Are they that bad or are we being played?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. I don't think they are that clever or organized.

I try not to attribute to malice and conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.

What has happened, I believe, is that the GOPer candidates, responding to the rantings of the Tea Party contingent and the God-botherers, have gone so far overboard in escalating the standard for what constitutes "conservative" that they have chased each other right off a cliff.

Mittens: "I'm severely conservative."
Ricky: "Women who use birth control are whores who should be burned as witches."
Newt: "We have to nuke Iran."
Ron: "Our government is controlled by the Trilateral Commission and the Queen of England, who is a crack dealer."
Mittens: "I'm more conservative than any of you, and I'll prove it by personally deporting all of my Mexican pool boys and chauffeurs."
Ricky: "I'll get the 19th Amendment repealed and send all the gay people to internment camps."
Newt: "We have to nuke Massachusetts."
Ron: "We have to nuke England to keep the Queen from controlling our currency."

And so on and so forth. Since at this point none of them can backtrack, having pushed the definition of "conservative" so far to the right that they would frighten Darth Vader, all they can do is double down. Now some of the GOP pundits, suits and power brokers are starting to see how nuts this all is, and they're getting nervous. But they don't know what to do.