Bleeding Kansas

... And the Half-Sane Prince (Of The Church) ... Romney Bails On The Sunflower State ... Can A Patrician From Massachusetts Love Grits, And Does It Go Well With Scrod? ...

The Kansas caucuses are now history.

His Eminence Rick Santorum, Archbishop of Kookyville, trounced the field and won about 33 of the 40 delegates on offer. This boosts his standing on the hustings, but according to Romney's staffers it won't matter anyway.

See, Romney wants the rest of the candidates to drop out of the race now, so he can suffer all the way to Havana (or Tampa, if you prefer). The other three worthless assholes in the race, however, don't see it that way.

For some reason, Romney didn't show up to campaign in Kansas, letting his name recognition and fireball personality ... oh, yeah, right. He lost.

He did pick up the immense delegate haul from Guam and the Northern Marianas. Looks like something good came out of Abramoff after all.

So now attention turns to the Deepest bit of the Deep South, the home of NASCAR fans, dyed-in-the-wool Confederacy freaks, meth addicts and sheer blithering lunatics. I'm talking about Mississippi and Alabama, folks.

Romney opened up with a fantastic ploy guaranteed to win the hearts and minds of Southerners who might be suspicious about voting for a rich non-Baptist Jack Mormon from one of them there elitist Northeastern states who was born on third base believing he'd hit a triple.

Said ploy being telling everyone that he was "learning to like grits," the gratuitous use of "Ya'll," and saying that he was a "kinda politician." At a campaign event featuring the rock group Alabama, Mittens suggested they play the song Sweet Home Alabama.

Which is by Lynyrd Skynyrd, not Alabama.

I don't think that Microsoft 'Speak Southern' software patch is working too well, Willard.

Newton Gingrich (again, I'll use his full first name as much as possible, as the short form is an affront to good amphibians everywhere) laughed off Romney's ploy as a typical carpetbagger smokescreen and touted the fact that he'd lived in neighboring Georgia. He confidently expects to win in Mississippi and Alabama.

Saint Santorum is also expecting to do well. Jesus is second only to college football in those two states. Doddering Old Fool Ron Paul keeps blathering on, apparently content to muddle along at fourth or third place in practically every race so far, and maybe far into the future as the Republican Traveling Circus lurches and stumbles and staggers into Tampa, where the deal will go down.