The Primaries as Theater of the Absurd

(This will be my final political post before the actual voting takes place in Florida.)

For those who are not versed in the theater, Theater of the Absurd is a drama genre where plays express the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence.

I refer the reader to the plays of Ionescu or Pinter for examples.

The reason I bring the matter up - a genre where there is no plot, the characters feel lost because the world around them is incomprehensible, and dialogue lapses into strings of non sequiturs and uncomfortable silences - because of an article I linked to.

The article is from the German website Der Spiegel, and it is a searing indictment of how much the GOP primaries are degenerating into absurdist theater.

I highly recommend linking to the article and reading it in its entirety, but here are a couple paragraphs to give you the flavor of it:

"In fact, there was a lot at stake, much more than the 55 delegates that the sunny American state has to offer at the party convention in August. The debate was really about whether Mitt Romney can secure the nomination now, or if he'll have to endure a long, expensive and punishing primary odyssey."

"But was there enough material to make it worth watching, even though it was number 18 of the campaign season? No, the anticipation proved too much, though there were some meaty skirmishes and well-planned attacks between the top two candidates and the other two on the stage, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. But there were also more lies, half-truths, and window dressings."

It's getting nastier, as Romney starts to pull slightly ahead in most of the polling and Gingrich picks up more worthless endorsements from the Bull Goose Loony Wing of the Party.

It's going to be interesting on Tuesday.

Castro Was Right

The Republican candidate field is down in sunny Florida, so you know red meat is going to be tossed out to the voters.

We know most of the flavors of red meat: anti-abortion sirloin, anti-tax filets, a lovely great slab of corporatist meat loaf.

For Florida, though, we have to have another strip of red meat tossed out to the usually quite conservative Cuban-Americans - the anti-Castro T-bone.

It's been a Republican mainstay in Florida to bash the hell out of Castro and predict the imminent collapse of the Communist government there. Oddly enough, we've heard that rhetoric ever since the Cuban Revolution back in 1959.

Which leads me to Fidel Castro.

Fidel has outlasted US Presidents from Eisenhower to GW Bush, and I think that his position as America's favorite bugaboo has given him a unique perspective on Presidential politics.

So in response to the usual rhetorical bashing, Fidel penned an editorial that the Cuban press duly transmitted. He stated in his editorial that "The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been."

I'll stress one line: " . . . the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been."

Like I said, he has an interesting perspective on matters, doesn't he?

Now, two days ago, GOP candidate Newt Gingrich opened his gaping maw to more than justify Fidel's statement.

In a statement to a group of Hispanic leaders here in Florida, Newt said, "So one of my goals would be to flood the island with enough cellphones that are video cameras that any act of oppression is filmed by 30 people, and they start posting them: this person will be on the list after the revolution. You watch the morale of the police force drop dramatically as they are no longer all powerful."

Got that? Flooding Cuba with cell phone cameras will topple the Cuban government.

If it confuses you, it also confused the hell out of the audience.

In the same article, we also have Mitt Romney talking to the same group. He sounded like he was wishing the Eighties were still here, as he gawped that Castro's Cuba and Chavez's Venezuela pose existential threats to the United States and cited possible influence by them upon Ecuador and Guatemala.

Things aren't going well for the GOP Clown Car, but you gave to agree:

Castro was right.

On the Eve of the Florida Primary

Astronaut, Astro-Newt, or Astro-Nut? . . . Romney Pulls the Razor from His Sock . . . Wisdom from A Dead Roman . . . Who is Gingrich's Bagman?

Hoo boy, dear readers, it's been a fun-filled week.

We'll start with Wednesday, as bloated ethically-challenged philanderer Newton Gingrich sallied forth to speak to a friendly crowd of likely voters in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Cocoa and the rest of Brevard County has been a tad low of late ever since the Space Shuttle program ended.

But there's no need to fear! Newt Gingrich is here!

(Special No-Prize for picking out the arcane cultural reference.)

Newt roused the crowd by declaring that, by the end of his second term as President, there would be a base on the surface of the Moon, and to make it all the sweeter, it would be an American moon base.

Uh. Huh.

After screaming for the past few years that there's no money to repair decaying highways, bridge, dams, or other infrastructure (because that would increase the deficit, and as we all know, Deficits Are EVIL - unless there's a Republican in the White House), we're going to plunk down X amount of dollars - to build a base on the Moon.

Now, Man or Astroman didn't say that the Evil Gummint would fund the whole project, oh no. He'd merely gouge the NASA budget for another $2 billion in order to set up incentive prizes to lure private industry.

Jon Stewart had a bit of fun with the idea.

NASA's budget has been a favorite whipping boy. When money is need for some program or other, the Congress is all too ready to take an axe to the space program.

Newt making this statement is rather par for the course. He'll spin out a truly vast and sweeping promise in the hopes that people will be inspired. But he also framed it as a goal for the end of his second term.

I think he'd better concentrate on achieving his first term, first.

***

Speaking of which, Newt went into his second Florida debate still riding a bit of the wave of his South Carolina victory. Polling at the time showed him running more or less even with Mitt, so Romney had to retrieve the edge.

Now, way back in the mists of last October, I wondered when Romney was going to cut a bitch. Thursday night's debate was The Moment, because Romney went on an all-out attack against Gingrich.

Romney had hired Crazy-Eye Michele Bachmann's debate coach, and it showed as the well-coiffed 2x4 laced into Gingrich. Newt, for his part, looked a bit flabby and debate honors clearly went Mitt's way.

Except . . .

For some reason, Frothy Santorum started in on Romney and his health care plan for Massachusetts, comparing it to the Affordable Care Act and making Romney visibly irritated. Oh no! His carefully-crafted facade might have cracked, but the photo montage pretty much says it all.

Romney won the debate, according to the surveys done after the low-rent downer.

But Gingrich continues to rise in national polling, and the Romney camp is clearly hoping that a big win in the Sunshine State will turn that around.

We shall see Wednesday morning.

***

"Our forefathers complained, we complain, and our descendants will complain, that morals are corrupt, that wickedness holds sway, that men are sinking deeper and deeper into sinfulness, that the condition of mankind is going from bad to worse."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 BC - 65 AD

***

Money in politics is as old as the Roman Republic, as making campaign promises is as old as Athenian democracy.

The election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson saw the introduction of attack ads into American political discourse.

But we're talking money here, thanks to the US Supreme Court's misguided and frankly stupid Citizens United decision. Money talks in America, and the more money you have, the louder you can speak.

This is a truism that Newt Gingrich knows in his bones, having been in the US House of Representatives before being run out of the place like a rabid ferret and then making a hint of mint in speaking fees, lobbying fees and book sales.

But he needed money in order to finance his campaign against Mitt Romney. Willard has a net worth estimated in the $250 million range, and can easily finance his run out of his own pocket. Gingrich needed a supporter who was willing to put his money where his mouth was.

Enter Sheldon Adelson. Casino magnate with a net worth at about $21.5 billion. Um, that's Billion, with a B.

Adelson and Gingrich share something in common - a deep and abiding support for Israel despite anything the Jewish State might do, while at the same time saying rather generalized but nonetheless hurtful things like the Palestinians are an invented people (and never mind the fact that Jews aren't exactly ethnically pure either - several thousand years will do that).

Adelson, when appealed to, said, "Sure!" Whereupon he scribbled out a check for $5 million that helped Gingrich run ads in South Carolina.

His wife helpfully supplied her butter and egg money - another $5 million, making them the two largest single donors to the Gingrich campaign (or, rather, to his PAC, and we all know that the campaign and the PAC have nothing to do with each other, huh yeah that's right that's the ticket nudge nudge wink wink say no more).

Taking for granted the pernicious consequences of the Supreme Court's decision, we can expect those with the most money - the Adelsons, the Trumps, the Gateses, etc. - to wield greater power and greater access and a greater voice in the electoral process.

What's a simple voter to do?

South Carolina

Pray for Her Redemption ... Denatured Pig's 'Southern Strategy' Wins Where Civil War Started; Romney Faces Heavy Lifting in Florida; Dotty Grandpa Decides to Go Where He Might Have a Chance; Frothy Mixture Keeps Oozing - Pass the Moist Towelettes, Please

(First, allow me to make an historical digression.

Way back in the day, the Democrats held the Solid South, mainly as a reaction to the fact that the Republicans were in power when the Union trashed the unholy living fuck out of the Confederacy, and served them damned right, too. That all changed when the civil rights movement started up in the Fifties, and Southern Democratic anger hit a rolling boil when the 1965 Civil Rights Act was signed into law by a Democrat.

After watching third-party assholes like George Wallace feed off that anger, Richard Nixon had the idea of the 'Southern Strategy,' deliberately wooing those alienated Southern Democrats. He didn't do a very good job of it, but he laid the groundwork so he gets credit.

Enter Ronald Reagan, with his carefully-scripted talk about states' rights and welfare moms. Most of the so-called Reagan Democrats were those who never forgave Democrats like Truman, Kennedy and Johnson for letting the non-white folk think they were just as good as white. The Reagan Democrats became Republicans in the ensuing years.

Then they became, by and large, Tea Partiers. Go figure.

And thus endeth the lesson.)

However, through all the vicissitudes of recent history, two things have been abundantly clear.

These people are angry. Angry at what they perceive (such perception carefully nurtured by Fox News, the right-wing chattering classes, and conservative politicians) as a central government that doesn't care, angry at minorities sponging off them, and angry that they're paying too much in taxes.

Of course, their anger is misplaced. The Republican Caucus in Washington has done everything it can to obstruct and destroy any hope of improving America's economy, a stultifying 70% of all food stamp recipients are white, and taxes are at their lowest point since the Fifties.

So now we come to South Carolina, the Palmetto State.

The state where the Civil War began.

Willard 'Mitt!' Romney campaigned long and hard in South Carolina, netting the influential endorsement of that state's Governor. Historically, that endorsement indicated who would win the state's primary and convention delegates.

Unfortunately, Romney's not well-liked. He comes across as too stiff, polished and facile, and his assertions that he knows about the working class and poor despite his obvious wealth strikes a very tone-deaf note. Still, he enjoyed a comfortable lead over the rest of the field, including his closest rival, Newt Gingrich.

However, in two stunning debates, Gingrich stole a march on Romney. First, he blew the racist dog-whistle for all it was worth at Juan Williams, who is African-American. The debate audience lapped it up like kittens at a bowl of cream, with one later congratulating Newt for 'putting him in his place.'

The second debate started off with a bang, with Newt ripping thin strips off of CNN's John King for opening the debate with a question about his adultery. Now, you wouldn't think adultery would go down well with the highly moral Christian evangelicals in South Carolina, but while they may hate moral queasiness they hate the idea of the "liberal media elite" even more. Gingrich won that debate in the first two minutes.

Yesterday, South Carolina Republicans voted.

By the end of the night, Newt Gingrich was all like


While Mitt Romney was all like


The secessionists voted for Newt, who beat Romney 41% to 28%, with the rest of the vote going to the second-stringers.

Romney now faces an uphill climb in Florida and the rest of the primary states, with one GOP nabob opining last night that the contest may drag on into May.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, whose popularity is still down there with scabies mites, is now pondering who to endorse. I'm sure that whoever he'll endorse will be tempted to say, "Thanks but no thanks."

It's fast becoming a two-cornered race, but what of the other two corners?

Ron Paul's bypassing Florida, instead deciding to run in the four upcoming caucus states of Colorado, Minnesota, Maine and Nevada. He's going to hit the wall in Nevada, I think, because of all the Mormon money that'll slip across the border from neighboring Utah.

And Rich Santorum? What about him?

If Today's Movies Had Been Made in the Fifties ...

The posters for those movies would look something like this.

Bringing Things to A Boil

The Idiot Goes Back to His Village; The Pig Finally Finds An Acorn; Hard Times for Journalism

Weep for the 2012 Republican Presidential Campaign.

Rick Perry has withdrawn from the race. A bit of a shame, really, as he was great comic relief. He didn't have a clue and didn't have a whelk's chance in a supernova of actually winning anything. His surge in the polls leading up to Iowa is easily explained when you realize that Perry was exactly what I said he was - a village idiot.

And he endorsed Newt Gingrich. not precisely what Newt may have wanted to hear, because now he's got this idiot hanging around his neck like an albatross.

Let him go back to Texas. Texas deserves him.

***

Last night the remaining Dwarfs showed up in South Carolina for yet another in an interminably long line of debates. Thank Hastur the swimsuit competition is over.

CNN and John King moderated it, and right out the gate King asked Gingrich about his second wife's interview with ABC, in which the lady alleged The Newt wanted an open marriage so he could adulterate at will.

Bad move, Johnny-Mop.

The look that came over Gingrich's face was part fury and part pure, unadulterated joy.

To quote what Huxley purportedly said at the Oxford Debate, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands!" He immediately jumped down King's throat and brought the audience to its feet, cheering as the pig excoriated the "liberal media."

To remind the folks playing along at home, the "liberal media" is only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them allow them to be. Recall Keith Olbermann and his conflict with MSNBC (owned by General Electric).

But the crowd loved it, and after that the debate was Newt's to lose. According to Mark Halperin (looking a bit wiggy), Newt won the debate. The latest PPP poll indicates that Gingrich may actually win in South Carolina.

Mitt Romney was found to have certain weaknesses now, and one hopes that Obama's opposition research guys are taking notes. The Well-Coiffed Two-by-Four looked off-balance.

Which means the deal will go down in Florida, whose GOP delegate count is greater than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined. Florida is the neutron bomb of primaries, causing candidates to vaporize or bleed in odd places.

It's a truism that every pig finds an acorn at least once. And Newton Gingrich may have found one. We need to wait and see how the voting goes in South Carolina.

***

John King.

A sad and sorry illustration of just how low CNN has fallen since it first scored big.

It was jokingly and woundingly named the 'Chicken Noodle Network' when it started out. I've called it the Cocksucker News Network at times, because they have started shamelessly pandering and generally lowering their standards in an effort to seize Fox's ratings. To that end, they've introduced all sorts of lights, bells and whistles to attract the Lowest Common Denominator (which is Fox's key demographic).

John, you need to hide your head in shame. Debates cover issues; you should have simply dove at Newt and demanded specifics. Asking him an out of the gate question about his serial monogamy enabled Gingrich to control the debate from then on.

You made it easy for The Degenerate Pig, John King.

Thanks a heap.

The Boring Guy Bows Out; Treachery Among the Hypocrites

There is no joy in Mudville today, as the mighty juggernaut that was the Jon Huntsman Presidential campaign finally ground to a halt. The various webmeisters started yanking every anti-Romney video and screed available as the former Governor of Utah bent over, revealing his Goatse of Concession ...

... and endorsed Mitt Romney for President.

In a way, Huntsman's departure is a sad one. Unlike the rest of the Losers and Bums on the hustings, Huntsman was pro-science and actually sounded reasonably sane most of the time. Unfortunately, these are qualities sorely lacking in the rest of the GOP candidate field.

Now, Huntsman had previously said many unkind things about The Mitt:

"... perfectly lubricated weather vane on the important issues of the day ..."

" been missing in action in terms of showing any kind of leadership ...”

"There’s a question whether he’s running for the White House or the Waffle House.”

One wonders what he expects to get from Romney if he wins.

We have to be fair here. Huntsman really never had a chance, as Mister Inevitable wielded far too much money - and therefore far too much power in terms of vote acquisition. Huntsman lagged behind everyone, managing a feeble third behind Ron Paul in New Hampshire.

Even in South Carolina, he could only manage five percent - which put him behind Stephen Colbert. Double irony points for that.

*****

Speaking of South Carolina, the Battle of the Not-Romneys rages on unabated in the days leading to the January 21st primary. Ron Paul seems to have the lunatic vote sewn up, leaving the withered rump of the Tea Party and the Whacko Jesus Faction to be fought over by Newton Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

One hundred fifty whackos met on a ranch in Texas over the weekend to quibble about who was the righteousier-than-Romney. They selected Rick Frothy Mix as Their Guy.

Then things took a turn for the silly.

The Protestants are complaining that they were fooled into going home after the second ballot so that the Catholics could stuff the ballot box in favor of Santorum, who is Catholic. The Protestants' guy is Gingrich, who's Catholic as well but not so you'd notice, considering his Mormon attitude toward wedlock.

Not that any of this foofaraw matters a whit. Mittens polls higher than Lunatic, Degenerate and Closet-Case combined in South Carolina, and looks to be given the coveted Fidel Castro Suffering All The Way To Havana Award when Florida votes on January 31st.

Despite the GOP's slutty flirtations with all of the Not-Romneys, Mitt looks as if the race is his to lose.

And the only way that can happen is if, in true Old Politics fashion, he's caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.

A Degenerate, A Hypocrite, An Idiot and A Boring Guy Walk Into A Courtroom ...

And walk out with sores on their rectums.

Republicans, you see, despise, loathe and hate judicial activists - judges who use their position to legislate from the bench. You heard it a lot on Fox News over the years. Whenever a judge struck down a law as unconstitutional, you could count on the conservatives and Republicans and their Brain Trust* to rear up on their hind legs and howl "Judicial Activist!"

Yes, Republicans really hate judicial activists.

Unless they want a ruling in their favor.

The Virginia GOP primary is March 6, and according to that state's election laws a candidate has to file petitions by a certain date in order to get on the ballot.

The deadline came and went, and four GOP candidates immediately cried "Foul!"

They had, you see, failed to get their petitions filed. No matter, you might say; they can simply run write-in campaigns. But not so fast; Virginia election law forbids write-ins for the primaries.

So, led by Rick Perry (the Idiot), Newton Gingrich (Degenerate), Rick Santorum (Hypocrite), and John Huntsman (the Boring Guy) all trooped into the federal court system.

In search of an activist judge.

Well, guess what?

They didn't find one.

The March 6th primary will have only two names on it - Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

This ruling must make Gingrich's flabby little black heart swell with renewed hatred, as he lives in Virginia. He moved there from Georgia when he became a full-time lobbyist - er, historian.

I expect the Feeble Foursome will continue to try and get the ballot amended, so I need to lay in more popcorn.

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

Meanwhile, In Afghanistan

What?

I do hope you didn't forget we're still at war over there.

Well, the Taliban were allowed to establish an office in Qatar back in December so that the first steps could be taken toward formal peace talks between the Taliban, the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, and the United States. Terms were being set up.

Unfortunately, you have to admit that this is not going to make the negotiations go smoothly:



It doesn't matter that the Taliban in the video are dead.

It doesn't matter that, as the Pentagon says, the Marines in question are no longer in Afghanistan.

It doesn't even matter that no one would have heard about this if it weren't on video.

What matters is that it was done at all.

What sort of twisted, atavistic, sadistic impulse was motivating these men? It is the sort of behavior one expects of barbarians, not the warriors we see voluntarily step forward from our population.

We have been in Afghanistan over ten years now. If this is what the war is turning our sons, daughter, brothers, sisters, mother and fathers into, we need to get them all out of there now.

And rehabituate them to civilized behavior, before it's too late.

New Hampshire

Well-Dressed 2x4 Wins with Less than Forty Percent; Dotty Grandpa comes in Second, Boring Guy Gets Third; Death Struggle Between Degenerate Troll and Horse-Faced Hypocrite for Fourth

Yes, the New Hampshire Presidential primary is over.

Mitt Romney won - but of course he had to; the Granite State was his backyard. If he lost in NH, he might as well go to Salt Lake City and hang up his Magic Mormon Underwear. But with 95% of the vote counted, he's only got 39.4%. Not a good showing.

Still, he's the first Republican since Gerald Ford to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, so that's got to count for something. We have to remember that Ford lost, though.

Ron Paul lived up to his supporter's faith in him as America's Blithering Grandfather and showed a strong second, about ten percentage points behind Romney.

John Huntsman posted third, and I believe one guy felt his speech was greeted with a decided lackluster amount of enthusiasm.

That left Newton Gingrich and Rick Santorum duking it out for the fourth-place position. That's not even a podium finish, guys, and only about 200 votes separate you two. Pathetic, even more than usual.

Rick Perry? You ask.

Do I have to?

::sigh:: Okay.

Perry got 1709 votes, managing a sick fifth (if we assume that The Newt and Frothy Mix are statistically tied at fourth). But like a scabies infection or a case of herpes, Perry refuses to go away.

On to South Carolina, and we see just how much damage the Palmetto State can inflict on Mitt Romney's doomed campaign.

Giving the Finger to the GOP

Last year the Congress passed a bill establishing a protection board for consumers, designed to act as a watchdog over the loan sharks who are currently running the nation's banks, credit card companies and payday loan shops. The President signed it into law over the objections of the Republican caucus.

The GOP hatched a cunning plan: They would block every attempt by the President to nominate a head of this board. This would, in effect, nullify the law.

At the same time, the need was urgent to name three more members of the National Labor Relations board. And, sure enough, every time a name was put forward the GOP Senate Caucus would filibuster it. This paralyzes the NLRB, since they only had two members and couldn't make any binding decisions (a quorum was required, at least three members).

Stymied by the intransigence of the GOP, President Obama waited.

Until yesterday.

Exercising his authority under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution (the supreme law of the land, just to remind you), President Obama made four recess appointments - the head of the CFPB and three members of the NLRB. I think they start on Monday.

The GOP is foaming at the mouth at this, but you have to recall that Obama's a Constitutional lawyer by education and training, so in this case I think he's on safe ground here. You can expect a lot of screeching about "abuse of power" and "power grab" and "ignoring the Congress," but the crux of it is this:

If the GOP wants to actually work and earn their pay, they need to stop their mulish and quite frankly infantile behavior.

Bachmann Drops Out

Pyrrhic Victory for Romney in Iowa; Santorum Fluffers Come Out in Force

The Iowa Caucus is now history.

After too many debates to count and a mega-avalanche of ads and pontifications from various members of the chattering class, the voters finally had their say. Twenty-five convention delegates were up for grabs.

As of now, Willard Romney won - by eight votes - but didn't manage to break 25% of the electorate. It's not surprising; Mitt's been unable to break 25% for a year now. To win by only eight votes after spending about $156 per vote must be particularly painful.

Rick Santorum experienced a late surge, and started spending big up to the wire. In terms of percentages he finished equal to Romney, with an equal number of delegates allocated (eleven). At an estimated $21 per vote, he did rather well.

Ron Paul came away with three delegates, coming in third. He still thinks he has a chance, the poor deluded dope.

Newt Gingrich was fourth, getting no delegates and moving on to New Hampshire after a rather bitter and mean-spirited concession speech. He's made no bones about his loathing of Romney, although he also conceded he would "probably" vote for him in the general.

Rick Perry spent the most ($480) per vote, and only got 10% of the votes cast. He's gone back to Texas to "reassess" his campaign. Cain did the same, and hasn't been back.

Michele Bachmann got six thousand votes, and is still in the race (for now).

John Huntsman, tied with Buddy Roemer as the sanest of the GOP field, finished behind Bachmann. John, the Republicans don't want sane this cycle, my lad.

"No Preference" and "Other" beat out Cain and Roemer.

What was pretty gut-wrenching was watching MSNBC's Morning Joe and hearing the almost cloying chatter from Scarborough, et. al. about Santorum's victory speech. Unfortunately, Rick Frothy Mixture resonates with people who think social causes are the most important issues, when it's the economy, stupid.

So, onward to New Hampshire and Romney's back yard. We'll have to see if there's such a thing as Mitt-mentum.

And We're Off And Running!

Welcome to 2012!

And ... we have the Iowa Caucus on Tuesday.

Shit.

Coupled with that, we also had a 7-magnitude earthquake hit Tokyo. No report of damage. There was also a 4-magnitude tremor two miles northwest of Youngstown, Ohio that may or may not have had anything to do with fracking.

I tried to augur the omens and portents, but screw it.

I'm hoping that the caucus goers at Iowa voting places are bringing moist towelettes and soap with them, just in case the santorum surge washes over them. A frothy mixture like that can be ... messy.

Bear in mind, also, that Iowa actually has a fairly lackluster record when it comes to picking the eventual nominee. Remember that they picked Huckabee in the last go-around, a Pat Robertson came second in 88 as I recall.

Bachmann's already forecasting a miracle. Ho, ho. I think the miracle will be whether her campaign staff can stop her from immolating herself when the returns come in.