A few musings about the election

I keep wondering why on earth the Romney campaign keeps trying to run to their base to win this election when the economy is down (albeit moving slowly back upwards).  The non-story yesterday on the "shocking video" that Fox News ran turned out to be a YouTube video from 2007 that no one cared about in 2008, so what's the big deal?

Then, I realized that Romney, with 5 weeks to go before the election, has yet to solidify his base.  If you're at this point in an election cycle and you've not done this yet, you are cooked.  They can't get swing voters because they aren't sure if the base will show up yet.

While their base (which is shrinking to be the extremely wealthy and those rural voters who can't accept even a HALF-black President) dislikes President Obama, the non-wealthy part of that base is not happy with Romney either.  First, he is as unlikeable a nominee as we have seen, out of touch with people who don't possess the type of wealth he inherited and extracted from others.

Secondly, and most importantly, we overlook something that will absolutely hurt Romney among his rural and conservative Christian base: his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormons.  For me, I could care less, his stands on the issues (when he stands at ALL, that is) disqualified Willard a long time ago.   This is the subject that no one wants to talk about in the mainstream media, but that's also why the GOP is desperately begging their base to vote for a man no one likes.

For conservative Christians in rural areas, a huge number of them believe, rightly or wrongly, that Mormonism is a cult. They are simply not going to vote for a Mormon for President, especially not one that they know in their hearts helped bring down the economy.  No, they aren't going to vote for the President, but they will either vote for, let's say, the Constitution Party candidate or other minor-party candidate, or they will skip that race altogether, figuring they will wait four years for the President to leave office on his own.

Now, let's face it, I agree more with Green presidential candidate Jill Stein than I do President Obama, but so what?  There is no Green Party structure to elect Congressional candidates (because they refuse to get involved in LOCAL issues, which is how the right-wing built THEIR infrastructure), so what good would it do even in the highly unlikely event that she won?  When the Green Party gets serious about the electoral process, I will get serious about them.  Even Noam Chomsky says that if you live in a swing state, you HAVE to vote to re-elect the President.  That's why, even though it won't be as intense as four years ago, most of the President's base has come together to re-elect him.

This is not to suggest that I am not pissed about Geithner and Summers protecting Wall Street, and that the drone strikes continue to hurt us in the Middle East, I am.  However, the threat, not only to America, but the entire PLANET, of a Mitt Romney victory, compels me to vote to re-elect the President.

Besides, don't you want to see Brit Hume and Sean Hannity weep and gnash their teeth on Election Night?  I know I do.