Disney World moves to New Hampshire

EVERYBODY... TAKE A DEEP BREATH as the wobbly Republican caravan hauls its version of Disney World from Iowa to New Hampshire. Is this the first bogus election that nobody won? Or should we heed Mitt Romney's aides who have been declaring, "a win is a win"?

Poor Michele. She said she had wanted to witness a miracle, but dropped out in a rout, losing any claim to sainthood. But she has promised that she will not be lacking in vigor to prove that President Obama is a socialist.

We first learned of the Romney 8-vote thing sometime after midnight, after dozing during the time-killing rehashing of the night's events by the TV news panels because there were long stretches when there was nothing new to report. (I tried to sleep, but my many years of actually getting paid to report on this stuff kept my eyes sort of open.)

The rightwing Christian groups - eh, social conservatives, to be perfectly respectful about it - have found nothing to be joyful about in Iowa's wake. Such "movement" groups as Focus on the Family and American Family Assn. are planning a meeting in Texas to coalesce around a single purist who can stop Romney and his 8-vote bragging right. The internal dynamics of the GOP race will become uglier as the party stages a dreadful contest between theocracy (think Santorum ) and hypocrisy (Yep, Romney).

There is growing evidence that the holier-than-thous will be plowing up more soil in a class war against America's minorities. So when Santorum says the Feds should stop trying to assist blacks with other people's (whites') money, that is from a page in sordid George Wallace history. Or the sophistry of Gingrich's attacks on ghetto kids for having no adult models who work for a living. All this while the Repubicans are seriously suppressing voting with shouts of fraud - which, like a lot of their other shrieks, has never been proven. There are probably more pink-cheeked Wall Streeters who find ways to cheat on their income taxes.

So crank up the ferris wheel and merry-go-round in the Granite State. They're sending in the clowns. You have to ask, though, what any state has done to deserve this.

When everybody agrees, where's the debate?

I CHECKED OUT of the two-hour Republican presidential candidate debate on CNN at 8:19 tonight. Without revealing it to me, Nancy had predicted that it would be 8:24. Close enough. She knows my patience level too well. Nineteen minutes was long enough.

These events usually reveal nothing. From a distance, the eager and powdered candidates, as an erect phalanx in dark suits, appeared to be a bar code on a Wheaties box. And with 30 seconds to answer a question on the mysteries of the universe, they raced beyond their limits as CNN's John King served as a speed bump to remind them of their excesses.

Besides, it wasn't close to a debate, but rather what the boys back in my old neighborhood called a "gang bang", in this instance, of President Obama. Ron Paul, the Republicans' Harold Stassen, said he coudn't think of a single thing that Obama did right, and would you believe that nobody disagreed with him! Everyone promised to repeal the health care reform law, cut taxes and deliver us from liberal evil. Obama, Mitt Romney assured us, was a failure, so there.

Everyone told us how many children he or she had and how much they loved America. The air was heavy with sincerity.

And Michele Bachmann, just in the nick of time for the collegial symposium, announced to King that she was officially running for president. She wanted CNN to be the first with the scoop.

By the way, what was Newt Gingrich doing up there on the stage in New Hampshire anyway? He looked none the worse (nor none the better) for the exodus of his entire campaign staff. Maybe his recent Mediterranean cruise did him some good even if his former staff didn't.

And how about the woman in the audience who said she was a freelance "journalist" for corporate publications and wanted a pledge that we would all be freed from the oppressive health care law ASAP. Can you imagine that with that hostile point of view what industry publishes her stuff. You're right.

All of this in 19 minutes, folks. Would that their campaigns would last no longer than that.

Michele's continued state of confusion

WITH ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL election season upon us, it has become more apparent that Rep. Michele Bachmann, the pride of Minnesota's Republican team, can be factually challenged from time to time. But there is no greater evidence of her weakness in geography beyond the borders of her congressional district than her dense understanding of history. So let's roll the tape on her campaign appearance in New Hampshire as she told the folks:

"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

Help soon arrived. Sensing a disaster for a Republican sister, Sarah Palin twittered Michele to advise her that it was not New Hampshire but Montana.

All of which was a reminder of an old saying that the trouble with political jokes is that they get elected.