The low quality of Republican candidates continues to haunt the party. Each remaining contender for the nomination is wildly weird, each more hooker than prom date.

First up, the strangely robotic Mitt Romney (R—Finance Industry). Kind of out of touch, Romney is a strong proponent of bankruptcy, layoffs, and the joys of firing people. To his credit, he’s the only potential nominee not owned by single rich guy. Of course, he is one.

But to evangelicals, Mitt is a devil-worshipping Mormon. Hence the public code language. When they say “he’s not a true conservative” they mean “he’s not a Christian.” In speaking to the New York Times, the Reverend R. Philip Roberts, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (until last week,) put it this way:

“The concern among evangelicals is that the Mormon Church will use his position around the world as a calling card for legitimizing their church and proselytizing people.”

The evangelical dilemma: do I vote for a Mormon because he can beat the Black Muslim? Both get their benefits package from the Devil right? One can just imagine how that conundrum bounces around and around in the mind.

If that wasn’t enough, Mormons also believe God’s has a wife, who they call the Holy Mother. And they baptize dead Jews. No kidding. Newsweek asked Mitt if he had baptized any dead Jews. Sure he said, but not lately.

So it is no surprise that a Gallup poll found one in five Americans simply won’t vote for a Mormon. One can imagine that’s mostly the in league with the Devil thing, but for at least some of them, the baptizing dead Jews thing probably accounts for some of it.

Then there is Rick Santorum (R—Dirty Industrials) He’s everything an evangelical could want. Except that he is a Papist. You may not know what that quaint, archaic word means. But in evangelical Christianity (like in the Church of England in the 1700s) “Papist” is used as a derogatory term for people who worship false gods (specifically the Pope, all those saints, and the Virgin Mary.)

That said it is fair to say that evangelical Protestants are OK with Santorum’s Bible-dominated plan for U.S. government. Santorum recently said that the French Revolution was a failure because it focused on “fraternity” rather than “paternity” – paternity meaning God, not your dad.

Still, nearly all conservative women use birth control and Santorum is on record being against family planning because – and I’m not kidding – sex is not supposed to be fun. The anti-sex constituency, though, is very, very small. Women voters of all kinds are divided into two groups, those that enjoy sex and those that wish the sex was better. Men are divided into those that enjoy sex and those that enjoy sex but wish they were better at it.

Santorum now believes he can extricate himself from this problem by claiming his birth control views are personal and that he would never enforce them on others. But this ignores the possibility that most Americans believe anyone who opposes sex being fun is, well, is kind of a moron. Nobody wants a moron in the White House.

There is not much left to say about Newt Gingrich (R—Vegas Casinos.) He still has an outside chance but Gingrich was falling off the radar until his casino mogul benfactor gave him another round of money. He was able to compete up to now only because Adelson's largess. Shelly is saying privately that he’s now funding Gingrich in order to hurt Santorum. One of America’s preeminent Zionists, Adelson is apparently OK with the whole baptizing dead Jews thing.

In the end, Gingrich’s narrative has been written for him. He is pursuing a personal vendetta against Romney, it goes. And this personal-grudge campaign has clearly worn out its welcome.

The more we get to know these guys, the more they come up short. I guess that’s why independent voters have shifted to President Obama by 17 points since January.

Art courtesy of DonkeyHotey