Not surprisingly, my own top five will not include electronica; about the closest thing to that genre that I liked this year was the heavily hyped M83 record, Hurry Up We’re Dreaming, which is better than most electronica; M83 is more along the lines of the legendary My Bloody Valentine, which nicely melded buzz-saw guitar and doink-doink-doink electronica.

Forthwith, here’s my top five.

5. Smoke Rings for My Halo, Kurt Vile. A mellow guitarist-songwriter from Philadelphia who eschews the hip trappings of the alternative-music scene—though you wouldn’t think so by looking at him. In fact, a guy who looks like Kurt Vile just served me a coffee in Brooklyn.

4. Several Shades of Why, J Mascis. One of two instances where Pitchfork completely blew it; J’s record didn’t even make their “Honorable Mention” category. Mascis, founder and lead singer of the seminal band Dinosaur Jr., proves over and over that not only is he an incredible guitarist (perhaps one of the best living today), but he’s a thought-provoking songwriter and lyricist. One track I can’t stop listening to: “Too Deep.” Here’s the official video for “Is It Done.”

3. Past Life Martyred Saints, EMA. I began listening to this record in August, and it never gets boring. EMA, the moniker of Erika M. Anderson, formerly of the band the Gowns, has put out a blistering, haunting, guitar-driven gem, featuring such lyrical bon mots as, “Fuck California / You made me boring,” from the track “California.” Here’s the hardscrabble video for it.

2. Bon Iver, Bon Iver. Yeah, all the hype surrounding Eau Claire, Wisconsin, native Justin Vernon is legit and deserved. I’ve been a huge Bon Iver fan since I heard his first record For Emma Forever Ago. As a fellow Wisconsinite, it’s hard to not be supportive of his well-earned success (ugh, except the Bushmills ad). Vernon’s falsetto and song arrangement alone make this a phenomenal record, and Pitchfork christened it as the year’s best. I’m almost in agreement; every track on the record serves in its own folk-operatic milieu and is a sheer joy to listen to. Here’s the video for the excellent “Holocene”, which I gotta say reminds me a lot of the beautiful Sigur Rós video, Glósóli.

1. Bad as Me, Tom Waits. Just when you thought Tom Waits was settling down in the sunset years of his life, he comes out with a near-perfect record that both harkens back to his drunken-troubadour days and blazes a new trail of alternative music (and I’m using alternative here as it’s defined in the dictionary, not the genre). Simply put, Bad as Me just might be the best Tom Waits record ever, which is saying a fuckload, since he’s put out amazing record after amazing record. Here’s a video for “Satisfied,” one my favorites from the record. (Oh yeah, Pitchfork blew this one too. They gave it a middlingly positive review and omitted it from their best-of list.)

To recap, Romney was considered the heir apparent in early 2011, not because he’s been a loyal Republican but because he basically came in second in 2008 to John McCain (“next up to bat”). And Romney is slick, smooth—a Ken doll with a load of cash. Then, all of a sudden, as if the entire GOP voting electorate was hibernating for the past dozen years, his support among crazy conservatives began plummeting. “RomneyCare” started to fly around, and then, in the summer, Michele Bachman won a completely inconsequential straw poll (which might as well be called a “bullshit poll”) in her home state of Iowa (a place where she erroneously claimed John Wayne was born, though her crack campaign team apparently didn’t realize there was a “Gacy” at the end of that Wikipedia search). Nonetheless, people instantly began questioning the hard-right bona fides of Mitt Romney. Did they forget he was the governor of über-liberal Massachusetts? Did they forget he crafted a health-care bill that was the blueprint for the much-maligned (among the idiot right) Obama health-care overhaul? Oh, wait…no, they didn’t forget. They didn’t know: Most of the GOP electorate shun the news media and knowledge in general. People who are smart are labeled “elites,” and to the GOP throng they’re no better than Moos-lem extremists.

So for a while at least, Bachmann basked in the spotlight. But she’s clearly obtuse and one with an intellect so dull that one might think she has some sort of learning disability—she’s borderline special-needs. Thus, just as quickly as she rose, she fell; who stole her thunder? Yet another spectacularly dim bulb: Texas governor Rick Perry. When he jumped into the race, it was almost like a battle among the candidates to see who was the dumbest. Perry did his damnedest to win that crown. Even before he made his notorious “one…two…and, the third…uh…” gaffe, he had been making insipid and false statements that would only appeal to the most lurdane American (e.g., “The first round of stimulus … created zero jobs” and “Social Security is indeed a Ponzi scheme).

But apparently, his debate gaffe was a bridge too far for the GOP electorate. Hey wait a minute, they said, he forgot the third governmental agency he was going to shit-can? That’s weird. Thus, the Perry tumble began.

But wait…have no fear, the Cain Train was arriving in the station. Though Herman Cain had been in the race for some time, he never caught fire until Perry gaffed his way into oblivion. But what sparked Cain’s rise? Fox News of course. Around the time Perry was beginning to flame out, the reliable right-wing nutjobs of Fox News were celebrating Cain’s preposterous 9-9-9 tax plan. Cain was like a stand-up comic looking for a gimmick, and he found one the right-wing establishment could talk about.

Thus, out of nowhere (seemingly), Cain rocketed in the polls. Why? Because he was eloquent? Sure, just ask the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board. No, he was given serious consideration because, quite simply, he hated himself. He was a self-loathing, misanthropic little man with an IQ even lower than that of Bachmann or Perry. The GOP electorate loves candidates who hate themselves, so they gleefully jumped aboard the Cain Train.

But of course, all intense crushes come to a bitter end. And I need’t rehash what brought Cain down. Ironically (or not), he was still flying high in the polls even after a half-dozen women came forward to accuse him of being a creepy sexual predator. Why weren’t his poll numbers cratering? Because the GOP voters love psychotic candidates who are off the rails. What were these supporters saying when Cain was accused of the numerous harassment claims? Rather than, “No, he couldn’t have done that,” there were likely saying things like “Cain harassed women? Fuck those bitches, they were probably liberals and deserved it.” That’s the typical GOP voter. (Look at Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of the Republican Party—his misogyny is legendary.)

The Republicans will say, “Hey wait a second, Liberal Fuck, how can you say those things?” Here’s how. Remember what transpired during the copious GOP debates this year: Audiences cheered at such things as a man dying because he didn’t have health insurance; the jobless should blame themselves for being unemployed; and the record number of people put to death in Texas. When people cheer this kind of stuff, it’s very telling. It’s not the sign of normal, stable people. It proves the GOP, as a group, are a misanthropic set of extremists: an American Taliban, complete with their own “news” network supporting their every move.

So once marketing-whore Cain flamed out (and his candidacy was rightly labeled a “book tour” by the American Prospect), who was left to fill that void? Rick Santorum? Nope. Even the hard-right hate that guy: a completely unlikable, bitter, repulsive douchebag with little to offer anyone. The only one standing with right-wing cred was…hard to even write his name…Newt Gingrich, proving everything that’s old is new again.

Much has been of Gingrich’s crass, selfish, disgusting personal moral code (or lack thereof), but the media still gush over his alleged “intellect.” I guess that’s like saying [insert nasty despot here]‘s intelligent. One of the big lies spread by the “liberal” media is that Newt’s smart. Hey, he’s a former college history “professor” they say. At Yale? Harvard? Uh, no, West Georgia College. Being a professor doesn’t mean you’re smart.

So the GOP primary boils down to Romney v. Newt? Really? As a liberal, I very much hope Newt wins it (he’s already said he’s going to be the nominee), but the GOP electorate will have to ask themselves: Do we lose and hate ourselves and want to die (Newt)? Or do we lose and at least retake the party from the clutches of the tea party (Mitt). Either way, the Republicans will lose in 2012, because as much as the GOP wants the election to be about Obama, it’s going to be more about the sorry state of the Republican Party, a party that has been hijacked by the tea party and like-minded extremists. And with the economy in full (albeit slow) recovery, it’s looking to be the perfect storm for an Obama reelection.

I’ll leave you with an excellent Ali G. interview with Newt Gingrich several years back.

Ali G- Newt Gingrich by kamloue

But what’s behind all this media tumult? For one, the GOP apparatchiks—cf. William Kristol in the Weekly Standard among many other lesser intellects—are thoroughly horrified and perplexed by the current slate of Republican presidential candidates. While that’s a bad sign for the GOP, it’s a lucky break for Obama, who will undoubtedly have a herculean task ahead of him to win another term. Secondly, the draft-Christie movement and ensuing media frenzy are the result of a classic grass-is-greener scenario. Everyone loves the guy because he doesn’t have to take a stand on anything and can be viewed as above the petty political fray; it’s the political version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Christie is the antidote to Romney (too Mormon), Bachmann (too crazy), and Perry (too unstable), but what kind of antidote? What do GOP voters really know about Christie? Most of the Republicans pushing and pleading for him to enter the race have no idea what Candidate Christie will eventually stand for. They are seemingly drawn to his rotund aura for a few reasons: He hails from the liberal/socialist Northeast and, thus, potentially gives the Republicans a shot of winning New Jersey in the general election, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since the Democrats had the unfortunate luck of nominating Michael Dukakis in 1988. Secondly, his bluster, bloviating, lack of manners, bull-in-a-china-shop mentality, and missing decorum play well among the party faithful. They might point to copious YouTube clips of Christie berating average New Jersey citizens, which might look pretty familiar as proven by the last few Republican debates—the rabid crowds who booed a gay soldier; howled in glee at the news of the death of an uninsured man; and cheered at the mere mention of the death penalty. The Republican voters in 2011-12 want to be viewed as the pugnacious schoolyard bullies, roughing up and stealing the lunch money from spineless liberal weaklings. (The crowd reactions at the debates alone only further prove that the meat-and-potatoes Republican Party is now chockablock with right-wing extremists.)

But at the end of the day, the Republican Party voters really have no idea who Chris Christie is; he’s more a cult of personality now than a politician of substance. And while many GOP voters may say in public just how much they adore the guy, when it comes time to actually pulling the lever in the voting booth in the primary, they’ll likely feel a whole lot more comfortable supporting a conservative extremist this time around than an unknown. They may argue that Christie’s the kind of candidate who needs quite a bit more time basting on the national stage, say, four more year’s worth of time.

So while the media ping-pongs, debates, and pontificates over “Will he” or “Won’t he,” Christie laughs all the way to 2016—and along the way he secretly hopes Barack Obama wins reelection. Should that happen, who’ll be the frontrunner for the 2016 GOP nomination—and possibly the presidency itself? Sure as hell not Mitt Romney—for a third time. The answer is, of course, none other than Chris Christie. So why on earth would he blow his load now and jump into the race only to (likely) lose to Obama? It’s a move that will sully his chances for 2016, possibly even torpedoing his candidacy entirely. Christie isn’t an idiot. He probably realizes it’s best for him to whisper sweet nothings in the ear of the media now, give lip service to the eventual Republican nominee, and then yearn deep in his heart for an Obama victory in 2012.

Obamans hope Rick Perry blasts his way to the GOP nomination.

Imagine a guy who knows little about current events and politics. If he were to scan “the news”—web, print, TV—he’d be utterly convinced that President Barack Obama is a socialist, Christian-hating, America-bashing despot, recklessly hurtling the country toward insolvency. Every alleged “straight-news” article on politics out there now has the same trope: Politically, Obama is roadkill. Story over. The news articles floating about aren’t just found in the Weekly Standard, the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and all of Fox News. These Obama-as-traitor pieces have begun to infiltrate left-leaning publications as well; they’re written with absolute certitude, à la: Obama is barely holding on by a thread. His reelection isn’t in doubt, it’s simply not going to happen, period. Even liberals and Democrats are abandoning ship. His approval ratings are lower than those of al-Qaeda. According to just about every political journalist out there, it’s game over. So-called centrist journalists like ABC’s Jake Tapper simply gushes at the Republican presidential candidates, tweeting after the last GOP debate, “Propes [sic] to all the candidates tonight #Reagandabte.” (Propes? Really. Tapper’s attempt to be hip? Let’s not got give him any props for that.) What everyone in the media seems to be saying is: No point in the campaign even happening; the Republican nominee is the guaranteed next president, on to 2016.

But of course, the reality has little resemblance to what’s being circulated in the media. This much is true: Obama’s presidency is flailing (not failing), much in the way most of George W. Bush’s was throughout his eight years and much like Clinton’s was before he stood firm and gave a beat-down to then Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. So, yes, this much is true. And why is his presidency flailing? Because his advisors and team have failed miserably at honing the Obama message and explaining in detail what the president has done. The administration has allowed countless fallacies to seep into the mainstream media. (Which leads to another article for another time: What the hell is the matter with chief of staff Richard Daley? I thought Rahm was the problem, but clearly he wasn’t.)

I promise I won’t refight the health-care law, but look how the media has since portrayed the law: They call it big-government, socialized medicine. The reality? The full benefits of the law won’t be felt for some time to come, but it at least moved the ball forward; the fact is, it helped people get insurance. If anything it didn’t go far enough and was basically a giveaway to drug companies and insurance companies.

Another example: The media has let the right incorrectly define Obama as a big-government-loving liberal who’s a champion of “wealth redistribution” (a trope adored by Fox News simpletons Bill O’Reilly and Brit Hume). That term “wealth redistribution” has all the delicious connotation loved by the tea-party Neanderthals. Imagine the scary government knocking on your McMansion, raiding your wall safe—absconding with your stacks of cash, bonds, and gold bullion, only to see your booty given away to nonwhite people. “From my cold dead hands,” indeed.

And let’s not forget the stimulus, the conservative’s and media’s favorite piñata. “Didn’t work,” they all say; “huge waste of money.” Did work. And wasn’t a waste of money. According to a report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the stimulus saved/created 3.6 million jobs.  But of course the tea-party crazies only see what they want to see as many of them have limited brain power. They hear, “government spending,” then tune out entirely. They don’t want to hear the truth. The reality is that the stimulus prevented a depression, the likes of which this country would have never seen before; without the stimulus, we’d probably be at 20+ percent unemployment. (That’s the reality we’d be living in if President McCain made good on his promise not to support it.)

Of course, me saying these things will only spur the nutty commenters from doubling down on their greatest hits: Obama is a socialist; Obama is a Muslim; Obama hates America. Come on commenters, you can do better than that. Wait, no you can’t.

So back to the title of this post: How does Obama win reelection? For starters, he hopes and prays that Rick Perry wins the GOP nomination. While no Republican in field right now could beat Obama, Mitt Romney has gone to great pains in reinventing himself as a not-insane conservative—though if you look at his past speeches in 2009 and 2010 about President Obama, Romney looks and sounds just as kooky as Michele Bachman and Rick Perry. Thus, say good-bye the days of Romney throwing red meat to conservatives. He’s shelved that tactic, at least for now. He’ll never out-conservative Bachman or Perry and he knows that. Just the fact the Romney was a governor of liberal, heathen Massachusetts is reason enough for the GOP stalwarts to question his right-wing cred.

So let’s assume Perry wins the nomination, and that’s a pretty solid prediction. His unabashed hatred for Social Security, for example, has only heightened his bona fides among the nutty tea partiers and hardcore GOP primary voters. His disdain of government and Washington will play well in flyover country. In essence, Perry is the poster child for today’s Republican Party: He’s an America-first religious zealot who’s intractable, inflexible; he doesn’t like homosexuals, he loves guns, he questions the validity of evolution, and he brands Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as a traitor. All of these kinds of stances might have disqualified Perry from winning the GOP nomination just three years ago (and certainly in the era of Ronald Reagan, who, as scary as this sounds would probably be a conservative Democrat in 2011).

With Perry as the nominee, Obama and his team simply need to honestly brand Perry as a dangerous extremist. Something like, “Can a man who calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank a traitor, and who advocates Texas seceding from the Union be trusted to hold the office of President of the United States?” It’s that simple. People aren’t unhappy with Obama and his policies as much as they’re unhappy with the pace of recovery. And all indications are that a President Perry would take the country back to ramant deregulation, potentially spawning another banking implosion. These are solid issues Obama can run on. Once it’s a two-man race, the dynamics change and it all hinges on…well…who’s the most hinged. And looking at the race through that prism, it’s Obama by a mile.

Malick began shooting Tree of Life in 2008, and many in the film business believed Malick’s two-hour opus on the meaning of life set against the backdrop of fifties Texas might have been ready for last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Alas, the plainspoken (when he chooses to speak, that is) Austin, Texas, resident apparently demands projects germinate in the editing room for a few years. Thus, the film made its world premiere at the 64th Cannes Film Festival on Monday, May 16. And judging by the press reaction no clear consensus emerged—quite a chorus of loud boos were heard, followed by over-zealous applause as the credits began to roll.

Brad Pitt, lord of the guys.

For hardcore Malick aficionados, the ones who think The New World is perfection and The Thin Red Line is flawless, Tree will simply be yet more proof that Malick is an auteurist genius. For those like me who have serious reservations about most of his films, it’s nearly impossible to not proclaim Malick guilty until proven innocent. The Thin Red Line had some amazing moments, but it suffered from heavy overediting; watching it felt like a chore. The New World was downright miserable, with some excellent imagery. Now, six years after that debacle, he’s back with his best work in decades—maybe his best film ever; he’s been proven innocent.

The film’s central narrative is relatively simple: It’s the late fifties in Waco, Texas, and the rock-jawed Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt) instills strict discipline over his three scrapping sons. A Malick trademark is vagueness, and he hews especially close to that in his characters—we’re not sure what Mr. O’Brien does, but he seems to be a pretty successful airline engineer and amateur inventor.

Though the family lives in an upper-middle class home, much of the action takes place outdoors: The three boys help out around the garden and yard, play in the street (getting especially excited when a truck sprays mini-mushroom clouds of DDT), and learn self-defense and the art of boxing from their über-strict father. Dad raises his sons with an iron fist and tries to instill qualities that will make them leaders. Jack, the eldest and most rebellious of the three, often bears the brunt of his father’s discipline—he’s made to quietly open and close the screen door 50 times as punishment; he gets a whoopin’ when he tells his dad to “be quiet.” Eventually young Jack snaps and can no longer take the weight of being Oldest Child; he eschews his father’s crushing and unflinching worldview. So sets in motion the kind of complicated, tortured father-son relationship that has dogged filmmakers and artists for millennia.

Pitt deftly tackles the role of O’Brien—he’s seamlessly weaves between rigid patriarch and doting, caring Dad. Pitt has played many outsized, complicated personas: a nihilistic killer in Kalifornia; the psychotic scion of a scientist in Twelve Monkeys; a preposterous (and hilarious) fitness guru and personal trainer in Burn After Reading. While he was generally pretty excellent in the aforementioned films, he blows them out of the water with Tree. Simply put, Brad Pitt has never been better on screen; it’s a bespoke role that couldn’t have been played by anyone else.

And he was dealt a complicated hand. The film’s turning point comes on bright summer day. Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain in a largely forgettable performance) receives a telegram informing her that her middle son, the artist and guitar player, has been killed—we’re not sure where or how, but it seems as if he’s perished in the Vietnam War. The death becomes the catalyst for a dizzying journey through the cosmic universe, the space-time continuum, the birth of the planets, and the kill-or-be-killed world of the dinosaurs (!)—all seemingly questioning life’s origins and meaning.

Scenes from current-day pop up: A grown-up Jack, played with torpid sadness by Sean Penn, is a big-time somebody doing something. His office sits atop a high-tech, glass structure that screams modernity—it couldn’t be farther away from the innocence of fifties Waco. Jack’s a “success,” as defined by material goods and the power’s he’s accrued, but he’s rudderless, lost, morally and spiritually. Jack’s aching, he’s a mess of a human being; he ping-pongs throughout his office complex, befuddled—appearing like the victim of some kind of man-made disaster. In once scene, Jack is talking on the phone to his father as a flurry of office assistants blow by and computers buzz and cell phones ding: He’s apologizing to Dad, for saying things “he didn’t mean.” (At that scene, I was dying to see what Mr. O’Brien would have looked liked in modern day. Maybe Benjamin Button when he was two years old.)

Malick being Malick, however, he merely uses this thinnest thread of a story as a jumping-off point to delve into questions complex: religion, life, generational disconnectedness, fathers and sons. The film crosscuts between shots of outer space and the swirling Milky Way—with one incredible sequence of two oddly shaped dinosaurs roaming planet Earth. These dinosaurs play tag, but then get angry with each other, and one steps on the face of the other. It’s just like what might happen when two kids play in the yard. The dinosaur footage and the incredible shots of outer space immediately bring to mind Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It’s hard to say Tree is an outright, unmitigated success—it’s clearly the best thing he’s done since Days of Heaven, and the more I think on it, the film is actually better; Malick’s touch of brilliance as a filmmaker has never been storytelling (I defy anyone to lay out a cohesive plot of The Thin Red Line), rather, it’s his ability to purposely confuse and distort all in the attempt to tackle ethereal subjects and take a shot at answering the unanswerable. Indeed, looking at the film through that lens, it succeeds, though perhaps the point Malick drives home the strongest may be the most shoulder-shrugging: No matter how much we try to control life—how much we try to make sure our kids color within the lines, wipe their feet, and be polite—the universe and its unknowable knowns are the final arbiter of life’s course. And there will always exist a labyrinthine relationship between fathers and sons.

Tree of Life opens nationwide on May 27, 2011.

This morning marks the official launch of Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Thus, we now know for certain that there’ll be at least one candidate running for president, but what about the GOP field? It sure as hell hasn’t been an easy 2011 for the Republicans, despite having won back the House of Representatives (running on a whole host of phony issues). So far the GOP has been hard at work doing the people’s business and really spurring job growth: They’ve defunded NPR, Planned Parenthood, and the health-insurance reform bill.

The Republican election victories of 2010 might just as well have taken place 50 years ago instead of five months ago—it’s but a fading memory for most people: tea party support has plummeted, and the Republican House is looked on as a national joke. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele “Concord Whatever” Bachman herself seems to care little about governing (as if she ever did) and appears to be more focused on “taking America back” from the clutches of a foreign, black president as proven by her statements in Iowa recently:

I’m in for 2012 in that I want to be a part of the conversation of making sure that President Obama only serves one term, not two.

Part of the conversation? What conversation would that be, Michele? The one inside your brain, where the Fascist side tells the idiot side to pipe down? Or the conversation in the general populace about how utterly devoid you are of any shred of intellect? Now that Bachman has successfully flirted with the idea of becoming the leader of the free world, it’s high time to look the potential pool of 2012 GOP candidates.

Mitt Romney
Odds of Running: 2-1
Odds of Winning Nomination: 7-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 9-1

Mitt Romney, the creepy guy with the nasty hair gel who invariably sits next to you at a wedding banquet, has already been at this dance. But apparently he’s forgotten what happened to him in 2008: The GOP establishment bolted from him faster than a Mormon says “I do.” Why? Why didn’t a telegenic, relatively well-spoken upper-crust blue blood resonate with Republican voters? It must have been RomneyCare, the health-care reforms implemented in Massachusetts by Gov. Romney that closely match the ones Obama put forth last year. Nope. Of course to Republican voters in 2008 health-care reform probably ranked lower in importance than defunding NPR; the president’s health-care reform law was nothing but a speck in Obama’s eye. No, Romney lost solely because of his Mormonism. Republicans love rich guys, but they can’t get past the Mormon cult religion. Romney’s Mormonism, to the GOP, might as well of been Scientology. With that said, the Broadway musical Book of Mormon looks to be a blockbuster. Maybe Romney can feature the show in his ads.

Newt Gingrich
Odds of Running: 9-2
Odds of Winning Nomination: 5-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 17-1

Wow. Gingrich? Really? Ok, so he’s flip-flopped on just about every issue. The GOP can probably live with a guy who changes his position more often than John Boehner applies bronzing cream, but for God’s sake, Gingrich? As president? Of the United States? Of America? Two words here that the former House speaker should keep at the forefront of his mind: Silvio Berlusconi. Now, admittedly, Gingrich hardly matches the cocksmanship of the massively corrupt Italian prime minister, but Gingrich is a national joke, just as Berlusconi is a (sick) joke to Italians. Cheating on one’s wife: bad. Cheating on one’s wife while trying to impeach President Clinton on marital infidelity? I won’t say it, because I hate that trope. Oh well, ok, I will say it: “priceless.” The GOP faithful (“faith” being the key) pretty much think Gingrich is as big a douchebag as the rest of us do, no matter how much he espouses Republican talking points or how much he takes the opposite positions of President Obama. If Gingrich somehow manages to eek out the nomination, Obama should just spend the entire presidential campaign with his feet up on a beach chair in Hawaii.

Michele Bachman
Odds of Running: 25-1
Odds of Winning Nomination: 8-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 134,547-1

Just when we thought there was no politician dumber, more irritating, and frankly more in need of therapy than Sarah Palin comes Congressman Michele Bachman—a poor person’s version of the former Alaska governor. I’m still not convinced Bachman’s not a Manchurian candidate thrust into the spotlight by Palin to make Palin look human—or smart. Where to begin with Bachman? Here limited brain power indicates that she may have learning disabilities. Thus, it’s not right to make fun of her. Oh well, as far as her candidacy goes, she she has precious little support among the GOP stalwarts, and is viewed on as a joke (much like Palin). And heading up the tea-party “caucus” hasn’t won her any fans among the GOP apparatchiks. (Though it was five months ago the Republicans remember it was she and her ilk who kept the Senate in the hands of the Democrats. Et tu, Christine O’Donnell.) Thus, should she run—and by all accounts she’s not running, which sucks for comedians and people who love watching car crashes—she’d never make it out of the starting gate. And just imagine an Obama-Biden/Bachman…Glenn Beck ticket. It would be a historic blowout along the lines of Obama winning 99.9999999999 percent of the popular vote. Progressives can only dream of a Bachman ticket.

Tim Pawlenty
Odds of Running: 3-1
Odds of Winning Nomination: 3-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 11-1

Tim who? Paw-what? Oh yeah, that guy who I always confuse with Eric Cantor. Should the former governor of Minnesota win the nomination, he’ll be about as successful as another former Minnesotan: Walter Mondale. As far as being enmeshed in GOP politics, Pawlenty gets an A. But the guy lacks personality and is pretty much a behind-the-scenes player. Let’s just say he sparks the same kind of passion and enthusiasm among Republican voters as Michael Dukakis did among Democratic voters. Again, if Obama has to face this guy in the general, he might as well vacation in Tripoli. Another Obama landslide.

Haley Barbour
Odds of Running: 6-1
Odds of Winning Nomination: 9-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 48-1

If Haley Barbour wins the GOP nomination, he’ll definitely sew up the Dukes of Hazzard voting bloc: He’s a dead ringer for the classic TV show’s old corrupt Boss Hog—not just physically. Imagine for a second Barbour on the world stage, negotiating with myriad world leaders on issues of grave importance. Take the Japanese prime minister for example. Barbour would need one translator to translate his thick, southern drawl into English, and another translator to translate that into Japanese. Thus, a President Barbour would actually cost taxpayers more. In a time of wanton spending should we really be funding two translators? But seriously, Barbour? The tea party may like his borderline, subtle racist diatribes, but his schtick tires the GOP heavies. Should he somehow fool the GOP voters into giving him the nod, it’s yet another Obama landslide. What’ll be Barbour’s first act as president? Change motto to “the South will rise again”? Change the National Anthem to “Free Bird”? Or perhaps ignite another civil war just for kicks?

Off all the GOP non-candidates, Christie is the most reasonable and the most electable, thus, the Republican Party will throw him under the bus (well, they would, but the House has just defunded throwing people under the bus). Though Christie is panderer, a bloviator, and a gigantic ball of ego, he’d pose a challenge to Obama in the general election. Thankfully for Obama, Christie will never win the nomination, and it looks like he’s not running. Remember the last Republican politician hailing from a solidly blue-leaning state who ran for president? His name was Rudolph Giuliani, and he got his ass handed to him by GOP voters. There might as well be a platitude in the Republican Party platform that states: “We hate the northeastern United States, and if any Republicans from that area want our blessing, they better move to Idaho or Mississippi.” Imagine tea baggers voting for Christie? Sure, he’s garnered some tea-bag d-bag bona fides by rejecting billions of dollars in federal transportation money for infrastructure construction, but that’s not enough to convince the hardcore Republicans that he’s one of them. Christie is less religious than a bearded hipster in Brooklyn getting a blow job in the bathroom of bar while snorting a line of coke off a tattooed chick’s bosom. So why doesn’t he end the charade now? Well, with Ann Coulter stumping for him and all this free publicity, why not? He’s not running anyway. Obama’s lucky. Christie, on a national stage, could be a serious contender to Obama, and the race would be close, though Christie would have a lot of esplainin to do.

Mike Huckabee
Odds of Running: 3-1
Odds of Winning Nomination: 11-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 23-1

Doesn’t that cliché goes something like “Fool me once, you fault, fool me twice, my fault”? Looking at Huckabee’s psychotic media ramblings—Natalie Portman is Sister Soulja, Obama grew up in Kenya—it’s pretty clear the Huck is running: Time to go all crazytown for the extremist party dictators. And why shouldn’t he run? Look how well he did in 2008, when he quickly dropped out of the race. Does Huckabee think that GOP voters in the past four years are going to forget that he’s a loose cannon? A John McCain without the war injuries? What does Huckabee stand for? Even he’s not sure. He’s conservative, but doesn’t have the tea-party fight to slam Michele Obama? Huckabee brings exactly nothing to the table. He should stick with his bad guitar playing on his Fox News show. In a general election, who’d vote for that guy over Obama other than the white conservative Americans?

Donald Trump
Odds of Running: 7-2
Odds of Winning Nomination: 319-1
Odds of Winning Presidency: 32-1

Wow. Of all the fringe groups to latch onto, it’s surprising Trump chose the birthers. I mean the birthers are even ridiculed by hardcore conservatives. Nonetheless, Trump thinks that supporting the Neanderthals who claim Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. is a good way to shore up his fledgeling conservative bona fides. Though Republicans have a history of selling out their beliefs to curry favor with the fringe elements of the party. John McCain bowed in front of Jerry Falwell in 2006; just years earlier McCain (rightly) viewed the guy as an extremist nutjob. So Trump is simply pandering. But being a birther isn’t going to fool Republican voters. They’ll remember Trump for supporting gay rights; for bashing President Bush; for being, well, a Democrat; for being a socially liberal New Yorker from a “godless” town. Trump is just being Trump: That is, he’s generating publicity. Maybe he’s trying to close on some massive real estate deal and maybe this round of publicity is just what’s needed to seal the deal? Whatever the reasons, Trump’s candidacy is a joke. The guy is a joke. His gold-caked ugly buildings are a joke. His swagger and bluster and lack of taste have made New York worse. So maybe him winning the presidency isn’t a bad thing. At least he’d move out of New York City.

The rest of the field: There’s Jon Huntsman (Running: 23-1, Nomination, 46-1, Presidency, 17-1), who worked for the Obama administration as the ambassador to China. Yeah, he’d really win over the anti-Obama GOP. If he runs, he’ll drop out quickly. There’s Mitch Daniels (Running: 14-1, Nomination, 16-1, Presidency, 21-1), the current governor of Indiana. Now he’d be a breath of fresh air: He only served as President George W. Bush’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Just what we all need, a return to 2006. John Thune (Running: 12-1, Nomination, 12-1, Presidency, 19-1), South Dakota Senator, has zero personality and little support among the stalwarts. Why didn’t I include Sarah Palin above? Seriously? With her reality-TV show and her obscene speaking fees, is she really going to toss all that aside to run for an office she, herself, knows she stands little chance of winning? Of course not. Money rules her universe, and there’s no way she’ll give up her lifestyle unless she could continue the Palin-family sideshow from the White House and only tweet policy directives.

As to figuring out just who holds which seats, Boehner said, “I’ve proposed giving the Republicans 300 seats. And the Democrats 135. I like round numbers, and that seems fair to me.” According to the bill, Boehner’s office would decide which Democratic House members are removed (he’s said he plans on the targeting “the most liberal”); he’s also proposing that these House members who he removes be held for treason. “Execution, again, seems like a reasonable course of action. It’s what the American public wants, isn’t it? I mean…I just looked at some Fox News polling, and that’s what it’s telling me.”

When asked if the Senate would follow course, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, concurred, saying, “I think Congressman Boehner has a good point. This election is just more evidence of tax-and-spend policies by the Democrat [sic] Party. Instead of spending almost $100 million on election workers and machinery, shouldn’t that money be better spent on job creation?”

Congressman Michele Bachman, a co-sponsor of the bill along with Texas Republican Joe Wilson, took the issue of election spending one step further. At the press conference in the House minority leader’s office, she said, “You know, here in Minnesota we care deeply about the national debt. The American people don’t want to waste money on elections of any sort. So I’d like to propose calling off the presidential election of 2012 as well. The American people have spoken, and they want the tea party to lead this country.” Bachman sited as evidence the current cover story in New York magazine about the potential ascension of Sarah Palin to the presidency. Holding the current issue up for photographers, Bachman said, “See, it’s right here. ‘President Palin.’ I think we can save millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars by just scrapping the primaries and the general election altogether.”

McConnell offered Democrats an olive branch by allowing any liberal member of Congress the opportunity to commit suicide before going on trial for treason. “If the Democrat kills him- or herself, then we save even more money for the taxpayers. It’s a win-win.”