This weekend, Republicans in Maine held their presidential caucus, and the winner was Mitt Romney, with an avalanche of 2,190 total votes.
To put that in perspective, more frat guys will be forced by their houses to take a break from hazing and vote for the Unite Party next week than Republicans in an entire state voted for Romney. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
But then again, should anyone be surprised by the lack of excitement toward the conservative movement in this country? By its very nature, it is a negative ideology: Conservatives do not support anything, they only oppose things. And in times like we live in today, no one is in the mood for a party with no real ideas.
If you don't believe me, look at the positions held by the Republican candidates this year: repeal health care reform, undo labor protections, get rid of social programs, remove regulations on business, make birth control illegal, etc. By definition, conservatives are in the business of focusing backwards. That might be a joke about Rick Santorum, but it's so easy, who can even tell anymore?
Even Ron Paul, the candidate who is supposed to be "different", wants to return us to the glory days when restaurants didn't have to serve black people. I guess it might qualify as a new idea, but he doesn't even have a problem with individual states establishing their own official religions, as long as the federal government doesn't. However, that might qualify as an Articles of Confederation-type idea, so maybe he just wants to go back further than anyone.
We're seeing the consequences of this opposition mentality already. Apparently the one thing Speaker of the House John Boehner doesn't tear up about is the fact that the Republican-controlled House doesn't have a single major legislative accomplishment to its name yet. Likewise, Senate Republicans keep breaking records for the number of filibusters made by a minority party.
Oppose, oppose, oppose. It's almost like there aren't problems in the country that need tending to. Although, for the candidates themselves, I suppose it's possible that they just don't realize the state of the economy. Mitt Romney is famously wealthy, with a net-worth in the neighborhood of $200 million. Gingrich is worth about $7 million, Ron Paul around $3 million and Rick Santorum is the pauper of the remaining candidates, just barely cracking millionaire status, thanks in large part to a short stint as a "contributor" to Fox News. And all of them have seen their net worth substantially increase in recent years.
When you think about it, though, the median Republican primary voter is whiter, older and (much) richer than the average person in this country, so even if Romney is aware of the problems of the nation, why would he care? His base doesn't want to change to meet the 21st century. It wants to change to meet the 19th century, when their employees couldn't strike, black people couldn't vote and children were paid to work in mines instead of going to school.
That's not a joke. Relaxing child labor laws is actually a campaign issue for Republicans this year. Apparently it's more important to worry about the jobs of children than the jobs of adults when the unemployment rate is at 8.5 percent.
Which brings me around to my original point: Is it any surprise that fewer than 6,000 out of the more than 250,000 registered Republicans in Maine turned out to caucus on Saturday? That's likely the number of people in the state who could tell the difference between a candidate who wants to vigorously defend the wealthy and privileged from change and a candidate who only wants to strenuously defend them from change.
That's right: The only people who have a reason to vote Republican today are wealthy and privileged themselves, and that's not going to change any time soon. One look at a membership photo of the UF College Republicans seems to confirm this.
Matt Schneider is a physics senior at UF.
