After watching the four Republican presidential candidates “duke it out” on stage last night in Tampa, I finally came to the conclusion that a vote for “none of the above” was probably the best course of action.  I realize, of course, that primary voters will not really be given the option of selecting “none of the above” on their ballots, but perhaps they should.  How else can the Republican Party get the message that none of the four remaining  candidates are presidential material, and that none of the candidates have the leadership skills or strength of character to guide America through  the stormy waters that lie ahead.  In retrospect, the debate was more like a family squabble between Romney and Gingrich than it was a political forum where the candidates explained their positions on the issues.  Although it has been asked many times over the last six months, the question still remains “Is this really the best the Republican Party has to offer the American people?”

The presumptive front-runner, Mitt Romney, who has spent the last six years running for President,  has consistently failed to excite the electorate.  His political positions constantly change, depending on who he is talking to, and his business experience as a venture capitalist made him an expert in eliminating jobs rather than creating them.  Mitt is certainly not adverse to spreading lies and half-truths about his Republican competitors, and even more “truth-impaired” when it comes to President Obama‘s record.  The un-Romney candidate, Newt Gingrich, is even worse.  Gingrich, who is know far and wide as a bad-tempered and intolerant bully, got himself thrown out of Congress over a decade ago for ethics violations, left a trail of ex-wives who had lost their usefulness to him, and spent the last five years influence peddling for quasi-government organizations at the expense of taxpayers.  He was much reviled when he was Speaker of The House, and continues to be much reviled by those who know him the best.  It is beyond sad that the top two Republican candidates for the Presidency of the United States of America would be so totally unworthy of that high office.

The remaining two Republican presidential candidates, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, are so completely out of the mainstream political thought in America that they barely deserve mention.  The first one, Santorum, sees birth control pills as a threat to America’s freedom, and the second one, Paul, sees Medicare and Social Security as the ultimate downfall of American society.  Neither one gives a tinkers damn about the plight of the middle class, and both see the major role of the federal government as getting out of the way of laisez-faire capitalists.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, the cast of characters for the 2012 presidential elections has been set in cement.  There is no way that a decent, or even half-decent, character (or candidate) could be added to the slate at so late a time.   As time goes by, the writing on the wall is becoming clearer and clearer; President Obama will be elected in November to lead our country for another four years.

Rich