Uh oh! Shelly let her batshit get out of control and now it might be about to backfire.

Courtesy of NPR:

Even as Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann backs off some from an inflammatory claim that a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer led to mental retardation in a young girl, two bioethicists are turning up the heat. 

Yes, the leading group of pediatricians in this country slammed Bachmann and said "there is absolutely no scientific validity" to statements that the vaccine against human papilloma virus is dangerous or causes retardation. 

And the Minnesota Republican has conceded she's not a medical professional, saying in a radio interview: "I am not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a physician. All I was doing is reporting what this woman told me last night at the debate." 

But Dr. Steven Miles, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, has ponied up $1,000 if the mother Bachmann talked about can produce medical proof that her daughter suffered mental retardation from the HPV vaccine, the Star Tribune reports. "These types of messages in this climate have the capacity to do enormous public health harm," Miles told the paper. "It's an extremely serious claim and it deserves to be analyzed." 

And Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania has placed what amounts to a $10,000 bet on the issue. 

I think that we can safely assume that there will be no VP slot open for Bachmann when Mitt Romney finally gets the nomination. I don't think the GOP is ever going to allow anybody to get that spot without much MORE stringent vetting than a certain Alaska politician was subjected to.

And for all intents and purposes we are watching that vetting play out right before our eyes.

I don't know about you, but I find it pretty entertaining!

Michele Bachmann wrote a book. Yeah I know, surprised me too!

Well there is really no big story.  After all EVERYBODY who wants to be President seems to write book these days.

However I think the title needs some work.

How about, "Bored of Superstition?"

Or, "Whore of Perdition?"

Or, "Eyesore of Ambition?'

Or, "Boudoir of the Mortician?"

Just trying to help.

Nice try Marcus, but we STILL don't buy it.

What is wrong with this woman? This is the corndog incident all over again.

Doesn't she know that people are taking pictures of her?

Image courtesy of dlisted.

It looks like Rick Perry has decided to change his image and taken a page right out of the Sarah Palin playbook.

Image courtesy of DC Decoder.

Well I guess he knows he has the batshit necessary to attract the Teabaggers down pat, so all he felt he needed was a little of that Michele Bachmann good hair mojo.

He is not the first to realize that ole crazy eyes might possibly have Bagger attracting follicles.

Lawrence O'Donnell reports on the Republican debate that devolved into a circular firing squad, with Rick Perry right in the middle.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Can I just mention how much good it does my heart to watch the Republicans beating each other up?

I wish I could start EVERY morning with something like this.

Sarah Palin trots out new serious political pundit image, as illustated by her new serious political pundit wig.

To watch the video just click the picture. Warning, it does take you to a Fox News site so take your Maalox first.

According to Klondike Kardashian now that CNN has hosted this "Tea Party" debate they have moved from "Lamestream" media to the Teabagger ass kissing media, which greatly pleases this insignificant political prick teaser. Good job CNN!

Palin has a favorite new term that she just learned, "Crony Capatalism," which she uses repeatedly during this interview to essentially smear the whole group of GOP candidates at one time or another.

However she really brings out the long knives when Greta mentions Rick Perry, the HPV vaccine, and the suggestion that the reason he went with the program was due to possible payoff from the manufacturer of the drug. Here Palin goes for the jugular and starts throwing charges of, her new favorite term that she just learned about, "Crony Capitalism" all over the place like a Ninja star.

She even compares Perry's decision to make the vaccination semi-mandatory to HER decision, around the same time, to NOT go with the program.  Essentially creating as much space between Rick Perry's policies and hers as possible, which is a complete turnaround to how she described "Governor Good Hair" only  few short months ago. You know BEFORE he threw his Texas sized hat into the ring and rustled all of her Teabagger support away from her.

At the end of this interview Greta asks the question that she is apparently contractually obligated to ask concerning whether or not Palin is still considering throwing her wig hat into the ring to run for President? I almost feel sorry for Greta who appears to be very tired of this dog and pony show, but Palin leaps on the question like a feral Wasillian and implies that she LOVES the fact that by staying out she can still influence the subjects that the OTHER candidates take on, including her favorite new term she just learned about, "Crony Capitalism."

This interview was just as bizarre and full of misinformation, attacks on our President, and barbs thrown at her own party as usual, the only REAL news seems to be that she is now blatantly, and aggressively, attacking Rick Perry, which seems to suggest that the sources who have said she is angry with him for very personal reasons are probably dead on.

Oh and of course the OTHER news from this interview is that whatever was on Palin's head from her LAST interview has clearly escaped and is undoubtedly still at large in the greater Wasilla area.

Residents should remain vigilant!

Bill Maher on Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and the President's speech.

(Don't worry this is the Tonight Show so Bill kept it clean.)(H/T to Politicususa.)

Just for laughs. The Republican candidate flow chart.

Sometimes you have to just laugh at the GOP circus as it rolls into town.

Of course later there will be those huge piles of elephant shit that somebody needs to shovel off of the streets, but for right now we can just enjoy the show.

Did you see Michele Bachmann's rebuttal of President Obama's speech? Well you are not alone.

I don't know why everyone keeps saying that she is finished as a candidate.

I mean she can still draw a crowd.

A dozen people IS considered a crowd, right?

Just in case you missed it, here is the ENTIRE Republican debate from earlier tonight. With a side order of tweets!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I have to say that I actually had fun watching this.

I really like watching Republicans go for each others jugular.

I tweeted my fingers to the bone during this debate, so rather than write up a whole long post concerning my opinion about who won, who lost, and who said the stupidest thing, I will just let you read my highly informative, truly inspired, and potentially libelous tweets. (And remember, I MAY have been drinking during the debate.)

Perry is talking. I am pinching myself to remind me I am not having a nightmare about George W. Bush. 

Matthews should be happy. Romney is trying to kick Perry in the balls. He is missing, but he is trying. 

Okay Romney landed one. Does Perry believe he is responsible for the oil in the ground in Texas?

Wait is that Santorum? Here let me Google him to make sure. 

Herman Cain is going for the applause lines. Why do I crave deep dish pizza all of the sudden? 

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! It is "Crazy time with Bachmann!" I LOVE this show! 

Is she blaming the economy on "Obamacare?" Uh seriously?(Which by the way does not even start to kick in until 2013.)

Well who could possibly out crazy Bachmann? Mr. Paul, you are up. 

Oh Brian Williams is going to get some nasty e-mails tonight! How dare he confront the leprechaun of Libertarianism. 

Uh oh, I think Newt is working for the Perry campaign! 

Perry smells Romney blood in the water. "Did somebody say healthcare?" he drawls. 

Let's sum up Romney's defense. "MY healthcare plan good. Obama healthcare plan bad!" 

"Why are people uninsured in Texas?" Perry "Federal government." WTF? 

I think Bachamnn just said something smart. I am looking out of the window for locusts and fiery rain. 

Newt is attacking the moderators! Quick load up the tranquilizer guns! (Yelled at Brain Williams and that Politco guy to not attempt to make Republicans disagree with each other. I am not sure that Newt understands the concept of a "debate.")

The journalists are "protecting" Barack Obama? When did that happen? 

Santorum is speaking in the third person again. 

Holy crap! Rick Perry just looked through my television at me. Yeah, I don't like that! 

Romney will not say that Bachmann crazy. Pansy! 

Paul just kicked Perry in his "Hillarycare" supporting balls. 

Ron Paul just jumped the shark with his condemnation of Reagan policies in the eighties. I guess he was ALWAYS on that side of the shark. 

Yeah Rick Perry, why do you hate old people? (Called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme.")

Perry attacks Karl Rove? Ooh that is going to leave a mark! 

Romney found chink in the Perry armor. 

Oh NOW Perry does not want to fight. Yeah, that is how bullies ALWAYS respond. 

Herman Cain is talking about the Chile model. Why is that man always making me hungry? 

Funniest line thus far. Ron Paul saying "I as President." 

I think I have to agree with Perry about the HPV vaccine. I hate myself for it, but I do. 

Romney is supporting Perry on the HPV vaccine. Crap I hate it when they stop fighting! 

Why is Newt talking about WMDs again? Somebody get the man a calendar. 

Paul hates people affected by natural disasters. What did people do before FEMA? They died. 

Huntsman wants to talk about something important. And his tan is VERY Presidential. He wins points with me. 

Newt offers solution to education. "Get rid of public education!" So simple, why didn't anybody else think of that? 

Hey! How come the Hispanic moderator does not get a chair? 

Romney wants a border fence. That is just for YOU Teabaggers. Romney loves you, don't forget. 

Wow, Romney just went full Teabagger! 

Santorum punts the immigration issue concerning the illegals already in the country. 

Hispanics wants us to stop helping illegal aliens? "Screw you Uncle Jesus, get your green card!" (Bachmann claimed to have spoken to Hispanics who did not want Federal dollars spent on illegal immigrants in this country.)

Wow everything is so simple for Herman Cain. He is either a genius, or Herman Cain. 

Paul going after the drug laws. The stoner voting block is his for the asking. 

Ron Paul said that those border fences might keep us from vacationing in Peurto Vallarta. I KNEW those fences weren't for the Mexicans! (Ron Paul had said the border fences are to keep Americans in.)

Romney says he IS member of Tea Party. Baggers say "Nuh uh!" 

Bachmann is trying to channel Reagan. Nancy looks doubtful. 

Huntsman says no to pledges and immediately starts to lose his voice. Somewhere Grover Nordquist is choking a voodoo doll. 

Bachmann: "Obama is weakening our military." Yes because killing terrorists makes the rest of the world think we are push overs. 

Huntsman defends science? I thought he was a Republican? 

Perry grabbed the scientists by the scruff of the neck and throws them under his big ole Texas bus. Now that is a Republican!  (In response to Perry saying that the findings on climate science are not agreed to by most scientists.)


(I did correct a few spelling mistakes, but for the most part those are my tweets as tweeted in the heat of the moment.)

Teabaggers FINALLY realize that Sarah Palin has just been using them. Everybody else on the planet goes "Duh!"

From The Hill:

Wary that some are joining the grassroots conservative movement merely to sell books and enhance their celebrity status, a Tea Party group is putting the heat on former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to make her presidential plans clear.In a Tuesday statement, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots paints former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the prime example of that kind of behavior. 

The group, which consists of former military members, wants Palin to announce whether she will seek the White House or sit out the 2012 race. 

“If not we are at risk of having major Tea Party speeches and events used as political rallies for a selected candidate [versus] a citizen based movement that forces the legislative agenda and serves as a fundamental check to the current corrupt culture in Washington, D.C.,” the group said in the statement. 

In other news Teabaggers also just realized that the sky is blue, water is wet, and that people they see on television are NOT actually living inside of their television.

The bad news for the Teabaggers is that EVERYBODY has been using them all along, including the Koch brothers, Fox News, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Jim Demint, and probably every person whoever realized that they might be a group consisting of possibly most gullible people on the planet.

I don't expect much to come from this epiphany.  All Palin has to do is strap on the "Belmont boobs" and these morons will start throwing dollar bills at her feet like drunk horny members of a bachelor party hoping against hope that THIS time she will take them into the champagne room, and make all of their dreams come true...which in this case means announcing she will run for President.

As if you needed ANOTHER reason to keep Michele Bachmann out of the White House!

Courtesy of CNN:

Painting herself as a "constitutional conservative" Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint's forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things."Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments," she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.

So there you go voters, a vote for Michele Bachmann is a vote against providing your children with the same access to a free public education that you took for granted as citizens of the "greatest country on earth".  Try competing with China with a nation full of chronically undereducated video game addicts.

In a completely unrelated story, by no means connected to his candidate trotting out her bucket of batshit for all of America to see, Bachmann campaign manger Ed Rollins got a note from his doctor excusing him from having to work for her campaign: 

Ed Rollins is going to be stepping back from day-to-day management of the Michele Bachmann campaign, and moving into a senior advisory role, he said in an interview. 

Rollins said the reason for the change is personal — his health and the rigors of a campaign. 

“I wish I was 40 years old, but I’m not,” he told POLITICO. “I’m 68 years old, I had a stroke a year and a half ago. I’m worn out.”

Yeah I don't blame him.

I have only listened to her speak a handful of times and I am pretty "worn out" too.

Defining Dominionism.

Courtesy of AlterNet:

Dominionism is a broad political impulse within the Christian Right in the United States. It comes in a variety of forms that author Fred Clarkson and I call soft and hard. Fred and I probably coined the term “Dominionism” back in the 1990s, but in any case we certainly were the primary researchers who organized its use among journalists and scholars. 

Clarkson noted three characteristics that bridge both the hard and the soft kind of Dominionism. 

1. Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe the United States once was, and should again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy. 
2. Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity. 
3. Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, believing that the Ten Commandments, or “biblical law,” should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles. 

At the apex of hard Dominionism is the religious dogma of Dominion Theology, with two major branches: Christian Reconstructionism and Kingdom Now theology. It is the latter’s influence on the theopolitical movement called the New Apostolic Reformation that has been linked in published reports to potential Republican presidential nominees Perry, Bachmann or Palin. All three of these right-wing political debutantes have flirted with Christian Right Dominionism, but how far they have danced toward the influence of hard-right Dominion Theology is in dispute. It would be nice if some “mainstream” journalists actually researched the question. 

“While differing from Reconstructionism in many ways, Kingdom Now shares the belief that Christians have a mandate to take dominion over every area of life,” explains religion scholar Bruce Barron. And it is just this tendency that has spread through evangelical Protestantism, resulting in the emergence of “various brands of ‘dominionist’ thinkers in contemporary American evangelicalism,” according to Barron. 

The most militant Dominion Theologists would silence dissenters and execute adulterers, homosexuals and recalcitrant children. No…seriously. OK, they would only be executed for repeated offenses, explain some defenders of Christian Reconstructionism. Even most Christian Right activists view the more militant Dominion Theologists as having really creepy ideas. 

Much of the controversy over the issue of Dominionism is caused by writers who use the term carelessly, often conflating the broad term Dominionism with the narrow term Dominion Theology. Some on the Left have implied that every conservative Christian evangelical is part of the Christian Right political movement; and that everyone in the Christian Right is an active Dominionist. This is false. Some critics even state that the Christian Right is neofascist. Few serious scholars of fascism agree with that assessment, although several admit that if triggered by a traumatic societal event, any contemporary right-wing populist movement could descend into neofascism.

There is more to this very informative article and I strongly urge you to read the entire thing.

And then when you are finished imagine what having a disciple of this particular militant brand of Christianity, such as Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, or Rick Perry, in the White House might mean for this country.

And you wonder why I never sleep.

Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" includes Michele Bachmann and the Pima County Republicans.

Who Doomed Sarah Palin's Presidential Dream?

So what, or who, is REALLY to blame for the demise of Sarah Palin's Presidential aspirations? Benjy Sarlin of Talking Points Memo thinks he has the answer.

Alaska 

The launching pad for Palin's political career may have proved its undoing as well. Her abrupt exit from the governor's office in 2009 freed her up to make million < s as a speaker, author, and general celebrity, but all but destroyed any hopes of building up a credible resume for a presidential run. 

The Establishment GOP 

Palin relishes her role as an outsider, going back to her days battling the "old boys' network" of entrenched Republican officials in Alaska. Her willingness to buck party leaders dovetailed nicely with the rise of the insurgent Tea Party, but earned her the enmity of establishment Republican figures like Karl Rove, who has questioned her electability at every turn. 

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann 

One reason polls don't show a groundswell of support for a Palin run is that other candidates have already taken over her obvious territory. If you want a hardcore religious right leader running on her personal family values while horrifying establishment Republicans, Michele Bachmann is happy to accommodate your needs. If you're looking for a red-state governor with solid conservative credentials running on anti-elitist resentment, Rick Perry is ready and waiting. 

Women 

Palin's entrance on the national stage was heralded as an opportunity for the GOP to reach out to female voters, who traditionally lean Democrat in presidential elections. Instead, women have proven a weak spot for Palin. John McCain learned this the hard way in 2008 after his VP pick disproportionately turned off female voters despite a focused effort to pick up disaffected Hillary Clinton voters. 

Sarah Palin 

Ultimately, Palin has been her own worst enemy. Over and over she's made costly unforced errors that have solidified her critics' worst impressions of her while alienating potential supporters. The most disastrous -- and illustrative -- recent example was her response to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona. Under intense scrutiny for her use of violent political imagery, Palin actually began to garner some public sympathy from unexpected corners as it became clear the alleged killer was motivated more by a deranged worldview than any coherent cause. But she instantly squandered it by releasing a tone-deaf video condemning a "blood libel" against her that only appeared more inappropriate after Obama delivered a moving speech focused on the individual shooting victims' biographies later the same day. Palin's popularity plummeted to new lows in the aftermath, but the episode did little more than confirm the already entrenched image of the ex-governor as a thin-skinned, rash, and divisive figure. 

I have to say I agree with much of waht Mr. Sarlin points out here. Especially that last part.

However I would also add that it is also very possible that Sarah Palin NEVER seriously considered a run for the Presidency, or at least changed her mind early on after considering the unavoidable embarrassments she would face, and that all of this has just been one long drawn out con game directed at her under educated supporters.

Whatever the reason I think we can rest assured that Palin has no REAL plan to launch a campaign, and if she absolutely believes she has to at least fake one, it will undoubtedly be the shortest campaign in American political history.

New York Times editor compares religious belief to belief that space aliens live among us, and suggests that candidates for President should explain their faith.

Oh I LIKE this guy!

Courtesy of Bill Keller of the NYT:

If a candidate for president said he believed that space aliens dwell among us, would that affect your willingness to vote for him? Personally, I might not disqualify him out of hand; one out of three Americans believe we have had Visitors and, hey, who knows? But I would certainly want to ask a few questions. Like, where does he get his information? Does he talk to the aliens? Do they have an economic plan?This year’s Republican primary season offers us an important opportunity to confront our scruples about the privacy of faith in public life — and to get over them. We have an unusually large number of candidates, including putative front-runners, who belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans. Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are Mormons, a faith that many conservative Christians have been taught is a “cult” and that many others think is just weird. (Huntsman says he is not “overly religious.”) Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are both affiliated with fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity — and Rick Santorum comes out of the most conservative wing of Catholicism — which has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction. 

I honestly don’t care if Mitt Romney wears Mormon undergarments beneath his Gap skinny jeans, or if he believes that the stories of ancient American prophets were engraved on gold tablets and buried in upstate New York, or that Mormonism’s founding prophet practiced polygamy (which was disavowed by the church in 1890). Every faith has its baggage, and every faith holds beliefs that will seem bizarre to outsiders. I grew up believing that a priest could turn a bread wafer into the actual flesh of Christ. 

But I do want to know if a candidate places fealty to the Bible, the Book of Mormon (the text, not the Broadway musical) or some other authority higher than the Constitution and laws of this country. It matters to me whether a president respects serious science and verifiable history — in short, belongs to what an official in a previous administration once scornfully described as “the reality-based community.” I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises. 

I am sorry but there should not even be any debate about this.  Of COURSE we should know what kind of beliefs might inform the decision making of potentially the most powerful person in the world.

Look at Rick Perry for example.  The man has said numerous times that he would leave the more difficult problems facing his state, and our country, "in God's hands." Is that really the guy we want to have at the helm tasked with steering this great country through the troubles which lie just over the horizon?

Here are the questions that Keller sent to the candidates:

1. Is it fair to question presidential candidates about details of their faith? 
2. Is it fair to question candidates about controversial remarks made by their pastors, mentors, close associates or thinkers whose books they recommend? 
3. (a) Do you agree with those religious leaders who say that America is a “Christian nation” or “Judeo-Christian nation?” (b) What does that mean in practice? 
4. If you encounter a conflict between your faith and the Constitution and laws of the United States, how would you resolve it? Has that happened, in your experience? 
5. (a) Would you have any hesitation about appointing a Muslim to the federal bench? (b) What about an atheist? 
6. Are Mormons Christians, in your view? Should the fact that Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are Mormons influence how we think of them as candidates? 
7. What do you think of the evangelical Christian movement known as Dominionism and the idea that Christians, and only Christians, should hold dominion over the secular institutions of the earth? 
8. (a) What is your attitude toward the theory of evolution? (b) Do you believe it should be taught in public schools? 
9. Do you believe it is proper for teachers to lead students in prayer in public schools?

I don't know about all of you but I would LOVE to hear the answers to these questions, ESPECIALLY from Bachmann and Perry, and of course Palin if she were ignorant enough to throw her hat into the ring.

Already the recent journalistic focus on Dominionism has started to freak the Evangelicals out a little, as evidenced by this complete denial of its existence by disgraced "Right Hand of God" Ralph Reed.

Hey, in my opinion if they are really secure in their faith, and proud of their religious convictions, they should be proud to discuss them in the public forum.

I mean it's not like they have something to hide, right?

While discussing the top GOP candidates, Jack Cafferty wants to know "Why does America seem allergic to brains?"

Okay I am having some real difficulty buying into Cafferty's assertion that Ron Paul is "talking sense," but other than that his assessment of the frontrunners is dead on.

(H/T to Mediaite.)

More fun with Photoshop.

Gee with his cranium shaped like that it kind of helps to make Perry's new nickname, P-Rick, seem even MORE appropriate.

I am just saying.

Now if you will excuse me for a moment, I have to go consume mass quantities.

(Thanks again to the creative mind of Mark.)

The GOP candidates weigh in on the fall of Qaddafi's regime in Libya. Great, they can admit they were wrong and finally give President Obama credit! Wait, what?

Now that the situation in Libya seems to have vindicated President Obama, the GOP Presidential hopefuls are left in the ticklish predicament of having to cheer the accomplishment of America's military, and NOT accidentally give Obama any of the credit.

Let's see how they did:

Rick Santorum: “Ridding the world of the likes of Gadhafi is a good thing, but this indecisive President had little to do with this triumph.” 

Mitt Romney: “The world is about to be rid of Muammar el-Qaddafi, the brutal tyrant who terrorized the Libyan people. It is my hope that Libya will now move toward a representative form of government that supports freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. As a first step, I call on this new government to arrest and extradite the mastermind behind the bombing of Pan Am 103, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, so justice can finally be done.” 

Rick Perry: “The crumbling of Muammar Ghadafi’s reign, a violent, repressive dictatorship with a history of terrorism, is cause for cautious celebration. The lasting impact of events in Libya will depend on ensuring rebel factions form a unified, civil government that guarantees personal freedoms, and builds a new relationship with the West where we are allies instead of adversaries.” 

Michele Bachmann weighed in, also refusing to credit the administration or NATO: “I opposed U.S. military involvement in Libya and I am hopeful that our intervention there is about to end. I also hope the progress of events in Libya will ultimately lead to a government that honors the rule of law, respects the people of Libya and their yearning for freedom, and one that will be a good partner to the United States and the international community.” 

You know I was trying to think what exactly ALL of the GOP candidates had in common, and now I know what it is.  They are all assholes! 

Quotes courtesy of Think Progress.

New Hampshire Straw Poll puts things back into perspective.

Courtesy of Hampton-North Hampton Patch:

Ron Paul got a great birthday present Saturday, as the 76-year-old defeated 11 other Republicans in Saturday's New Hampshire Young Republicans Straw Poll. 

Paul, a congressman from Texas, won a commanding 45 percent of the vote and bested runner-up Mitt Romney by 35 percent despite not attending the event, which was held in New Castle and also included a lobster bake. 

There were 302 ballots cast Saturday, and the full vote results are as follows, in the order the candidates were listed on the ballot: 

Jon Huntsman - 3 percent ; 
Herman Cain - 5 percent; 
Rick Perry - 8 percent; 
Fred Karger - 0 percent ; 
Paul - 45 percent; 
Mitt Romney - 10 percent; 
Thaddeus McCotter - 8 percent; 
Rick Santorum - 3 percent; 
Michele Bachmann - 5 percent; 
Buddy Roemer - 3 percent; 
Gary Johnson - 6 percent; 
and Newt Gingrich - 1 percent.

It appears that as we go farther east, Dominionism does not have quite the same cachet as it did in Iowa.

As you can see Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum barely caused a ripple.

Of course as we well know NONE of these straw polls really mean a damn thing. However I think it is worth noting whose name received too few votes to even deserve mention in BOTH contests.

It seems like the whole country is pretty much over Snowdrift Snooki, with the exception of those poor souls trapped on that rocky outcropping in the middle of the Sea O'Pee.