Dubious Honor

Introducing The Douches Of The Year: The Republican Presidential Candidates

By John Gallagher December 30, 2011 at 3:31pm
This year set new standards for douchiness, so when the Queerty edit team sat down to award the coveted 2011 Douche of the Year award, we were confronted with an embarrassment of riches (or something that rhymes with riches).There was Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, who took political ineptness to new heights during the marriage equality battle in New York State. There was Indiana state Rep. Phil Hinkle, who denied being gay even after he was caught advertising himself as a “sugga daddy” and paying an 18-year-old (male) $80 during an encounter at a motel. What about New Jersey high-school teacher Viki Knox, who wrote 36 pages of less-than-AP-English-quality rants against gay people on Facebook?
And then there’s the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer—just for being himself. But sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
While almost all of the GOP presidential candidates could qualify as Douche of the Week individually, their collective douchiness is exponentially greater. So we’ve made the Republican presidential front runners the joint winners of the inaugural Douche of the Year award.   Click through for a rundown of the Douche of the Year winners and why we picked them! Images via DonkeyHotey    

Michele Bachmann Bachmann (Rep-Alternate Universe) has had a banner year for doucheness: She suggested that gay people already have the right to marry (just not one another), made reinstating DADT part of her campaign platform and with—her husband, “I only sound gay” Marcus—made reparative therapy into a family business. Plus, no one has a richer history of sheer homophobic nuttiness than Michele. God did not look favorably on her campaign, which quickly fizzled. Lately she seems to be positioning herself to be Mitt Romney’s running mate so there’s still a chance Michele-filled 2012. (Oh boy.)  
Herman Cain What can you say about a candidate who thinks veggie pizzas are for “sissies” and that being gay is a sinful “choice”—and who acquired a reputation as a serial sexual harasser. With all that going for him, Herman Cain had to be a Republican frontrunner, at least for a little while. Cain has suspended his campaign (much as we have suspended our disbelief that he could ever be taken seriously) but we can look forward to him turning up on Fox News or the guest-lecture circuit, garnering significantly higher fees than he would otherwise have commanded.  
Newt Gingrich The disgraced ex-Speaker of the House went from rising star to falling star in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but in those brief moments when someone actually paid attention to him, he reminded us of just what a douche he’s always been. Only in Newt’s fevered imagination could the global financial meltdown have been caused by gay marriage. Of course, the man with the well-documented history of extramarital affairs is one of the biggest opponents of marriage equality and helped raise $350,000 to unseat Iowa judges who supported it. No wonder his lesbian half-sister Candace so lovingly pointed out all his flaws on the Rachel Maddow show.  
Ron Paul He may make Andrew Sullivan’s heart go aflutter, but Paul’s name was  on crudely homophobic and racist newsletters for years. There’s also the time he gave the keynote address to the John Birch Society. And, lest we forget, a former longtime aide claims he wouldn’t even shake a gay man’s hand. Yes, Paul’s hardcore libertarianism might mean he’s okay with gay marriage—but it’s also why he wants to end Social Security, abolish the Federal Reserve and gut the Food and Drug Administration. We might all be able to get married under a Paul presidency, but we’d be too poor and sick to celebrate.  

Rick Perry Thanks to his complete lack of campaign ability, Perry is more likely to be the next spokesmodel for Grecian Formula than the GOP presidential nominee. The build-up for his campaign was a come-to-Jesus-if-you’re-straight prayer rally, after all. It was quickly followed by the hiring of some really outstanding homophobes. Then he opened his mouth and turned any remaining advantages to ashes. Lately, Perry has taken to bashing gays in the military while wearing Brokeback Mountain duds, a misstep he’s probably already forgotten.  
Mitt Romney A man for whom flip-flops are a political policy and not beachwear, Romney will do and say anything to win the nomination. (And he wonders why people don’t trust him.) Romney tripped all over himself in his rush to sign NOM’s hate pledge, despite having once supported gay marriage. He managed to embarrass himself in an exchange with a gay veteran, proving that all of Romney’s personal interaction skills reside in his hair. He supports DADT (or maybe not) and has a stiff rictus grin that comes from talking out of both sides of your mouth. It’s looking increasingly like Romney will be the eventual nominee—for want of anyone else being viable,—so we can expect more appalling pandering and backflips in the coming year.  
Rick Santorum The sexual synonym has been bouncing around at the bottom of the polls, but it’s not for want of trying to leverage his homophobia for votes. Santorum insulted a gay soldier during a presidential debate, suggested using anti-LGBT rhetoric to attract Hispanic voters and opined that comparing gay marriage to heterosexual marriage was like comparing a paper towel to a napkin. (Don’t worry if you didn’t get that last one. Nobody did.) Still, he’s not getting any love from the Republican base. Apparently, fewer party members appreciate a good homosexuality=bestiality analogy than we thought.  

And the rest

Even candidates who collectively constitute “Other” in polls have done their bit to contribute to the overall douchiness of the field:

*Gone and forgotten, Tim Pawlenty‘s brief moment on the national stage largely consisted of trying to prove his manhood to the Religious Right by calling for the return of DADT. Still, before he departed the campaign trail he managed to equate climate warming with homosexuality. How douchey is that?

* Thrice-married ex-Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer would frantically backpedal after suggesting states should be able to make their own decisions about marriage equality.

*The only openly gay candidate in the field, Fred Karger showered himself with douchiness when he took to mocking Mormon religious beliefs.

Dishonorable Mentions

We are, however, sorry to tell two candidates that they didn’t make the cut for Queerty Douches of the Year: Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (at right) is hardly a raving liberal, but he has suggested that he believes that gay people might actually be human and deserving of rights like civil unions. And Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor whose candidacy you probably never heard of and probably never will hear of again, actually supports marriage equality as a matter of principle.

Needless to say both Huntsman and Johnson are so little regarded by Republican voters that, accounting for the margin of error in most polls, they might actually be running in the negative percentages.

So with all the respect and fanfare they deserve, Queerty bestows the Douche of the Year title to the frontrunners in the Republican race for presidential nominee. All of them. Given their collective performance so far, we have every confidence that whomever gets the nod from the GOP will be the frontrunner for the honor in 2012.

We just hope we don’t have to mail the award to the White House.

 

Images via DonkeyHotey

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26 Comments*

  • Tavdy79

    Needless to say both Huntsman and Johnson are so little regarded by Republican voters that, accounting for the margin of error in most polls, they might actually be running in the negative percentages.

    Actually, Johnson is so little regarded by Repug voters he’s running as a Libertarian. If he asks Huntsman to join him as his running-mate, the Repugs could find themselves the third party next November.

  • Chuck

    Great summary. Are you listening GOProuders? As Newt said, if you care about gay rights, vote for Obama.

  • QJ201

    No disagreement the (dis)honorees AT ALL.

  • Josh

    Editing would be nice, or at least use of a spellchecker. Douch is actually spelled douche and inaugeral is actually spelled inaugural, for example. Kthx.

  • Ian

    Should be interesting to see how the GOProud’ers defend this flock of GOP “presidential” candidates. Each is worse than the next.

  • David Ehrenstein

    A Confederacy of Douches.

  • Andrew B.

    Gary Johnson could be the only candidate I would support enthusiastically. Yet another election where I the least horrible shithead.

  • jeff4justice

    If we should not overlook Ron Paul’s possible racist and homophobic tendencies and associations, then should we also not overlook Obama’s acting as GWB’s 3rd term on indefinite detention, bailouts, corporate donation collections, environmental destruction, war expansion, and continuation of the drug war?

    So how about those alternative parties?

  • jeff4justice

    While congress has the lowest approval rating in history and as half of the nation is now poor, if now is not the time for alternative parties then we Americans deserve the hell we vote (or not vote) ourselves into.

    I wish the Tea Party & Occupy energy could be turned to the advancement of alternative parties.

    The media blackout (including from LGBT media) does not help.

  • max

    The GOP is the party of hate and evil. If that’s what people want then that sure says alot about people.

  • Sceth

    I don’t mind a racist president. I don’t mind a homophobic president. I do, however, mind a president whose legislative positions harm the populace, and for that I’ll take Ron Paul over Obama any day. “Too poor and sick to celebrate?” If your health depends on the government, good luck in that waiting line.

  • Jim

    @Ian: That sounds like an M.C. Escher painting.

  • Darren

    Ron Paul = Anti-War, Cut Military spending, non-interventionist.

    Obama and all the other GOP warmonger candidates = Pro-War, Increase Military spending, Start a new War against Iran as soon as possible.

  • james_from_cambridge

    @Sceth: “I don’t mind a racist president. I don’t mind a homophobic president…”

    Of course you don’t. You’re a privileged white male who thinks his race and money will protect him from his fellow anti-gay Republican Nazis. You’re a naive fool. And if you really want to live in a Libertarian paradise, try Somalia, a country with no Federal government that’s run by a small cadre of elites. Libertarianism is really working wonderfully over there. Neither Ron Paul nor any other Libertarian will EVER be elected President of the U.S of A and deep down inside you know it, because while Americans may be greedy and selfish, they’re not retarded enough to elect someone who will completely destroy the welfare State. The one thing Americans trust less than the Feds is corporations and we know with an emasculated Federal govt., we would be completely at their mercy. And that is simply unacceptable to the vast majority of us. Deal with it Paultard!

  • WillBFair

    @David Ehrenstein: You had to go literary.

  • Storm

    I reject discrimination against privileged white males. I am one, I’m pretty sure, but there’s not a republican candidate on any ballot – national, state, or local – that will ever get my vote. Particularly none in this year’s moron circus. Obama hasn’t been perfect, by any means, but then he wasn’t my choice for the democratic nomination. Still, he’s been far better on gay rights issues than all the previous presidents put together, and we’ve made more progress on a wide variety of fronts. I’ll give him another four years, and probably a check, too.

  • doug105

    @Sceth: you mean Mr.let the poor sick people die?

  • Red Meat

    When will people realize that our debt is not everything the media and republicans have sharpened up to be? We have been above 10trillion for more THAN A DECADE, no one really cared, or triple A credit was honkydory at 12 trillion for 9 years then everything gets politicized and then everyone starts crying out their vagina’s.

    Ron Paul won’t change anything, his running platform to pretty much hold the executive branch hostage.

  • Chuck

    @Sceth: Roy Cohn is that you?

  • Mike in Asheville

    @Josh: Well, it appears that Queerty has corrected the errors you pointed out — alas, they failed to use the strike through ….

    Nonetheless, even with your urging for grammar/spell checking, they, with hysterical irony, didn’t bother checking other errors, so it is still their “we don’t know how to ‘edit’ team” making the decisions instead of their editorial team.

  • Mike in Asheville

    @Chuck: Very droll — well done.

  • Big Mac

    The real story here is that no one seems to acknowledge, even after 3 years in office, that our current president is STILL less qualified than most of the Republican candidates. Give me a Romney or a Huntsman over Brocko Bomber any day.

  • scribe31

    @Sceth: i guess as a gay black dude I should just leave this country if mr. paul gets in office. screw him and repectfully screw you!

  • Sceth

    @james_from_cambridge: “You’re a privileged white male…”

    Wrong.

    And I’m actually a moderate, darling. I disagree with Ron Paul on the education department, which I think should be stronger than it is, but would love to see the FDA and the minimum wage gone, y’know, because they hinder technological progress and provide little in return. And whether Obamacare is sustainable (it’s not) isn’t open to opinion. I volunteered for Obama in 2008, btw. But if Paul becomes feasible I’m jumping ship. I’m not going to assume as much about you as you have of me, but your post betrays either a failure of information or of thought, alongside unprovoked vitriol.

  • Shannon1981

    Queerty, you’ve outdone yourself this time! Definitely agree with your choices for this dishonorable award. Happy New Queer’s!

  • Marco

    @Sceth:

    Obamacares actually decreases the government. If we had a single payer system, health care costs would decrease because much of health care costs today are wasted on administrative costs (like huge executive salaries & bonuses).

    That said, Obama has continued Bushes war policies but shrouded them in secrecy while ramping up attacks on civil liberties.

    But, hey, Obama is the lesser of evils. We know that the GOP candidates are all corrupt and willing to crush gay rights and totally sellout the middle and working classes.

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