The bizarre dance to the mountaintop

AS THE IOWA CAMPAIGN mercifully crashed down on caucusing GOP conservatives, it seemed as though we were witnessing the final act of a bizarre Walpurgis Night, when witches climbed to the mountaintop to convene with their gods. OK, so all but one was a warlock - but you get the point.

There was no end to the savagery, as Newt went on Fox TV to call Mitt a liar, and Rick, as in

Santorum, described Ron Paul as "disgusting." Playing Mr. Cool without gravitas, Romney remained on cruise control and described Newt as a "good guy". Paul fired off the cheapest shot of all by calling Romney a "liberal". In another day or so, they all would have been challenging each other to produce birth certificates.

Meantime, I've been trying to catch up with everything else of less consequence that was going on in the world. I finally learned who Kim Kardashin is. But, damn it, I've already forgotten.

Looking to the future, the papers said the Cleveland Browns were quite upbeat about next season, which you might expect after a 4-12 season and a yet to be decided fill-in for quarterback.

Jenny McCarthy (you remember her, don't you?) kissed a cop in Times Square on New Year's Eve for a photo-op.

The Los Vegas Hlton changed its name to the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.

And, Samoa lost a day by going past the International Dateline - a feat that I'll never understand.

Almost forgot: Pat Robertson told his 700 Club audience that God had confided to him who will win the presidency this year. Robertson was coy about it, saying he could not break God's confidence by revealing the winner. But the reverend, who is a past victor in the Iowa caucuses, said God wasn't at all pleased with Obama. With those odds against him, and coupled with the Koch Brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you have to wonder why Obama would even run.

On to New Hampshire - from what?

AS THE SURVIVORS of the forever-surging waves of the Iowa campaign prepare for landfall in New Hampshire, there are now dismissive reports that America's Team was hardly what GOP voters had in mind. The mood seemed to be captured by an evangelical pastor, Jeff Mullin, quoted in Monday's New York Times:

"There's no perfect candidate. The question is what flaws can you put up with."

Such idealism suffers as a defining element in the noisy bid to win the minds, if not the hearts, of conservative Iowans. For too many weeks , they have been subjected to the most abject level of Manichean politics in which all issues are resolved within the eternal struggle between good and evil. There are limits to how far that can take a candidate, particularly when all are piously saying the same thing.

Despite the $6 million spent on TV ads to fetch the true believers to the polls, the turnout is projected to be something less than the crowd for an OSU-Michigan football game.

At least the fans in the stands arrive with their minds firmly set on separating the good from the evil on the field.

The less- than-enthusiastic audience has been asked to distinguish the undistinguishable - true conservative vs. unflinching conservative; original conservative vs. Reagan conservative; defender of freedom and faith vs. defender of unburdened freedom and more ardent faith. It's easy to see, if one thought seriously about it, why there were flaws everywhere.

Even the national pollsters have had some trouble tracking the less-flawed and the more-flawed. Take the word of Gallup, which has seen front-runners rise like jumping beans, only to be overtaken the next day by another bean:

"Historical comparisons can be problematic given differences in the number of candidates and the number of polls conducted each election. It still seems clear that this phase of 2012 Republican nomination process has been the most volatile for the GOP in the advent of polling."

Whoever wins Tuesday night - there has to be a winner, folks - the real question will be, what does it all mean? At the top of the heap will be candidate chosen by a relatively small group of voters in a turnout that is expected to be no more than 20 percent of the registered Republican voters in Iowa. As the candidates, their entourages and the media army pack up for the next stop in the Granite State, there will doubtless be many others who go to bed that night saying: "Good riddance."

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