I’m not sure if my recovery from stomach flu was hampered or hastened by saga and pageantry of Tuesday night’s Iowa caucus. While all the pundits and political junkies swoon that it’s finally presidential caucus/primary season, almost everyone else in the country was still wondering (perhaps secretly), “What the hell is a caucus, anyway. And why the hell should I care?” (If you really do want to know how they work, check out Planned Parenthood’s training session on Tuesday!) But naturally, all anyone really wants to talk about it is who won in Iowa. Because, as Charlie Sheen explained so succinctly, it’s all about, “Winning! Duh!”

Well, let’s see. Mitt Romney won. If counting votes is how we determine how people win. He won by a big fat EIGHT votes! Eight votes!? Wow! So, the next time somebody says some glib shit about how one votes doesn’t matter… maybe this would be an interesting bit of trivia to pull out of the hat.

But, come on… is it really winning if you essentially tied with Rick Santorum?

Oh, Santorum, Santorum, Santorum. While all the liberals have been giggling into our laptops at that little Google problem you’ve been having, you came in with your sweater-vests and (practically) won the day.

Some of my liberal friends are simply rejoicing that Newt Gingrich — who went into Iowa with a strong lead — didn’t take the day. I say, I’m more scared than ever that Ass Juice, I mean, Santorum, might get a shot at being president. This is a man who has dedicated himself to hating the LGBTQ community; hating women (especially regarding abortion and birth control); hating straight people… hating pretty much every group of people who are not Rich White Guys.

If you ask me, nobody won in Iowa. (In fact, Republican voter turnout that night was only 5.4%, which just shows you that even when all of America is watching, people really take democracy for granted.)

I don’t much care for the caucus pageantry, myself. I know some of you are going to find what I’m about to say appalling: I think it’s boring. You know why? It’s a LOT of hot air about people who end up not being involved in the serious debates… once we get to them. It’s mindless noodling. It’s a time-filler until we get on with it already. We never had a President Tom Harkin, who beat Bill Clinton in Iowa in 1992. Mike Huckabee, Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, or Dick Gephardt — none of them became president either. In fact, some Iowa winners didn’t even go on to get the party nomination!

But the reason why we care what happens, of course, is that some of the ideas that are advanced by these candidates are newsworthy… even scary. Look at this year’s bumper crop of nut-jobs: Romney, Santorum, Perry, Gingrich, Paul, even Bachmann (who’s since dropped out)… these are scary, scary conservatives who are trying to win by one-upping each other on the Ultra Conservative Index. There’s nobody in that mix — not one single Republican candidate — who I can look at and say, “Well, even if I disagree with their politics, at least they have a brain.” Nope. I can’t even say that.

The whole lot is scary. But perhaps nothing is scarier than Ass Juice.

But maybe it’s like Dan Savage said earlier this week about the Republican Party, “They want to make government so small they can insert it into your vagina so they can have a little congressman to say what you can do with your body.”

And that’s what scares me the most.