I Hope

There are many ways for the public to rebut against a political candidate. You can have diplomatic discussions with friends and family about the pros and cons — though diplomacy seems to be hard to find when concerning politics these days. You can be Jon Stewart, have a talk show, and comedically, sarcastically, blast the living hell out of him or her. You can make a Youtube video where you voice your issues with and suggestions for the candidate, and get a bunch of likes or dislikes, and way too many "first!!!!!11!" comments. You can yell randomly about him or her in public, on the sidewalk, to whoever will listen.

But so far this year, my favorite rebut has got to be I Hope Rick Santorum.

Instead of addressing Santorum's policies and criticizing them, or drawing funny faces and comments onto photos of him, or making up song lyrics to awful pop music that poke fun at his stances—

Instead of all those things, IHRS merely posts things that the creators and submitters hope that Rick Santorum does, says, or feels, all of them things not to be desired.

They're hilarious, they're simple, they're sometimes incredibly crass — but how do they work so well? How do they achieve their purpose of just making us dislike Santorum even more than we already do? (Using "we" very freely here.)

Is it because the kairos is perfect, and just as the campaign is revving up on a sprint to November, IHRS merely correlates with the outlandishness of Santorum's candidacy?

Is it because the posts are logical in that they apply to the audience, bringing into play well-known references to films and songs, and sometimes just referring to life's every day tasks which we find so dull and daunting?

Or is it because no matter how silly they seem, they're poking and prodding at his ethos, cutting him down so that he's no longer a potential presidential candidate, but rather a person on our level, who we want dealing with our problems and relating to our films and songs, and failing miserably?

Whatever the case may be, I Hope Rick Santorum is a successful meme which I believe will be around as long as Rick Santorum continues to make painful public appearances, as well as speak.