The Republican primary is over in Florida (thank God) and of course Mitt Romney was the clear winner. I would hazard that this win solidifies Romney as the eventual GOP nominee. I guess good ole Newt’s ploy of colonizing the moon didn’t work out too well. It was an obvious stunt to appeal to the people working or living in or around the NASA facility at Cape Canaveral FL but Newt couldn’t explain where he would come up with the few hundred billion or so that it would take to undergo such a venture. Especially at a time when the Government is bleeding such huge amounts of red ink. Maybe Newt believed if they did establish a colony on the moon and made it the 51st state he could actually win a primary vote there.
In all fairness however, Gingrich was ahead in the polls in Florida up until about a week-and-a-half before the election. Then a panicked Romney started pouring money into negative TV ads smearing good ole Newt from one end of the state to the other. Mitt outspent Newt by a ratio of 6 to 1 in negative, mendacious, and obnoxious TV ads, but it did the trick turning the tide around in Romney’s favor as people obviously fell for the half-truths and outright lies contained in these ads. Over the years of watching political TV advertising I’ve noticed that the ads from either party contain about 5-10% truth and 90-95% fiction, yet most people continue to fall for them and make their voting decisions based on them. And if you think the ads are disgusting now wait until this fall when you will not be able to turn on the TV without being bombarded with obnoxious, non-stop political advertising from both parties. It’s already happening here in Nevada where I live, where Mitt is again outspending Newt by about 6 to 1 even though he really doesn’t have to, because Nevada is basically a Mormon state. The mendacity in these ads is breath-taking and almost forces me to do something I thought would never happen in my lifetime-and that is, feeling sorry for good ole lovable Newt.
Now one might ask where does the money come from to fund not only radio and TV advertising but all the other costs of staffing and running a high powered political campaign. The answer very simply is that it comes from the people that really own America. It is estimated that both sides will raise an estimated $1 billion dollars to elect the next president, and that’s in addition to the tens or hundreds of millions spent to elect members of the House an Senate. (One might daydream about all the good these billions could do if spent on people that actually need help like the poor or sick.) While there are lots of small contributors to each party’s campaign the bulk of the money comes from people whose names are only known by maybe one out of a thousand or ten thousand people.
The Romney campaign is now awash in money with huge contributions coming from Wall Street hedge fund managers, executives in other prominent Wall Street firms like Goldman-Sachs, billionaire industrialists like the Koch brothers who are noted for funding right-wing causes like anti-abortion or anti-gay rights groups and even casino magnates from here in Las Vegas like Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife, ponied up some $10 million for Newt’s campaign. ( I wouldn’t go near his casinos for awhile since his slot machines will be even stingier than normal. I mean he’s going to want to recoup all that cash somehow, especially since he backed the losing candidate.) Of course the Democrats have their share of mega-rich billionaires like George Soros who fund their campaigns. So there you have it. The people that own America will be able to buy the next next President and Congress all bought and paid for like toothpaste. Of course they will want plenty of goodies in return like loopholes in the tax code, tax rates that favor the rich, exceptions from clean air and water restrictions in their industrial operations, favorable banking and stock trading rules and so on. And the vast majority of people don’t even know the names of those that own the United States. I wonder if this is what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution and established the Republic.
One last point. The high rate of unemployment will be a major factor in the coming elections. But under the rules of capitalism, American companies have shipped some 15-20 million jobs overseas because it’s so much cheaper to produce stuff there. Why produce widgets here where it might cost $3.50 apiece when it costs only 29 cents to make them in Bangladesh or 42 cents in China. A good example is Apple, one of the ten most successful companies in the world. Who doesn’t own an Apple product. Even I am typing this on an Apple computer. Apple does employ 40,000 people in the US but they have also hired a mind numbing 700,000 people in China. You think that Steve Jobs successor is about to return those positions back here. If most of the jobs shipped overseas were returned to the U.S., the high unemployment rates would vanish overnight. There would be a scarcity of people to fill all the available jobs. But don’t worry, when President Romney is installed in office next January companies like Apple will say-“Of course, your Mittness, since you asked so nicely, we will be happy to return almost 20 million jobs back to the homeland.” Anyway there you have it-politicians bought and paid for by the wealthy, and a capitalistic system cracking apart at its foundations. Pleasant dreams, folks.
realityincorporated 