You have to hand it to Willard Romney: Whenever he needs to make a clutch play, and reach right in and pull a rabbit out of his hat, he always reaches right in and confidently pulls out roadkill instead.
That big-eyed deer staring into the headlights at Willard's side, about to be figuratively mounted on history's grillwork, is Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin). He's the one who the fun-loving people on the Romney tour bus have dangled onto the roadway, in the lane of oncoming traffic, as new veep road sport.
Ryan, sporting his signature Eddie Munster haircut, is now the wan Number Two man on Romney's commodious, but small-sheeted roll call for veep. With Ryan now seated in a tight position behind Number One, there is both a sense of urgency and relief to a party plumbing the depths, and the outer limits, of exactly how much [self-censored] any country can take.
Here, we must rely on the inscrutable wisdom of one Sherlock Holmes to explain the inexplicable at this juncture in time and space: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."The only solution to the ongoing mystery of Republicans, and how they, as deniers of science and Evolution, are still able to walk mostly upright, is this: Our own universe has bisected another -- we are now receiving flickering leaks and bleed-throughs from that alternate plane, one we'll call Bizarro Universe for short.
* * * * *
Presenting Ryan to the country as his running mate, Willard Romney was dressed in brand spanking new, starched-and-pressed coveralls bearing a ROTO-REACHER logo. He made the announcement, with a coverall-clad Ryan beside him, from high atop a new 100,000 gallon septic tank, their new campaign symbol.
"He's never been content to simply curse the darkness," Romney said of his veep selection. "In fact, he's always cursed the darkness quite extensively, using a number of words I had not heard before. However, as a full supporter of my Dark Ages Redux program, I know he will not just curse the darkness, but search out pockets of methane build-up, strike a match, and detonate a wide area of support."
Romney added, "I know he will be a valuable addition to the scorched-earth policies we'll be trail-blazing in our days ahead -- even though, at times, it may be difficult to see the forest fire for all those darned trees."
The pair also unveiled the new campaign crest -- a mammoth ship's anchor and a huge sump pump, rampant, on an island field of brown, in a pea-green sea, with the Latin motto, "Fimus Super Panton."
Romney said to reporters, "Isn't it perfect? I think it says much better than we could, how much old, GOP sludge we'll try to recycle, while going nowhere."
Romney will have his new ticket punched, one way or the other, come hell or high water --both of which will stem from the global climate change both men vehemently deny. Willard's locking down his country-club, anti-naysayer supporters, while Paul concentrates on nailing down the "let's force the poor to carry the whole damn country" vote.
Paul said, "The poor won't have to carry the globe very far each day -- it's not like we orbit the sun or any of that flat-Earth-denier, mumbo-jumbo you get from the radical left."
Both men later posed in front of the newly-commissioned Wisconsin Coastal Patrol Vessel, WCPV-WD40, Ernest Ordure, after the pioneering researcher who had conclusively proved global climate change, and the resulting ice melt, completely incorrect.
The patrol vessel's home port is Ryan's latest home town, in Port Rong-Heddid, itself named in honor of Ordure's working partner, Frank Lee Rong-Heddid, who had predicted any ice melt would be incidental, and amount to a sea level rise of only a few feet at most.
"Now that Wisconsin has the ninth largest seagoing fishing fleet on the west coast, casting fishing nets as far as the Great Rocky Islands, we'll work toward providing more fishing jobs that will pay bottom-feeder wages," Romney intoned. "We're going to have to fish or cut bait pretty soon, and don't we know it!" he concluded, laughing with the crowd of nearly ten or twelve stone-faced, signless supporters who were turned out for the event.
Romney set his rubber jaw and promised, "As soon as we can eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and the rest of this so-called social safety net, the sooner business can get its hands on that money and create more jobs -- then, we'll get much more useful nets back into your home waters."
"After that," he concluded, "the poor will be in a much better position to fund the running of the entire country, and pick up the slack left over from our unburdening the wealthy and corporations from paying any taxes at all." Romney pledged, "I'll be personally asking my very good and dear friends, the suffering few at the very top of the food chain, if that might be good enough to get a couple new jobs created for each and every state!"
Both men have previously agreed to also look into the possibility of raising the national minimum wage to four dollars a day, despite massive protests from Walmart, which had been toying with changing its name to MittMart.
In recent hours, the minimum wage issue has become a new plank in the evolving campaign platform -- the one being constantly torn apart and rebuilt before every campaign stop so far.
Ryan later stated, dockside, "I promise to leave no stone unburned in our scorched-earth search for the worst possible solution to our problems. Failing that," the new veep candidate stated, "I will do my best to bring solutions to bear that have nothing whatsoever to do with the problems at hand -- or else, I will start brand new problems to fit the solutions I already have!"
(Romney could not be reached at the end of his announcement: He maintains a tight flying schedule, jetting between campaign stops, where he boards the tour bus each time, just on the outskirts of each town, for that final, arduous mile or two drive to meet "you people.")
* * * * *
Despite the early promises years ago, when this current political season first started, we had all anticipated non-stop sharp pains throughout most parts of the anatomy. Now, things are starting to look up with this new hybrid pairing of hack limelighters, with these hilarious-but-frightening stand-up comics.
If it wasn't for the intersection of two universes, we'd still be trying to explain to ourselves, and to our children, how it was that these two men happened to rise to such improbable successes in life, and to these potential positions of new power -- how it could be that we would have to look at these two men for at least four years.
As it is now, it's a piece of cake.
Thanks for the help, Bizarro Universe -- hope to see you again real soon!
