Politics

Hey Media: Stop Pretending The Primary Race Is Hilarious

Judging by some of the forced news items on goofy things that have happened on the campaign trail, you’d think the GOP primary race is an award-winning comedy. Many of the candidates have earned their place in “Saturday Night Live” sketches, but here’s the issue with this overload of silliness: The primaries are not funny, they’re actually pretty dull and depressing — even Barbara Bush agrees with that last part — so pretending this has any humor value is as naive as  thinking your 3 a.m. booty call is actually in love with you. Okay, the Romney Slim Shady video mash-up was clever, but as they say in that awful movie He’s Just Not That Into You, “they’re the exception, and we’re not the exception, we’re the rule.”

To display the amount of humorlessness in this election, we’ve compiled a list of news stories on goofy aspects of the primaries that simply couldn’t manage to make us ROFL. While we’ve reported on some of these stories ourselves, we never saw the primaries for anything other than what it is: Tame compared to the 2008 election, which had former Alaska governor Sarah Palin saying odd things left and right and changing the entire political dynamic of “SNL” and the country as a whole. That, and the 2000 election, was entertaining, but not this. Come on, guys, raise your standards.

Earlier this week, Rick Santorum played with an Etch-a-Sketch. Unless he chucked it at one of his opponents in a rage as a little kid would do or is secretly a gifted Etch-a-Sketch artist, I don’t understand why we’re supposed to be amused by this tidbit. It’s a nod at Romney’s adviser’s Etch-a-Sketch comment, but a charade more than anything else.

Santorum’s signature sweater vest, which inexplicably became a hot news item earlier this year, is faring well on the market. The campaign has sold 3,000 sweater vests. Epic LOL, right?

Someone with the maturity level of a 14-year-old male created a Tumblr site called Santorum-san that specializes in publishing photos of Santorum looking like a glittery Japanese girl. This is the kind of nonsense I pulled on boys I liked…in first grade. Not only is the blog childish, but wildly offensive.

Last week, a shirtless photo surfaced of Santorum sunbathing in Puerto Rico. The story went viral on the Internets for reasons unbeknownst to us, but to those who criticized his less-than-chiseled body: Did you really expect him to mirror Channing Tatum?

During St. Patty’s Day weekend, Massachusetts Senate candidate Scott Brown worked his comedian muscles by saying Santorum’s secret service addition is “the first time he’s actually ever used protection.” Can you tell me that again, Senator? I’ve needed a good laugh for quite some time and know nothing else will do the trick.

Young southern belles love hugging Romney. Everybody, point and laugh about their schoolgirl crushes!

Romney likes grits and has discovered the word y’all. After 65 years on earth, it was about time.

Romney stars in a parody of “The Artist.” The only worthwhile part is when the adorable Jack Russell Terrier buries his head in embarrassment.

Alec Brownstein creates Mitt-Flops. Get it? Because Romney is a flip flopper?

TAGS: mitt romney | newt gingrich | rick santorum

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