Please...fill me in.

It's equal parts flattering and encouraging to know that some smart folks read my ramblings from time to time.

And those are the peeps I'd like to address with this post, because I've been experiencing a dull discomfort, right up around my throbbing frontal lobe, in trying to make sense of the current campaign for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination.

As Jerry Seinfeld once asked, "Can someone please explain this to me, because I'd really like to know" the answers to the following questions:

Why do so many of these candidates use the term, "the American people," as in the sentence, "the American people are just plain fed up with wasteful government spending on entitlement programs" as if everyone is of one mindset?

After reviewing the American Person Qualification Checklist, I've determined that I am one of those American people, since I've eaten Cap'n Crunch at least eight hundred times, know that "pickup" can be a noun as well as a verb, and purchase toilet paper in forty-eight-roll pallets.

And actually, I only needed two of those to qualify.

These people claim to know what I, an American person, demand, yet none of them have come within three states to double-check. I'm not aware of any Presidential hopeful even flying over, let alone landing in, Washington state, unless you count Dennis Kucinich's appearance at Seattle's Hempfest last week. Had Mitt, Michele, Herman, Rick and Rick cruised Seattle's cannabis tents, they may have gained a deeper understanding of the mindset here on the Left Coast. Then it would've been burrito time.

Why do these people look like they do?

Seriously, do they resemble normal people? I can't think of anyone who likely spends as much time in front of a mirror as Romney, except maybe my teenage daughter, whom I've heard proclaiming, "I earned this body."

Then there's Bachmann. Does anyone you know, other than joggers and road crew stop sign holders, wear yellow as frequently as she does? Maybe she justifies it because those blinding half jackets make her teeth appear whiter, and the plaque would really jump out at you if she wore crimson or something.

Or her next job will be working for Century 21.

Why do they feel that their credentials are positive, let alone impressive?

Herman Cain was the CEO of Godfather's Pizza. Good on you, Herm, for working your way up the ladder to become purveyor of the world's worst pizza. Don't get me wrong; I love pizza so much that four out of five days, I may choose it over my family, but I'd rather eat an aspic-coated slab of plywood than anything that has emerged from an oven at Godfather's.

Mitt Romney has enriched himself by purchasing companies through leveraged buyouts, laying off hundreds of workers and socking away profits into offshore tax havens. He believes corporations are actually people and should be afforded the same rights as humans. Straight humans, that is.

Why do these people consider it chic to deny science?

Texas Governor Rick Perry, when asked by a young boy whether or not the governor believed in evolution, replied, "It's a theory that's out there."

Rick, Rick, Rick. Gray matter between your ears is a "theory that's out there." Evolution has been empirically proven. You need look no further than your homeboy, George W. Bush, to ascertain that he's somewhere on the evolutionary scale between single-celled protoplasm and a chimp who knows twenty-three words and seven numbers in American Sign Language.

And it's really easy to deny global warming if you're Michele Bachmann. All you have to do is attribute the hurricanes and flooding to God's retribution for our sinful ways, his wake up call to repent before the end of days and certain eternal damnation.

Even though, as George Carlin once said, he loves us.

So, please, if anyone out there can shed some light on these queries, these seemingly rhetorical questions, please respond, preferably before the locusts show up.