The Nut-Jobs Talk Faith With Iowa

The first major event in Iowa of the 2012 Presidential season has come and gone, albeit without Romney, Huckabee, or Palin. Don't get down though, as the lacking of front-running candidates didn't dampen the crazy talk.

The candidates essentially pledged the same thing, with a few variations in language and emphasis: defending marriage as a covenant between man and woman; curbing abortion; slashing the federal deficit; and shifting power away from Washington in favor of state and local governments.

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, delivered one of numerous condemnations of President Obama and the secular tilt that he and others blamed on the country's fraying morality.

"We need to be a country that turns toward God," he said. "Not a country that turns away from God."

Playing off the title of his recent book, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich decried the "secular socialists" surrounding the president and said they "could not possibly lead the country to a successful future."

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum decried the "entitlement attitude" propagated by Democrats in Washington and suggested Obama's push for national healthcare legislation was akin to a dope dealer trying to hook someone on drugs.

"If that's not a moral issue," Santorum said, "I don't know what is."

There was no interaction among the candidates, who took turns speaking for about 10 minutes each and never appeared together onstage. The closest anyone came to engaging in debate was Roemer, who pledged to accept no more than $100 from any single source. That, he said, is the only way to accomplish what everyone else promised to do.

The fifth contender on the stage, former Godfather's Pizza chief executive and radio talk show host Herman Cain, echoed GOP criticisms of Obama as insufficiently convinced of American exceptionalism.

"I have a breaking news announcement for President Obama: The United States of America is not going to become the United States of Europe. Not on our watch," he said.

Get this straight- Republican means saving the unborn children, stopping gays from legal recognition of their relationship, gutting spending, and states' rights. President Obama is pro-Europe, doesn't believe we have divine right, "like a drug dealer," a "secular socialist," and wants to turn us away from God.

These guys are all nuts.