“Even though Mitt Romney has regained momentum as the front-runner in the GOP race with wins in Arizona and Michigan, many within the Republican Party are ready to pull the rip cord and find someone else.”
— news item
Mitt may have Utah locked up, but he’s looking dicey elsewhere. There are more questions about President Barack Obama’s birth. It may be time to throw my hat into the ring and save the nation from the loonies.
Or at least introduce a different loon. Whatever.
I’m a proven uniter who can solve the deficit problem. Last fall, I united with this paper’s humor columnist, Mark Saal, in a fierce competition to raise money for the United Way by making us both look really stupid.
Boy, did we succeed, especially after I shaved my beard.
But if I can persuade Top of Utahns to pony up $15,000 (OK, Mark helped, and it was his idea, but this is my column), just think what I can do nationally.
Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Romney say they’re Washington outsiders. Newspaper columnists are the ultimate outsiders. The closest I get to politics is 35 miles from the Utah Legislature, and I’d get farther if it didn’t involve moving away from my grandchildren.
The bozos running for president claim to know the struggles of common folk. Someone who thinks $374,000 a year in speaking fees isn’t much or who has a credit line at Tiffany’s can’t possibly identify with people who shop at Deseret Industries.
Meanwhile, half the stuff in my house still has that little white DI sticker on it.
I foresee a general governing principle of telling everyone to “lighten up.” I’ll use the State of the Union speech to tell elephant jokes.
Speaking of jokes, the Utah Legislature inadvertently provides us with itself as an example of the hazards of rash action.
It wants a three-day waiting period for women pondering abortion. The lawmakers seem to think pregnant women go to the doctor, see a brochure on the benefits of not being pregnant and say, “What the heck!”
That’s demented and shows that our lawmakers didn’t study the issue first. Seriously, did they talk to even one pregnant woman?
So if elected, I would order everyone to stand quietly for five minutes and think before they discuss taxes, religion, fashion, gasoline prices, politics or whether I look younger without my beard.
About the beard: I’m never shaving again, ever, so don’t even start.
I would abuse the powers of the presidency to settle a few pet peeves.
People using cellphones while driving would have to stand next to that lady in the grocery store who uses her cellphone to describe her recent bladder surgery, in detail, for five hours.
I would tell people who hate taxes to start filling chuckholes and picking up garbage. Folks who hate Social Security would have to take their in-laws as free boarders. Anyone who hates Medicare would have to change bedpans in a nursing home.
And any politician who approves war against a country that didn’t physically attack us first would have to join the Army and nurse wounded soldiers.
Yeah, this could work.
The Standard-Examiner just needs to send me to the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., so I can step in at the critical moment. That will be when Romney changes his stance on medical care, again, Gingrich introduces his fourth wife, Santorum admits he has a gay lover and Ron Paul reveals he’s really an Austrian economist in a very poor disguise.
I’ll be a shoo-in.
Wasatch Rambler is the opinion of Charles Trentelman. You can call him at 801-625-4232 or email him at ctrentelman@standard.net. He also blogs at www.standard.net.
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