Primarily Annoying

According to the latest CNN/TIME/ORC poll, if the Republican presidential primary were held today, 48% of the registered Republicans likely to vote in the Florida primary would support Newt Gingrich. The next closest contender is Mitt Romney, with only 25%. Yikes.

Gingrich also leads Romney in Iowa (33% to 20%) and in South Carolina (43% to 20%), while Romney leads Gingrich in New Hampshire (35% to 26%).

No candidate gets more than 50% support anywhere. In fact, the only response that gets more than 50% anywhere is "might change mind." Oof.

Which makes Gallup's latest poll findings thoroughly unsurprising: Republicans Less Enthusiastic About Voting in 2012. "Republicans' enthusiasm about voting in the election for president next year has decreased, with 49% of Republicans and independents who lean Republican now saying they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, down from 58% in September. This narrows the gap between them and Democrats, 44% of whom are more enthusiastic than usual, essentially the same as in September."

The lack of enthusiasm isn't difficult to understand when frontrunner Mitt Romney is asked to comment on the Eurozone crisis and says shit like this: "Europe is capable of solving Europe's problems. I actually think that—I mean, I'm not an economist by training, but what limited understanding of the economy I have suggests it's very difficult to cobble together Greece, Ireland, Italy and Germany with the same monetary policy and highly disparate fiscal policies. I don't know how they hold it together." (Emphasis mine.)

Definitely the guy you want to elect in the middle of an economic crisis is the one who says he's got a "limited understanding of the economy," for sure.

At least we know it's a "limited understanding of the economy" that's behind Romney's also saying shit like this:

[President Obama] seeks to replace our merit-based society with an entitlement society. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people to enjoy truly disproportionate rewards are the people who do the redistributing — the government.

Entitlement societies are praised in academic circles, far removed from the reality of a competitive world. Opportunity is replaced by the certainty that everyone in an entitlement society will enjoy nearly the same rewards. But there is another certainty: They will be poor.

In an entitlement society, the invigorating pursuit of happiness is replaced by the deadening reality that there is no prospect of a better tomorrow.

Whooooooooooooooooops that is not even close to reality, sir.

In a sign of how dire this Republican primary really is, Rep. Ron Paul is picking up steam and now finds himself in third place behind the lawbreaking Gingrich and the flip-flopping Romney.

"Welp, we've tried Trump, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Romney, and Gingrich, and they all stink, so maybe we should give this Paul fella a look." Zoinks.

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that Sarah Palin is watching all this from the sidelines and contemplating the possibility that, if she waits long enough, then reverses her decision and throws in her hat after all, she'll get the nomination sheerly on the basis of Republican primary voters' desperation for someone else please Jesus someone anyone else...?