The PJ Tatler
The No Exit Primary
Sorry I didn’t get this in sooner, but Jean-Paul Sartre was calling me from beyond the grave. He dialed me up to say that he’s rewriting No Exit so that Hell is actually this primary season. It features a “front runner” who’s the least conservative candidate since Nixon, the least electable since Goldwater, and the least qualified since, well, Obama. He competes with two other underfunded conservative candidates who split the vote and make it impossible for the grassroots to consolidate around someone who doesn’t remind them of Charlie Crist. There’s also a weird little fellow in the back with a wacky laugh who goes on and on about the gold standard, non-interventionism, and fighting the system while he does everything he can to help the establishment candidate win. It’s a little more warped than the original, but it does have the advantage of being realistic, even if no one would have believed it before this year. It’s also running way, way too long and unless there are some plot rewrites to get rid of one of the characters, the audience may be too bored and discouraged to make it to the end of the showing.
On Romney’s Florida Win
Mitt Romney has proven that he’s the most electable candidate in Florida — well, as long as he has a 5-to-1 money advantage, much of the conservative press shilling for him relentlessly, and three people splitting the vote against him. That being said, Florida will give him momentum, there are no scheduled debates for February, and the primary schedule works to his advantage because he’s likely to do well in states like Nevada (heavy Mormon population) and Michigan (his father was the governor there). Whether Santorum and Gingrich will have the money to continue to effectively compete or whether the conservative base will move towards Mitt to put an end to a damaging primary fight is still an open question. Still, there is many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip, so hopefully the other candidates will stay in, fight like hell, and try to spare us the least conservative GOP nominee since Nixon.



