The big story in Republican circles is the announcement by Senator John Ensign that he will resign from office in May. Most political observers have pegged Ensign’s announcement to an ethics investigation dredging up evidence that the Senator cheated on his wife, then paid his mistress’ husband hush money to keep his mouth shut. These are the Republican party’s traditional family values: wreck your own marriage and get kinky in the bedroom while you tell other people they can’t get married and regulate their sex lives. The only thing missing in this case is a wide stance.
I’m not convinced that this is the real motivation behind John Ensign’s resignation (shall we call it an Ensignation?). I think Senator Ensign is aiming for bigger and better things. Think about it: why else would Ensign’s resignation statement contain the phrase “simply too great”? The man’s still high on himself.
It’s been a tradition for presidential candidates to resign before announcing their official run for the White House, you know. They get to say that they don’t want the duties of office to be a “distraction” (another favorite Ensign word) from the rigors of a presidential campaign. Could this be the preliminary move of an Ensign for President 2012 endeavor?
If he is running for President, John Ensign will have to face facts: he’s running in the second tier among Republicans. After all, he’s only admitted to one affair. But it’s also possible that Senator Ensign isn’t aiming for the presidency; often, runs like these are a way for aspiring politicians to get on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate.
But what other GOP presidential candidate would John Ensign be best paired with? I can think of none better than Newt Gingrich, who is currently on wife #3 (I’ve lost count of the affairs after the leaving-his-wife-in-the hospital one and the diddling-while-impeaching-Clinton one). They’d be the perfect team with useful synergies. They could cheat on their spouses with one another’s spouses, for instance, saving energy for those all-important Save Our Families speeches. I’ve even got a slogan in mind: how about Gingrich-Ensign 2012: Bible Thumping Wife Swappers for America?
Remember when the GOP stood for balanced budgets, individual freedom and isolationism.
The Republican Party has run up these deficits, we want the federal government to be in our bedrooms and between our women and their doctors, we started two wars instead of ending them like the Korean War and were supposed to stop the Vietnam War the Democrats started. We have lost our way!
So why waste our time with these fools who use their racist rhetoric, like this Marilyn Davenport and Donald Trump with his birther unproven myth, why keep Ensign, the liar, why do we allow our Fox news people to keep talking down our country. Don’t they know we can win the next election with optimism and hope instead of the current rhetoric, that the sky is falling, if we are not careful we will end up like chicken little where no one will listen to us.
I remember. Then Reagen came and started screwing everything up. Of course this was a part of a longer process that started in the early 70′s (if I remember correctly), but Reagen made it all mainstream.
Nixon had to be the last true Republican in office.