The Republican Party Is Fucked
The Republican Party is Fucked:
Pondering the South Carolina primary while touring Fort Collins’ finest breweries.
Three days ago, on my baby brother’s 27th birthday, I was ready to end my coverage of the dull ass Republican primary and then something amazing happened. These chickenshit dickheads did their best to totally fuck it all up. Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney had already won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and no one had EVER won both (since 1972, of course) and failed to get his party’s nomination. In the Bible Land of South Carolina, Willard (frequently referred to as Magic Underpants on this esteemed publication) had a considerable lead where Evangelicals routinely called the Mormon religion a cult.
Monday morning, former Utah governor, former Chinese ambassador, and father of smoking hot daughters, Jon Huntsman dropped out of the race and endorsed Willard. This endorsement came after several weeks of Huntsman calling Willard “unelectable.” Maybe he’s endorsing the “unelectable” candidate to pave the way for his 2016 run. Besides Ron Paul, Huntsman was the most tolerable candidates to thinking Americans (aka liberals), especially as he said that he would trust the scientists on global warming and evolution. I see Huntsman primed to be the nominee in 2016 and here’s why. Studies have been completed showing that the longer either the Democratic or Republican party has not held the presidency, the more likely they are to nominate a moderate. Conversely, they are more likely to nominate an ideologue the less amount of time they have been out of office. This time around, Republican swine are clamoring for their candidates to go as far right wing as possible and that’s why Willard is suffering. It may be that the field is so weak that a moderate like Willard ends up with the nomination but it won’t be from a lack of effort from Bible beaters and Doomsday advocates. Huntsman should be a strong force when the Republican party moves to the center before the next presidential election should Obama win re-election, which is looking more and more likely.
With Huntsman out of the race, Mr. Oops Himself, Rick Perry, dropped his candidacy and endorsed Newt Gingrich (known to this esteemed publication as Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, or Marshmallow Man for short). Marshmallow Man appeared to be gaining some traction in South Carolina, where he once led by a considerable margin, especially following his “strong” performance at Monday night’s debate. Numerous signs pointed to Marshmallow Man seriously challenging Magic Underpants for the winner-takes-all South Carolina primary. Willard slipped up when he said he wouldn’t release his tax returns until April and his effective tax rate was around “15%”. In addition, Willard suggested that he made “a little money, not a lot” as a speaker last year. How much, gentle reader, did he make last year in speaker’s fees? Over $350,000 or as Bill Maher says of Mitt Romney, “just a rounding error.” So Magic Underpants gutted companies while making bookoo bucks gutting companies during his tenure at Bain Capital, now pays around 15% as his effective tax rate and won’t show us his past tax returns? He should be hurting, right?
Here is the reason why I am back as your trusty alco-political correspondent. Three minutes, yes three minutes, after Rick Perry endorsed Newt Gingrich, Marshmallow Man’s former wife claimed that he wanted an open marriage. Now if this is hard for you to digest, now is the time to blast some brain cells and enjoy a couple of beers while I led you through Fort Collins’ fine beer scene.
Saturday, January 21, 2012, 5:35 PM EST: My adopted hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado has a population of a little over 150,000 and is an hour north of Denver. Fort Collins is also the home of Colorado State University (my alma mater, go RAMS!!), low crime, and one of the whitest populations outside of Vermont. Since our political scene deserves more than a couple of sentences, let’s just say that we usually elect bitchy women for our congressional district. What makes Fort Collins work visiting, besides the amazing company of Barb and Daryl Nielsen and Barb’s world famous lasagna, is its beer scene. Fort Collins is home to ten breweries: New Belgium, Odell, Fort Collins, Funkwerks, Crooked Stave, Equinox, Coopersmiths, Pateros Creek, CB & Potts, and the giant, now foreign-owned, Anheuser-Busch. Many estimates claim that Fort Collins has more breweries per capita than any other city over 100,000 people with the possible exception of Portland, Oregon. Many now call Colorado’s Front Range the “Napa Valley of Beer” and if the Front Range is the Napa Valley of beer, then Fort Collins is the crown jewel.
Most hip, youngsters (read twenty/thirty year olds) jump on their bikes on sunny Saturday afternoons and bike between the city’s many fine breweries. Today, I choose to visit Odell Brewing Company who make famous brews such as Easy Street Wheat, 90 Schilling, and their new, runaway hit, Myrcenary Double IPA. At Odell, a sample tray of their six regular, year-round beers will run you six bucks for six samples at about 2-3 oz/sample. They also offer a pilot tray (also $4 and featuring seasonal releases and limited brews) and usually a co-pilot tray ($8 and featuring stronger, more limited releases). If you have tasted all of Odell’s beers available in your local liquor store, you will still be able to taste numerous new beers on these trays.
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| Odell's wonderful sampler |
My personal favorite was The Deal Breaker, an American Pale Ale, aimed at macro beer drinkers in an attempt to expand their horizons. The Deal Breakers pours a clear golden orange appearance with a white head and has a piney/grassy/floral hoppy, sweet bready malty aroma. The flavor is best described as a mild citrusy, somewhat floral hoppy, sweet pale malty flavor that is light-bodied. It was a very easy drinking American Pale Ale with a good, subdued, citrusy hop presence.
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 8/10, Palate: 4/5, Overall: 14/20
Henri’s Hoppy Thing was a tasty, solid, grapefruit-forward hoppy IPA (7/10) and Helios IPA was a drinkable, yet disappointing, toasty malty, dull hoppy IPA (6/10). Cruise Control was an interesting experiment (like many of the beers on their pilot and co-pilot trays) and was dark lager that lacked roasty characters but did have a toasty, toffee element (6/10). Black-Ale-Licious has a really fucking stupid name and the beer wasn’t all that much better. It used dark malts and English ale yeast to create an English-style ale that wasn’t a porter or a stout (5.5/10). Finally, I also tasted a half pint of Alpha Dog IPA ($4/half pint) which was aimed at producing an IPA with 125 IBUs, which is very high for a beer. Fortunately (or unfortunately), this aim did not result in a massively bitter beer and instead produced a very tasty IPA that had the taste of a grapefruit or orange cream pie. If you’re a fan of citrusy IPAs (like I am), then this baby was a winner (7.5/10).
6:45 PM EST: With that those tasty brews consumed, it’s time to get to the one single event that brought me back as your go-to, alco-political correspondent. Newt Gingrich abandoned his first wife, Jackie Battley, after consuming an extensive affair with his soon to be second wife, Marianne Ginther, in 1980. Following a similar pattern, Newt left Marianne for a hotter piece of tail, Callista Bisek, a House of Representatives staffer in 2000 after carrying on an eight year affair. This was all previously reported, but a new nugget to the whole story emerged Thursday when ex-wife Marianna was interviewed and stated that the Marshmallow Man asked for an open relationship!!! Here is the man that wanted to impeach Bill Clinton for getting a blowjob from a fat chick all while he was banging two women and angling for his wife to endorse his idea of becoming swingers! Marianne claimed that Newt told her that Callista was OK with an open relationship and he wanted to check with her. She said no. Marianne, you dingy prude. Marianne, you kinky slut.
Where did this hairbrain scheme come from? Evidence is scant, but one amateur psychotherapist suggested that after two grueling, kinky minutes of missionary sex, an idea “came” to Newt. “Callista, fetch my Fairy Dust,” yelled the Marshmallow Man. Obediently, the future Mrs. Marshmallow Man collected a powder of unknown origin, but purported to be concocted from a mixture of Tenocyclidine, Ecstasy, Cocaine and Viagra. After taking two bumps of Fairy Dust off of Callista’s nipples (this is not an easy task as gravity has not been friendly to her girls), Newt exclaimed, “Let’s have an open relationship!!” This rumor is sketchy at best, but we at Festung Europa are not against scandalous smut. Whether the Fairy Dust was the catalyst to Newt asking Marianne for an open relationship, we’ll never know. What remains most puzzling is that Newt Gingrich has had a kinkier (and way more active!) sex life in the past fifteen years than the revered, Chris Meyer. (Ed. note: Unfortunately, this is likely true, unlike the rest of this paragraph!)
On Thursday January 20th, three minutes after the Marshmallow Man received an endorsement from Texas ditz, Rick Perry, details of his desire for an open relationship were divulged. Later in the day, Rick Santorum was announced the winner of Iowa. Later in the evening, Newt unleashed his inner Jeffrey Dahmer and ate John King alive for asking about his “open relationship” as the first question of CNN’s debate. What a fucked up day.
So that’s where we are now. Newt has “newt-mentum” (even though he wants to endlessly bang as many chicks as possible, and it should be noted that we do not condemn such behavior at Festung Europa), Mitt is being bashed for making a fuckload of money by the money grubbers of the Republican party, Santorum evidently won Iowa (no one gives a fuck now), and Ron Paul is polling in double digits in South Carolina despite saying that he would not have ordered the military to blow of Osama’s head.
Nate Silver of 538 predicts that Newt will garner 39% of the vote, while Mitt will receive 29% of the vote. Nate’s model is very aggressive in weighting the most recent polls. RealClearPolitics is estimating that Newt will win by five points. I think this is closer to my prediction, so I will go with Newt 37, Mitt 31.
7:33 PM EST: Fox, ABC, and NBC are already calling the race for Newt!! Fuck yeah! What an amazing, late birthday present. The Republican Party is a group of nasty, greedy, sub-Neanderthal retards and tonight, again, they are proving it. The Republican Party is fucked. While a few days ago, it appeared that the Republicans would “luck” out and nominate their most moderate candidate, they have self-destructed. This race is going to continue to April and maybe beyond and these fucking numbskulls, in their journey to find the wackiest, most fucked up right-winger, are killing their party’s chances of defeating an illegal immigrant from Kenya (or wait was it Indonesia, or was it Kansas??). Where does this put us in the race? Iowa -> Santorum, New Hampshire -> Romney, South Carolina -> Gingrich. Florida is up next and based on the Marshmallow Man’s strong showing in South Carolina, you have to like his odds in Florida. Gingrich should be receiving a bump from this win in South Carolina; whether it is in the polls or off of Callista’s tit, we’ll have to wait and see. I’m getting giddy with excitement with this complete implosion of the Republican Party. Time to blast some more brain cells.
Next on our tour of Fort Collins’ fine beer scene is Equinox Brewing, located in Old Town. Equinox opened around two years ago, as an off-shoot from a local homebrewing store. It has a cozy atmosphere and never features less than ten beers of their own creation to taste at their tap room. Though they have begun to bottle one beer, basically the only place to taste their beer is at the tap room or at a beer festival in Colorado. I am also the top rater of Equinox beers, so either I’m definitive source to discuss their beer (outside of their brewers) or I’m just the asshole that spends the most time there.
8:15 PM EST: Equinox is busy, as is usual for a Saturday night. There is some dude on acoustic guitar playing, so I grab a couple of half pints of beers that I hadn’t previously tasted. Music is pretty lame; the guy is signing a song about his future ex-girlfriend. Blah, blah, blah. Let’s get to the two beers that I tasted: Orbit ESB and Kepler Pale Ale.
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| Blah, blah, blah at the Equinox Brewery |
Even though Equinox frequently rotates their tap selection, Orbit ESB is usually on tap and for some unknown reason, I hadn’t previously tasted it. Orbit ESB (ESB stands for Extra Special Bitter) pours a clear, dark burnt orange appearance with a tan head. It has a toasty caramel malty, somewhat spicy, earthy hoppy aroma. As for the taste, Orbit ESB has a sweet caramel malty, toffee flavor that really could be balanced better, as this sucker seems to lack a good hop backbone.
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 10/20
Kepler Pale Ale pours a transparent, slightly darkish orange appearance with a disappearing, off white head. It has a quite dull, slightly organic/earthy hoppy, slightly toasty malty aroma and there really isn’t much going on. The flavor is sweet caramel/toasty malty, and very dull. Seriously, there isn’t much going on in this beer.
Aroma: 5/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 4/5, Overall: 8/20
These were two fairly disappointing beers, but it doesn’t spoil the fact that Republican presidential primary is now in total chaos. I get a kick out of how some of the networks called the South Carolina primary before it was even closed! I thought I had heard that networks were avoiding this kind of call, as it can affect the outcome. Whatever.
3:15 AM EST: With all of the precincts now reporting, Newt has, in fact, had a huge win. Here’s the final tally: Gingrich 40.4%, Romney 27.8%, Santorum 17.0%, Paul 13%, Cain 1.1%. Cain received such a large share despite exiting the race a month ago due to the campaign by Stephen Colbert to divert votes. As Colbert stated (and his former Super PAC), a large vote for Herman Cain would encourage him to join the presidential race. I’m sure he’ll take this as a “sign” that the people want him to run or at least keep the gag going.
This is a huge win for Newt Gingrich. Even though we haven’t seen what kind of bump he’ll receive from this win, I would imagine that polls in Florida will tighten significantly. Paul and Santorum will not drop out, which I guess isn’t a surprise, but for all intents and purposes, this is a two man race. Magic Underpants vs. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Stay tuned!
Aaron Nielsen
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