If Vladimir Putin ran for the US Senate – would he win? (Given some of the crowd-rousing comments at CPAC this year, it seems he would.)
Put Putin on a ballot in a red state and imagine the commercial: he’s a gun-toting, war-digging, bear-hunting, fish-catching, socially conservative law-pushing man of the far right. Putin is the Tea Party darling – it’s only because he happens to be an ex-KGB Russian – rather than an American Southern – that his face isn’t on countless Tea Party t-shirts.
In the Tea Party universe where irony has walked out the door and moved to Cuba with facts packed in its suitcase, I’d bet 500 words that Putin would win an election if put on a ballot in a Tea Party dominant state. Granted, you’d have to take get rid of the Russian accent, but if he were exactly the same man, but born in West Texas or Wyoming… the rabid far right wing would eat up his political stances and style, and usher him into office with a rallying cry of social conservative joy.
Like Ted Cruise, they’d probably even overlook his citizenship so long as he keeps bashing Obama on a regular basis. What better political bully than Putin? They’d love him. I’d even pay to watch Putin read Green Eggs and Ham in a fake filibuster with that sad, dog-doppelganger face of his. Putin would be a TP Rockstar. He’d have his own Two if By Tea Tumbler.
If you’re light-hearted enough to entertain the thought (or tea-party-angry enough to blame all your life’s ills on Obama) it really is clear how perfectly Putin jives with Tea Party values and style. The traditional social beliefs are the same. He defines freedom only within context of himself (the same). The theatrical photo opportunities are the same. The conception of what one does with their free time is the same …
Putin would drive NASCAR.
Putin would go bird hunting with Dick Cheney and not be scared Cheney might slip. If he were shot in the face by Buddy Cheney, Putin would grin, spit out the buckshot, leap into his armored tank, and drive back to his ranch to practice DYI fracking techniques.
Putin would have a pet bison named Boris.
Vladimir would shoot the moose from a swooping airplane – while walking on the wing and gnawing on wolf jerky – then skydive to the ground to finish the job. (Putin / Palin 2016?)
Putin and Chuck Noris would do TV ads together – “1000 years of darkness” type commercials. It would be awesome!
Vladimir is just as much an employer of war as John McCain and the hawks of the Bush years. Moreover, Putin can play dumb beyond the best that even Michele Bachmann could hope to offer (“No, no, those are not Russian troops in Crimea. No, no. nyet.”). It’s as if the KGB genetically engineered a perfect hybrid of the Tea Party Eagle and Bush Era Hawk – this bird just wraps itself in a different flag.
Indeed, if the Universe were so kind as to place more irony onto the board and insert Vladimir Putin into a Texas context, he would absolutely win an election – I don’t know what that means… but it certainly is entertaining.
… and a wee bit scary.
