Nevada has spoken! The mutant uranium-miners, opium whores, neon salesman and moisture farmers of The Radioactive State chose Willard “10k” Romney over space-beast Newt Gingrich, bedraggled has-been Dick Santorum, and undead specter Ron Paul.
Fresh from a smack-down by Romney’s magnificent wallet in the Florida GOP primary, the candidates made their way to Nevada, the seedy, alternate-universe Utah that was the site of the next ridiculous clown rodeo caucus. Here, on the uranium-poisoned sands once trod by Mo Green and Fredo Corleone, the candidates hoped to, well, not get smacked by Romney’s wallet again. This was really a vain hope, since Romney’s wallet, like the buffet at Stinky Pete’s Bordello and Casino, is bottomless. Romney ended up clubbing them all over the head and left them bleeding in the sand like extras in “Spartacus.”
Romney loves Nevada, because he did well here in 2008, he’s made so much money here, and he loves money. According to Romney family legends, the source of the Romney family fortune is in Nevada, where, the story goes, the angel Mehoona gave prospector Zebulon Romney an enormous diamond described in various 19th century accounts as “the size of a baby’s head,” and “big around as Chester Arthur’s whiskers.” Zebulon Romney trudged through the desert and took the gem to the assayer’s office in Carson City and staked a claim on a patch of worthless desert that turned out to contain a fabulously productive mine, the so-called Mehoona Lode. Zebulon Romney became a tycoon in Nevada’s leading 19th century industries: mining and brothels. The brothel business was so successful that for a time in the late 19th century, syphilis was referred to as “a case of the Romneys.” Zebulon’s grandson Jake Romney helped Mo Green and Hyman Roth develop Las Vegas, enhancing the family fortune to truly staggering proportions. It was this vast wealth that produced the charmless man-bot that currently leads the GOP race. Romney has been running a heart-warming ad (called “Family Ties”) highlighting the Zebulon story (minus the bit about syphilis), and his own long and loving association with this radioactive, waterless, whore-filled state.
His strategy of sucking up to nostalgic Nevadans while simultaneously bashing Obama paid off. Romney won Nevada, with more than 40% of the vote. Romney executed victory protocols in the cavernous Pharoah Room at the Luxor, before a cheering clone army. His handlers had tweaked his gesture generators, making his movements just a tad more Clinton-y. Platitudes projected smoothly from his word hole. Obama bad! Not job creator! European welfare state! The clones cheer as they are told.
Vile space-gangster Newt Gingrich had always loved Nevada, because he loves whores and all-you-can-eat buffets. After the caucuses, he might love it just a little less. The disgraced former House Speaker had been attacking Romney, running an ad (“Bullshit”) that is critical of the Romney jewel story, accusing Romney of stealing most of the story from an episode of “Kung Fu.” Gingrich is telling crowds of uranium-miners, uranium-whores, and their be-tenctacled mutant children that Zebulon Romney made his money selling substandard buffalo meat to the Army, and out-sourcing railroad jobs to China–and Willard Romney is the same kind of crooked grifter-capitalist. His stump speech is an angry mix of “Elmer Gantry” and “Blazing Saddles,” equal parts populist fire-and-brimstone and frontier gibberish. “My friends!” he tells a crowd in Las Vegas, his mighty jowls glistening with sincerity and ranch dressing, “let me make one thing perfectly clear–this is the most important presidential election of our lifetimes! Too important to be entrusted to Milburn Drysdale Romney!” He bloats with indignation. Waving his fore-appendages eloquently, he fixes the crowd with a calculated beady stare. “Obama is Big Foodstamp! Romney is Little Food Stamp! Frankly, only I, Newton Leroy Gingrich, can defeat the Kenyan usurper and prevent the radical Alinsky-ite secular Muslim blackety-black dogwhistle apocalypse!” The crowd goes crazy, chanting “FILL! MY! MAW!” as a Survivor-tribute band plays a song that sounds like–but is sufficiently different from to satisfy a copyright attorney–“Eye of the Tiger.” It’s not enough. Maybe Gingrich should have used Styx or something. Gingrich comes in second.
After the caucuses closed, instead of the typical hotel ballroom defiant concession speech in front of cheering supporters, Gingrich did a really weird thing. He held a press conference, just the corpulent space beast alone at a podium, and then he took questions from reporters. His wattles glistened with rage-froth and tartar sauce. Bloated with self-righteous indignation, he said he was NOT dropping out, and would go all the way to Tampa, where he would devour Romney’s entrails on the very floor of the Republican Convention. He decried the negativity of the campaign while going savagely negative on Romney. His battle sacs engorged with fighting bile! His soft tiny hands clenched menacingly. Waving his fore-appendages angrily, he called Romney “blatantly dishonest.” Several times. He SEETHS with anger. Hate–and the fish menu at the Cap’n Fishpimp’s Resort and Casino–have given him strength. He heaves his bulk off the stage and exits–no cheering crowds, no crappy 80s pop music. It was truly strange.
The undead 3000-year-old shaman that stoners call Ron Paul does not need the help of 80s one-hit wonders. Cloaked in the eldritch darkness of undeath, he wanders the radioactive deserts in silence, pausing at the occasional mutant village or mining camp, to spread his message of gold and magical gibberish. Condemned to wander the earth until the lost gold of Osiris is returned, he is treated kindly by these simple desert folk–except at the hostile polygamist compounds, where they shoot at him. He will not win here–he comes in third–and he soon departs for the lobster-ravaged wastes of Maine.
Dick Santorum has been having a hard time in Nevada, and the caucus results are just the latest in a long series of indignities for the senator-turned-hobo. While Gingrich was sitting in air-conditioned comfort signing copies of his popular cook book, “Fill My Maw: Recipes from America’s Most Beloved House Speaker” and eating steam tray after steam tray of roast beef, Santorum had been re-shingling the roof of Stinky Pete’s Reno whorehouse. He had worked hard all day, and his patched overalls were not as clean as when he got them at the Salvation Army in Reno. He had hoped to raise money Friday at a fundraising dinner in The Bucket Room at Bucket-O-Chips Casino, but instead ended up losing about eleven dollars. “I told people not to get the crab legs! Crab legs cost extra, dammit. God! There are signs, right there at the buffet.” He is on the verge of tears. Tears come easily to the erstwhile frontrunner now. “Crab legs cost extra, dammit. Crab legs cost extra.” Patron Harold Knudson, who was undecided but leaning toward Santorum prior to the event , said “I’m a veteran and my granddad fought in D-Day, so I like Santorum’s message on defense, but, then, granddad didn’t try to kill Hitler so some unwashed senator could tell me I couldn’t have no crab. It might be time to give Mr. Gingrich another look.” Knudson’s wife, Eva, nodded. “He should maybe take a bath if he wants to be president.” Santorum was really counting on the Bucket-O-Chips, because he had been turned away from his own fundraiser earlier at the MGM Grand, where security guards would not let him enter the casino without shoes. The senator’s shoes had been stolen the previous day as he showered at a carwash next to the Liberace Museum downtown.
After the fiasco at Bucket-O-Chips, Santorum went back to busking for dollars outside Caesar’s Place, playing plaintive folk tunes on a guitar he bought at a pawn shop. Tad Henderson, a tourist from Minnesota, threw a dollar in Santorum’s bucket. “I like his views on social issues, and that guitar bridge in The Times They Are A’ Changin’ is harder than you think, and he played it real good.” Santorum finished up playing “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” took a swig of gin from his Big Gulp cup, and chatted with Henderson about health care mandates. It was this kind of retail campaigning–albeit with shoes and more regular hygiene–that propelled Santorum to a come-from-behind victory in Iowa. Santorum was hoping that this one-on-one campaigning, coupled with help from Stinky Pete’s whore-money PAC, would make him a contender again.
Later, bathing in the fountain by the Bellagio, Santorum was cautiously optimistic. He had made enough money at Caesar’s to buy a pair of flip-flops at t-shirt stand, and he seemed determined. “Shit,” the gin-fueled senator proclaimed, “Screw Mitt Romney. I got seven damned kids. I don’t want them to grow up in some crappy-ass world where that shit-poke Mitt Romney has screwed everything up. He’s a gold-plated goddamned disaster.” He ties a stolen Caesar’s Palace towel around his waist as he starts walking to the highway to hitch-hike across the radioactive Forbidden Zone to the mining town of Stinkwater, where he has scheduled a morning pancake breakfast and campaign rally.
Alas, it was all for naught. Santorum came in a distant fourth. No amount of whore-money could help him. He ends up winning only one delegate–Hoss, the maintenance guy at Stinky Pete’s. Santorum didn’t even bother to stay in Nevada on caucus day. He hitch-hiked to Colorado, giving a concession speech at a truck stop outside Durango. “Shit,” he told a bewildered group of truckers. “You know what? Screw Nevada. I’ve got seven goddamned kids, and I’m staying in this race for them. Screw Nevada. I don’t care. I really don’t. I’m proud of what we done.” He tears up, and pours some more gin into his battered Big Gulp cup. “I met some good people, and I ran a good positive campaign. And now we’ll do it again in Colorado! I want to thank you all!” The truckers look at each other, puzzled. Who is this hobo? Santorum waves at the truckers. “Retail campaigning, man,” the former senator grins. “I love this shit. Who wants to give me a ride to Denver?”
Colorado votes on February 7th.
