes, him. It's almost too easy to write the post about how the man will not be the Republican nominee.

Oh, I'm going to write the post anyway. Not doing so would be a wasted opportunity. It would be borderline irresponsible. Besides, I have to write this tonight, so I can give the same treatment to Ron Paul tomorrow. After that, eh, who knows. Because if it's not going to be one of the three front-runners... wow. If it's not one of those three guys, and I really don't think it'll be, then we're in for a doozy of a primary season, and a Republican convention actually worth paying attention to.

Seriously, my political lobe is all tingly. *shivers*

So. Newt will not win the nomination for a variety of reasons. Let's give these reasons some sequential numbers.

1. He says stuff. So much stuff. Even for a Republican, it's seriously crazy stuff. For example, last week, he warmed up by stating in a debate that our child labor laws are "truly stupid," then stood by his remarks. Just read the first few quotes here, remembering that this is Newt defending his stance that children should in part replace adult janitors who, according to him, make too much money. Oh, and calling Palestinians an "invented" people is just the sort of thing a president ought to do, too. (And that was just last week! Both statemenst! Days apart!)

2. He has more enemies than friends in the GOP power corridors. More on why this matters this two reasons later.

3. He's not going to win Iowa or New Hampshire, and that will take the sails out of his campaign. According to multiple reports, he's massively disorganized compared to Paul, Perry and Bachmann -- even compared to Romney. One of those four is winning the Hawkeye State. (My money's on Paul.) Meanwhile, Romney will at least eke out a win in New Hampshire. Fundraising will dry up and supporters will voice their doubts more openly after the perceived front-runner fails to take either of the first two contests.

4. His personal life is too much of a liability. And because of 2., 4. is amplified. Any campaign manager who wants to destroy Newt can make it happen. It's not hard. You just remind people that the guy led the drive to impeach Clinton... while he was having an affair of his own. You remind them that at the height of the mortgage crisis, he took $1.6 million in pay from Freddie Mac... then claimed, straight-faced, he was being paid for his services as a historian. You remind them he cheated on his first wife, then divorced his second one while she was dying of cancer so he could marry his current spouse... before Wife Number Two had the decency to die. Those are the broad strokes, but after that who cares about the details: There's three women, lots of cheating, and massive douchebaggery, all rolled into one guy.

And I haven't even yet mentioned the time Newt admitted that he shut down the government in part so he could exact revenge on the President for making him sit in the back of Air Force One.

I'm all for politicians making mistakes and learning from them, you know, like regular people, but the baggage above is too much for Newt to overcome. And we're just talking, so far, about the luggage he checked at the counter. There's plenty more: carry-ons, backpacks, rolling suitcases, laptops, and fanny packs full of additional icky Newtrivia, just waiting to be unpacked on the national scene.

5. My favorite. He made a well-intentioned video to help raise awareness of climate change. In the video, he sits on the couch with fellow former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she's known to Republican voters, Harpy McLucifer (D-San Frangaysco). Newt might as well have shot a commercial for an abortion clinic and solicited funds for Planned Parenthood, standing in front of a juicy Robert Mapplethorpe painting. That would have gone over way better.

Newt will win some delegates along the way. Just not the nomination.

But if not Newt, who?

[Respoiler: Ron Paul's up next. Guess how the post ends!]

Mitt Romney, The LDS Question, and Flipfloppery / 12-13-11

Going to tread lightly here, because this is a sensitive topic. Don't expect a lot of biting wit.

Mitt Romney has two problems.

First, he's a Mormon.

Important clarification: He doesn't have a problem with me. I would vote for a Democrat who's a Mormon. If Harry Reid (you know, the Senate Majority Leader) were running for office in my state, I would choose him over the right-wing alternative. His policy squares with mine. He could be an atheist, a Baptist, a Buddhist, whatever, I really couldn't possibly care less. I want left-wingers in office enacting left-wing policies, thwarting right-wing initiatives.

Yeah, well, as luck would have it, Mitt Romney isn't running for my vote, for the Senate in a reliably blue state, or for governor again, as a moderate Republican.

He's running for the chance to represent the Republicans in an election for President of the United States. And to get there, he needs to win over the people who vote in primaries.

And yeah. Between 40 and 60 percent of the R primary electorate, depending on the state, is made up of evangelical Christians. About half of those of those believe Mormonism is a cult. Trust my numbers, or just do the math: roughly, a quarter of R primary voters gladly place Romney in the Cult Box.

Important fact: Christians classify their Mormon brethren in that uncomplimentary way for multiple reasons. But chief among those is that in LDS circles, the Book of Mormon is viewed as equal to the Bible.

Understatement: fair or unfair, when the LDS church went that route, it was practically asking for the "cult" label. Denying the divinity of Christ is the biggest massive breach of orthodoxy I can imagine, and right behind that, in second place, lies messing with the ultimate authority of the Word of God.

Like I said, that's neither here nor there for me. I have my own tenuous relationship with so-called orthodox dogma. (Really? A virgin birth? Are you serious?)

But again, I'm not voting in the Republican primaries. It's most definitely here and there for a large swath of the people Romney needs to reach.

When combined with his propensity to, um, how to say this -- his propensity to let his views on certain issues "evolve," and his extremely moderate past during his governorship of Massachusetts, Romney has a big problem. He's not appealing to the people who decide if he's appealing.

So he keeps polling between 20 and 30 percent, time and again, week after week, state after state. Forgive me, but duh.

I'll be shocked if Romney garners more than a third of the Republican vote in any primary outside of New England and the Mountain West. And that's no path to the nomination.

But if not Mitt, who?

Tomorrow, I'll give newt Gingrich the same treatment. (Spoiler: The post ends with "But if not Newt, who?")

Ho, Ho, Ho Say Can You See / 11-28-11

With Thanks being all safely Given and out of our public consciousness for eleven months and three weeks, another holiday takes center stage, which it has already taken, because it could.

I'm talking about Christmas! No, really! (ed. note: strike two previous sentences)

Christmas, the superpower of holidays.

At its core, Christmas is good. It grew out of a fantastic idea, a revolutionary idea -- God born as a human! God as a child? What! God as a finite, mortal being. What an idea. If you haven't considered it in a while, do so again. Boggle your mind.

Christmas is brimming with exuberance, optimism, gregariousness, charity. Christmas time moves people. Siblings spend their precious funds on siblings; strangers feed strangers in soup kitchens; poor kids receive gifts from anonymous donors who drop them off at suddenly altruistic places of business. The Christmas spirit is uplifting and real. Just look at the results.

If you're a certain brand of person, you would put your life on the line for Christmas. An edict barring the celebration of Christmas, under penalty of death, would not stop people from celebrating the holiday.

What I'm trying to say is that good people, given the right circumstances, would give their lives for Christmas. Because Christmas is capable of bringing out the best in us.

And Christmas can also be rude, or even ugly. It pokes its head where it doesn't belong, like November 3rd. Uninvited, and all. It can even make quite a mess, in spite of its good intentions: have you seen shoppers assault each other for bits of branded plastic or fur-covered batteries? If not, you've not been paying very good attention.

For the last two months of the year, the marketplace pleads for your money, with no limits on its cravenness. My God, ads on the radio urge us to buy CARS for our loved ones. There is no room for restraint at the inn.

There are not too many ways to say it: Christmas gets used. The Starbucks in which I sit does not serve a $4.75 eggnog latte to spread holiday cheer. (Hint: It's more for the crazy profit margin.) The big-box electronics store doesn't hawk its $799 TV (marked down $200!) just so you can share quality family time watching "Elf" every weekend.

And Christmas is part legend, a malleable one which gathers all kinds of mythology along the way. You think Abraham Lincoln is amazing? All he did was hold together a nation by sheer force of will. Santa delivers presents to every (deserving) kid faster than the speed of sound. And time. And light. You think it was cool when American ingenuity put a man on the moon 42 years ago? Mary's water broke at the end of a hundreds-of-miles-long donkeyback ride, then she birthed a deity in a feeding trough.

Christmas' ideals exhort us to be better. We often rise to the challenge.

Christmas is also covered in warts. If you take the time to look.

Boiling it down even further: Each year, when the calendar completes its circle, here we stand, ready to celebrate the greatest holiday on earth, because it's who we are, and without Christmas, many of us would feel a little empty, a little less significant, a little littler.

Holy Santa, America is Christmas.

The Complete Works of the 2012 GOP Nomination Campaign (abridged) / 11-8-11

[The curtain comes up. A bare stage, save for a television set and a dozen people, milling about.]

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

PERSON WITH CHURRO: We love you Saaarah, oh yes we do

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

QUIET PERSON (lip synching): /huntsman/

GIRL (skipping across stage): Christie, Christie, Christie

PERSON WITH CHURRO: And you too Michele

BOY (marching, carrying sign across stage, chanting): Ron Paul, that is all... Ron Paul, that is all...

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

PERSON WITH BIBLE: I <3 Huckabee

PERSON BACKSTAGE (yelling): Santorum!

QUIET PERSON: /huntsman/

PERSON WITH CHURRO: Saaaaraaaaah Palin (clap clap clapclapclap)

TWO GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

CRAZY PERSON (dancing, chanting): Obamacare Obamacare Obamanation Obamacare

THREE GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

CRAZY PERSON (still dancing): Birth Certificate!

PERSON WITH CHURRO: Obamacare

PERSON WITH BIBLE: Obamanation

TWO GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

CRAZY PERSON: (unintelligible yelling)

NOW JUST ONE GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

HERMAN CAIN: Me

BOY: Ron Paul, that is all...

RICK PERRY: I'm not George Bush

GIRL (skipping, not running): Christie, Christie, Christie

OLD GUY: Newwwwwt

THREE GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

FOX NEWS: Cain Is Able

EVERYONE (running to TV): oooooooooooo

FOX NEWS: Not Mitt

FOX NEWS: Cain Is Able

EVERYONE (droning): Cain Is Able Cain Is Able

BOY (oblivious): Ron Paul, that is all... Ron Paul, that is all...

PERSON WITH CHURRO (weeping): I dropped my churro

PERSON BACKSTAGE: Santor-- (loud banging noise) -- owww hey owww

HERMAN CAIN: Nineninenine

FOX NEWS: Not Mitt

EVERYONE: Not Mitt

CAIN: Nineninenine

CAIN: NinenineNIIINE

PERSON WITH BIBLE: I still <3 Huckabee

FOX NEWS: Shut up

CAIN: Nineninenine

FOUR WOMEN: Nein! Nein! Nein!

FOX NEWS: Shut up

FOX NEWS: Cain is Able

EVERYONE: Wait a second

RICK PERRY: I'm not Rick Perry

EVERYONE: Not Mitt

MITT ROMNEY: I'm not Mitt Romney

BOY: Ron Paul, that is all...

GIRL (slowing down): Christie, Christie, Chris --

OLD GUY: Newwwwwt

CRAZY PERSON (sitting): Sad

PERSON WITH CHURRO (hanging head): Sad

GIRL (walking off stage): Sad

HERMAN CAIN: Hey baby

FOX NEWS:

RICK PERRY: I'm not Mitt Romney

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt... ?

EVERYONE: Mitt?

FOX NEWS:

FOX NEWS:

FOX NEWS: Aw nuts

QUIET PERSON: /i told you/

[Curtain descends.]

BOY (still marching with sign, still chanting): Ron Paul, that is all... Ron Paul, that is all...

You Heard Me / 10-29-11

Not that you were paying attention to a World Series that lacked the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and all teams from Chicago or L.A. (plus nobody invited the Mariners! Again!), but yeah, there was a fair amount of drama in the Fall Classic this past week.

The Cardinals, twice a mere strike from defeat, won it all Friday night. They came back from a two-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth AND tenth innings to wrest Game 6 from the Texas Rangers, then cruised to a 6-2 Game 7 victory to claim the trophy.

This series had it all. Individual heroics, eye-popping errors (confession: "eye-pooping" was the first thing my fingers typed, and that's not so far off), outstanding pitching performances, epic at-bats, game-saving hits and catches, meltdowns, questionable decisions; oh, there was more than enough drama.

And God. There was some God, too. Well, according to Texas slugger Josh Hamilton, who says God dropped by for a nice little mid-game chat.

In the heat of the moment Thursday night, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa couldn't place a call to the bullpen to get the right pitcher in the game. But in the opposing dugout, minutes later, Hamilton had a direct line to the Deity Formerly Known As Bruce.

"I was walking to the plate. And it happened as I was brushing dirt in the batter's box. Very cool. Y'all ought to try it sometime," said Hamilton, a self-avowed born-again Christian who turned to Jesus after years of substance abuse and all the lovely things that come with a destructive lifestyle.

I won't leave you hanging, like a lousy curveball, any longer. Here's the Transcript:

"He said, 'You haven't hit one in a while and this is the time you're going to,' '' Hamilton said. "But there was a period at the end of that. He didn't say, 'You're going to hit it and you're going to win.' "

Hamilton hit a home run that trip to the plate.

(Now to his credit, Hamilton didn't ask God to give away the game's final outcome. That would have sucked. Not for God. Strictly for Josh. Who lost the game, and the series.)

You've probably noticed that I don't take this kind of chatter very seriously, so then here are some assorted conclusions one might draw from the Hamilton-Yahweh pep talk:

1. God dislikes the Rangers. (Chalk one up for divine good taste. What whaat!)

2. Or... God was just popping in to deliver some free information about the near future. You know, between checking in on the earthquake in Turkey earlier that day that killed at least 500 people, the developing floods in Bangkok, and scattered famines and wars.

(Everyone needs some R&R, right? Letting the world's countless tragedies take their collective toll is demanding work. Not that I'd know. God doesn't talk to me. Too busy, you know, whispering some athletics-based fortunetelling in a dude's ear.)

3. Athletes really are more special than the rest of us. (We should totally pay the best ones five figures, daily. Eh, what's this now? Oh.)

4. It was actually Satan, messin' with Texas. (Ol' Luce is probably the only one who can get away with it!)

5. It was actually God. (empty parentheses, for sure)

6. Some combination of Hamilton being wrong/deceitful/confused. (Rats. The answers are losing their snark! Quick! Be all clever-like!)

7. God did speak to Hamilton, but told him he was going to ground out to shortstop. Josh is just covering for a giant Oops. (There you go, me.)

7. Something else happened. Not God speaking to Hamilton, but also not God not speaking to Hamilton. (It's very mystical. "Well, that's not very snarky." "Shut up, inner dialogue!" "Don't talk to me like that, please." "Excuse me. Who are you to say how I may and may not--")

144 Or Less, Vol. XI / 10-29-11

Recently in this space I detailed Ron Paul's fantastical path to the 2012 Republican nomination (ed. note: "fantastical" does not share a meaning with "fantastic"), plus a list of things I genuinely like about the Herminator.

Well, each time I burrow into deeper examination of a flawed GOP field, I'm left to conclude that Mitt Romney eventually wins the nomination.

Which is how I happened upon this, from Steve Benen, in Washington Monthly:

"As hard as it is to believe, it’s very likely the Republican presidential nomination will go to a French-​​speaking Mormon vulture capitalist named Willard, who used to support abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, 'amnesty' for undocumented immigrants, and combating climate change, and who distanced himself from Reagan, attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers, and helped create the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act."

This can't happen, right? Right?

(Word count: 144)

Nine-Nine-Nine Things I Like About Herman Cain / 10-21-11

You're going to assume that I made the following list in jest.

You're going to wait, and wait, and wait for the sarcastic kicker.

Well, it ain't comin. Read ahead. See?

Ha. Joke's on you. These are nine things I legitimately like about Herman Cain and his presidential campaign. What that's now? Yes, I know he's a Republican, shut up already.

1. He offers a solution to our taxation quagmire. His 9-9-9 plan isn't just an inspiration for this babblefest I call "blogging." It's an actual alternative to the mess in which we find ourselves today, wherein:

One party won't raise taxes or cut benefits;

The other wants to cut taxes but not the benefits;

Meanwhile, the deficit continues to mount, health care costs continue to rise and the safety net gets more and more expensive.

Say what you want about 9-9-9. It's gimmicky. It's too simple. It's regressive. Fine, whatever. But at least Cain is contributing to the discussion in a positive way, detailing a plan of attack, rather than delivering the same empty promises I like to call "lies."

2. He is not easily ruffled by white people calling him "brother." He's not even ruffled by white people with questionable race-related incidents in their past calling him "brother," over and over, on a national stage. In fact, if one of his rivals for the GOP nomination had once leased a hunting ranch called "N*ggerhead" for a decade, using it with his family, and that same rival had called Cain "brother," over and over, in a kinda douchey condescending sort of way, and this had all happened on October 19, 2011 during a debate in Las Vegas, Cain would have remained unruffled throughout.

That was a purely hypothetical exercise, of course, right.

3. He is pro-choice. Not personally, no -- he's on record as being strongly opposed to abortion, but he also adamantly made the case this week, in an interview on CNN, that abortion is a choice best left up to the woman, not the government.

His actual words: "It's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision."

After clarifying that he considers himself pro-life, he followed up: "I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make."

Asked if a woman should be forced to carry a fetus to term after being raped, he answered, "That's her choice. That is not government's choice. I support life from conception."

(He backtracked the next day on his website. That's kind of what politicians do, though.)

4. Although I just called him a politician, he's really an outsider, which is good. Politics needs these guys. Like a '92 Perot or a Ralph Nader of any vintage, non-career politicians serve an extremely important function: they tether the lifelong insiders to the real world. Sometimes they use graphs. I like it when they use graphs.

5. Cain is black. (I know, you're colorblind, you hadn't even noticed.) Your political correctness notwithstanding, the man's race is somewhat of a coup for the Republicans, whose base, according to the latest official numbers, is:

--->103.7 percent white

--->.00002 percent Latino (that's counting W's Spanish-speaking skills and Marco Rubio, who's Cuban anyway)

--->That rich Asian-American guy

--->Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and a 99-year-old former actor in a nursing home somewhere who's still wearing blackface.

If the Republican Party is going to survive at all, and outgrow its current rift with minorities, it needs, well, nonwhite faces. And it would be good for the country, somehow, if the right-wing party was still in existence a generation from now. So, yeah.

6. He's a successful businessman. Wildly successful. He's a multi-millionaire! He was president and CEO of Godfather's, a chain he saved from extinction in the 1980's and 90's. When Cain talks money, you have to at least listen. And money troubles are kinda exactly what the nation's going through right now.

7. He legitimately thinks he has something to offer the nation, so he's following through with that notion. He didn't have to run for President. He's not on his third campaign for the Oval Office. I get the feeling he's not necessarily chasing power for power's sake, although to run for this office in the first place, it does take a certain amount of self-esteem.

8. His family story is compelling. He was raised in a lower-middle-class home, in which hard work, education and faith were paramount. Check his wiki page. And then, imagine this: his childhood values seem to have stuck. He's been married to the same woman for 43 years, he owns a master's degree in computer science from Purdue and is an associate minister at his church.

(Lots more money in the Cain household this time around, though. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

9. He beat cancer. Stage Four cancer, in his colon and liver, five years ago. He was given a 30 percent chance of survival; now he says he's in remission. You have to respect someone who takes on death, and wins. (My advisers just whispered that beating cancer constitutes merely a temporary victory. Screw that. Any effort that forestalls death is a win in my book.)

Done. Nine items, no sarcastic kickers. Granted, there is no chance I would ever cast a vote for Herman Cain, and I could just as easily make a list twice this long about things that turn me off about him. Maybe some other time.

(P.S.: I found this after finishing the post, so call it 9a. In 2009, Cain founded something called "Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement," an activist program that fights for conservative causes. Forget the agenda. The acronym spells Hit 'em, and you get to use the term "Hermanator"? Legen. Dary.)

The Ron Paul Scenario / 10-20-11

Ron Paul is, by all mainstream media accounts, the longest of long shots to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

And yet.

And yet.

There exists a scenario by which Paul could nab the nomination. I'd like to explore it today. Won't you ride with me? Please ride with me. And remember to keep your eyeballs inside the car at all times.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Part of the reason the MSM is so quick to discount Paul is that he doesn't fit into a neat little box like Rick Perry (gunslingin' conservative), Mitt Romney (establishment moderate), Herman Cain (outsider businessman) or even Sarah Palin (populist freakshow).

Some highlights and lowlights of Paul's career:

He voted against the Iraq war. The money quote: he found himself "annoyed by the evangelicals being so supportive of pre-emptive war, which seems to contradict everything That I was taught as a Christian." He voted against the so-called Patriot Act and calls gay marriage a states' issue, not to be trifled with by the federal government.

At the same time, Paul says hospitals should not have to treat illegal aliens in emergency rooms. He would eliminate FEMA, the IRS and the Department of Education. (Say what you will, the country is better for having all three of those entities.) He voted against legislation aimed at catching online child predators.

The eccentricities: He's opposed to all foreign aid, he favors decriminalizing marijuana, he opposes the trade embargo on Cuba, and he habitually votes against legislation not expressly authorized by the Constitution. He'd scrap the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard abandoned under Nixon. Also, he's 76. I'm told that's considered ancient.

(All information gleaned from his extremely informative wiki page.)

Summarizing, if Ron Paul were an ice cream, he'd be the anti-vanilla. He'd be Rocky Road, except with chili peppers instead of marshmallows.

And yet.

And yet.

Paul won the Value Voters straw poll last month. He polls at around 10 percent, give or take. He lost by less than a percentage point to Michele Bachmann in Iowa over the summer. He's tantalizing in his potential to win, or get crushed like a bug.

So how on God's greenish earth does this guy snake his way to the nomination?

Well, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have some pretty serious flaws. Perry reminds everyone of Bush, and not of W's theoretically good parts. The guy leased a ranch called "N*ggerhead," and not by accident, nope, for a whole decade. He invested in porn; he volunteered for Al Gore. His oft-touted "Texas Miracle" boils down to finding a few minimum-wage jobs without health insurance for his poorest citizens, of which there are many, all while watching the state's unemployment rate rise faster than the nation as a whole. Look it up. He calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme. "Vote for me! I'll dismantle the safety net!" Interesting strategy.

Cain? Turns out he's pro-choice. Or maybe not. His evolving stances and awkward dances on the abortion issue make Romney look like a poster child of consistency. (In case you're not following the race too closely yet, that's a jab at both men. In case you don't know anything about American politics, conservative primary voters care a great deal about abortion.)

And the pizza magnate's gimmicky 9-9-9 tax plan got destroyed by his competitors in a debate last week. It wasn't pretty, from a Hermanesque standpoint.

So what about Mitt? Good ol' Mittens, the guy who stays put with a 28 percent share of primary voters, no matter what. Doesn't go up, doesn't go down. Does his ceiling even stretch to 50 percent, ever? Or is he this year's version of what Hillary was in 2008, when she fell victim to a vehement ABC -- Anybody But Clinton -- swath of the Democratic electorate?

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum (Google him, it's worth it), Jon Huntsman and Bachmann are either dead in the water or losing traction quickly. Chris Christie isn't running, neither is Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee's obviously lying facedown in a ditch somewhere, and in case you forgot, Tim Pawlenty dropped out over the summer.

The nominee will be Cain, Perry, Romney or Paul. Except it won't be Cain, not after this week's multiple meltdowns. He is not ready for prime time, all the time.

Really, it'll be Perry, Romney or Paul. Except it won't be Perry. He debates poorly, he looks unpresidential, he turns too many folks off, he won't play well in the general election, and every intangible in the book seems to be working against him. In another election cycle, maybe.

So it'll be Romney or Paul.

But say something happens to Romney. Already, he's treated us to "Corporations are people, my friend" and "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals!" That's just in the last eight weeks, with 54 more of those to go before Election Day. Oh, and there's the little matter of how he set up Obamacare in Massachusetts. Say he compounds gaffe with gaffe, loses his cool a couple times, flips or flops on this or that issue, again, and who knows?

Better yet, say the Republican primary voters who actually show up are:

* Conservative Christians who believe Mormonism is a cult

* Social conservatives who dislike his record

* Wary of insiders this election cycle

* Folks concerned about his flipfloppiness

* Still upset about health care legislation

and those voters go ahead and choose an alternative. What happens then? Does Romney crest past 30 percent anywhere besides New Hampshire?

If Romney, Cain and Perry are somehow out of the picture, your nominee stands to be one of the also-rans from six paragraphs ago, or Paul. The latter has an organization that puts his remaining opponents to shame. He has name recognition. By all accounts, he's a smart man, if quirky, and he projects an image of responsibility and honesty. He has a devoted following. (You could call them disciples! Or discipauls!)

Let's go to the calendar, then, and play this thing out chronologically.

It's January 15, and Ron's just finished winning Iowa and Nevada, nicely sandwiching his second-place finish to Romney -- by five percentage points! -- in New Hampshire. Paul is blowing expectations out of the water. He starts to raise funds like Obama 2008. Or, to be more precise, like Ron Paul 2007.

He loses to Perry in South Carolina on the 21st, but the four social conservatives split the far-right vote in Florida ten days later. Romney wins there, by default, with 26 percent. Nobody is impressed, especially because he just finished fifth in SC. Fifth!

Following a string of unimpressive results in the caucuses of CO, MN and ME on February 7, Perry's funds dry up at last and he drops out. Bachmann leaves the race a week later, but only after hanging on to barely take the Minnesota caucuses, where Paul finishes second.

Eight states have voted. Romney leads Paul by one delegate.

The two split Michigan and Arizona. Massachusetts selects Romney on March 6, but that's the same day Texas goes big for native son Paul. In fact, the other 11 states voting that day swing 7-2 to Paul, with him winning all five caucuses plus Vermont and Ohio. Cain nets the two leftovers, Oklahoma and Georgia, but having won just those two contests, and polling at 10 percent nationally, he calls it a campaign.

So do Santorum and Huntsman, who've won nothing; neither man has even placed second thus far.

With the pool of candidates thinning, Romney experiences a small uptick in poll numbers, but faced with essentially a choice between a libertarian and a moderate, many primary voters stay home. The ones who don't are, you guessed it, the Discipauls, who are emboldened by their man's now sizeable lead in delegates.

Gingrich stays in, gets a bump in the polls, and annoys the hell out of Mitt.

Desperate, Romney goes negative. He makes a disturbing campaign ad that is generally reviled, he loses his temper, he says something stupid, again.

To the great chagrin of the Republican establishment, Paul wraps up the nomination in April and coasts into the convention with a backroom deal-proof lead in delegates.

Granted, the scenario described above is... farfetched. But so very much NOT out of the realm of possibility. Here's the primary calendar. It's front-loaded with Western states, Southern states and caucuses.

It could happen. It won't. But it could.