It all hap­pened so fast, didn’t it? One day the Repub­li­can party was a sober group of guys in suits and ties, wear­ing pol­ished wingtips and taste­ful toupees. Now…it seems like prac­ti­cally overnight…those guys (now known as “the Estab­lish­ment’) are flanked by another group con­sist­ing of sev­en­teen guys in a clown car, wear­ing fright wigs, floppy shoes and polka dot pants, play­ing kazoos and spray­ing seltzer on the vot­ers. This group is called the “Tea Party.”

I’ve been so mes­mer­ized by this star­tling evo­lu­tion, I’ve failed until now to think what it por­tends for the  future. In the imme­di­ate future, of course, these dis­parate groups have to con­tend an elec­tion together, which is going to be fas­ci­nat­ing enough. But imme­di­ately after that, they need to start mount­ing a pres­i­den­tial run and think about field­ing a candidate.

Oh dear.

Which side will pro­duce that can­di­date, do you think? Just pon­der it for a moment. After a cam­paign filled with bright shiny objects like pro­fes­sional wrestling, threats of gun­fire, dark warn­ings about mas­tur­ba­tion, the great UN bicy­cle takeover, a bearded Ivy-​​leaguer who wres­tles griz­zly bears bare­handed,  and Rand Paul’s really weird perm… are Repub­li­can  vot­ers going to have any inter­est in a bland, safe Tim Paw­lenty, a clean-​​cut Mitch Daniels or  a slicked-​​back Mitt Rom­ney with his dole­ful talk about deficits and incen­tives? Aren’t they just going to crave more sex, drugs and rock’n’roll? Those things are all kind of addic­tive, you know. (Well, maybe not sex. Sorry Ms O’Donnell, I spoke with­out think­ing. I will try to con­trol myself in future.

No, after this col­or­ful, rowdy, rol­lick­ing cam­paign, I think the die is cast for the pres­i­den­tial run.. The GOP will not come from the board­room set. It will come from the clown car.

And who is the Chief of Clowns? Who is, in fact, the dri­ver of the clown car? Could it be… will it pos­si­bly turn out to be…

Yes, I’m really begin­ning to think it’s going to hap­pen. The Dem’s fond­est wet dream (oops, memo to self…check with Ms O’Donnell to find out if  erotic dreams are also for­bid­den…the left’s fond­est fan­tasy is turn­ing into a real­ity. We are going to get our dream candidate.

Be still my heart!   8-)