All of the second-tier candidates in the Republican Primary must have crap for campaign budgets, as evidenced by the lousy opposition research they've done on Mitt Romney. I know this because, all on my lonesome, I've discovered something extremely disturbing about the Republican front-runner. To my mind, this bombshell totally disqualifies Romney from even visiting the White House, let alone being elected president.
Drum roll please: Romney's favorite novel is Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard!
Romney made this claim in a 2007 Fox News interview (you can also find additional coverage of the statement here). In case you're not familiar with this massive 1000-page novel by the founder of Scientology, let's be generous and say Battlefield Earth reads like it was cranked out by a bunch of hack monkeys defecating on a broken typewriter. Yes, the book hit the best-seller lists, but only because of a Scientology-backed purchasing campaign. The novel was also the genesis of one of the worst SF films of all time.
I simply can't believe a serious presidential contender would pick Battlefield Earth for his favorite book. As this newscast states, "Given the existence of every other book ever written, it was a curious answer." And the best part is that once Romney realized praising a bad novel by the founder of Scientology wasn't in his best political interests, he flip-flopped and claimed Battlefield Earth was only one of his favorite books (with his new favorite book being ... you guessed it ... the Bible).
But this flip-flop doesn't change the fact that Romney still claims Battlefield Earth as his favorite, or one of his favorite, novels.
Since Newt Gingrich is a science fiction fan, you'd think he'd have some strong words to say about Romney's choice of a favorite novel. After all, Newt may be a crap SF writer but he must know enough about the genre to recognize the cliched badness oozing from every page of Battlefield Earth.
Of course, perhaps this won't be a big issue in the campaign. After all, Romney is a fabled flip-flopper and, according to a 2011 news report, he has already moved on to praising another set of novels--the Twilight series!
Which, considering my views on sparkling vampires, is another reason I could never vote for this man.