Dear South Carolina

Thank you.  

Over the past week you have brought out the true colors of the Democratic party.  Without you, the world would still be left thinking that Barack Obama just wants to hope, Hillary Clinton just wants to better America (as she chokes up with emotion conveniently a few days before the New Hampshire primary) and John Edwards just wants to help poor people.

Alright... John Edwards does just wants to help poor people, but the other two have began to shed their campaign messages of hope and happiness and have started to go at one another.  Of course, as a Republican I couldn't be happier.

The real culprit behind all of this is Hillary Clinton (or maybe her husband- I can't remember who's running).  Faced with an almost certain loss in South Carolina, the team devised a strategy to polarize the state's electorate to the point where nobody could expect a win from anyone but Obama, who gains a favorable advantage from being Black.  Their strategy for losing South Carolina is kind of like Mitt Romney's- only less laid back and meaner.  Rather than just accept a loss, they've created a reason for it.  "We're not Black," they're chiming.  Even as Bill walks the streets of Black neighborhoods, he knows that the stunt is a futile effort at coming off as gaining favor within the Palmetto state's Black community.

I was at Zion Baptist Church- one of the state's oldest Black Churches- in Columbia, South Carolina for the NAACP's MLK Gospel Service last Sunday covering the election.  A planned appearance by John Edwards is actually what brought me to the church.  As I walked around the pews looking for someone who would let me interview them, I asked one lady if she was an Edwards supporter.  "I used to be," she said, "because he was for helping the poor.  But then Barack Obama started doing well and I just have no choice but to vote for him."

Everyone who has a shred of a clue knows that Barack will carry the heavily minority state.  Bill and Hillary have just decided to exemplify that fact.

No matter, though.  Please continue ripping your party apart on the lines of who-supports-who while the Republicans quietly duke it out in Florida and then go onto Super Tuesday.  Maybe by the summer whoever gets the nomination will have alienated one portion of the party so badly that a Republican victory is but assured (even if, by a freak accident, Ron Paul were to get the nomination).

I see a trend

A few weeks ago I got a phone call from my mom.  

"I've decided," she said somewhat begrudgingly, "that you are right."

She was talking about my choice of presidential candidate: Mitt Romney.  I have been a Mitt Romney supporter since he appeared on the front of the Weekly Standard in June 2005.  Yes, I longed for him to be our commander-in-chief before he changed (no, lets go with tweaked) his views on abortion and long before he was anything close to a household name.

My mom's reasoning, she explained, was that there just wasn't anyone else with better conservative principles and a realistic shot at getting the nomination than my boy Mitt.  She had reached this conclusion while working out with her personal trainer at the gym.

So there we have two wayward Republican party faithful who had momentarily lost their way until they caught the light of Mitt Romney.  Yesterday I got a call from another Romney-convert.

My grandpa called me yesterday.  "I've had to switch," he declared.  His original candidate, Fred Thompson, had just dropped out several days prior leaving him without a candidate to latch on to.  You see, by originally supporting Thompson, he overlooked what my mom took into consideration- the issue of electability.  There just isn't any way that someone who is more wrinkly than John McCain would get the nod from the throws of the rank-and-file GOP.  So, recognizing the fact that Mitt Romney was his only choice left if he wanted to nominate a conservative in September.  

There we have it.  In just a matter of weeks I know of three people that have hopped on the Romney train.  Am I shocked?  Not really.  It is just a matter of time before the rest of the Republican party realizes that Mitt is the only conservative still in the race.  It may happen sooner than you think, given the neck-and-neck poll numbers coming out of Florida.