A slip of the tongue can sometimes make or break an election. This year's crop of candidates may be close to breaking the record as they suffer from severe cases of foot in mouth disease--a condition not covered by Obama's health care reform plan.
Although no longer a contender, Rick Santorum accused President Obama of wanting more young adults to attend college so that they could undergo “indoctrination” into a secular worldview. “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills,” Santorum told conservative television host Glenn Beck.
Every presidential campaign, Republican or Democrat, has had its share of bizarre moments, miscalculation and misspeak over the years. But the 2012 election season seems in a class by itself. Even President Obama has flubbed a few.
Was that Microphone Live?
While talking with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Obama thought the mic was off. He told Medvedev, "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility." At least he didn't take a page out of his Vice President's book and use the "F" word. At a campaign stop in Oregon, Obama said, "Over the last 15 months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states and have one left to go."
Baby, You Can Drive My … Cadillacs?
Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP candidate who said the auto bailout was a mistake, spoke to about 1,000 businessmen assembled on the 30-yard line of the otherwise empty Detroit Ford Field.
First, he reprised his much-hooted observation that in his home state, “the trees are the right height” and “the streets are just right.” The fantastically wealthy former Bain Capital executive – already under fire for a seeming lack of sensitivity toward the poor and the common – then went on to tell the Motor City crowd that while he drove “a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck,” his wife, Ann, “drives a couple of Cadillacs.”
At least her cars were made in the U.S..
Fly Me to the Moon
Throughout the campaign former House speaker Newt Gingrich has been touting his lavish dreams of a lunar colony to take advantage of the moon’s mineral resources. He especially pushed the notion while campaigning in Florida, near the Kennedy Space Center. “By the end of my second term,” he proclaimed, “we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.” By 2020, he added, there will be regular flights to Mars.
Gingrich also predicted last year what the future might look like for his grandchildren if liberals ran the country. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America,” he said, “by the time they’re my age, they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”
High-Flying Politicians?
Not to be outdone, the libertarian Ron Paul, said, “It’s time to treat all drugs the way we treat alcohol and cigarettes, substances that kill millions more than hard drugs do. The drug war allows drug lords to make a lot more money than legalized drugs ever would.”
