I love this presidential campaign season — especially on the Republican side — in the way that one loves watching dogs fucking. I’m horrified as in “Ewww,” and “Oh-My-God!” and yet simultaneously, utterly fascinated. You can’t bring yourself to look away or even say “Stop It!” while it’s happening. Because the fucking serves a purpose. And, well, the dogs are having fun.

In Ted Cruz’s case, he’s allegedly having fun. Lots and lots of fun. A purported total of five mistresses have been involved and three have been identified in a scandal that took over the news cycle last Friday.

This scandal involves the staff of Cruz’s rivals which include two of Trump’s campaign staff: spokesperson Katrina Pierson; online communications staffer Amanda Carpenter, and Carly Fiorina’s employee Sarah Isgur Flores.

Granted, this news comes from The National Enquirer, a tabloid you pick up at the grocery store checkout line. So we always look with bemused skepticism at their covers because, let’s face it, a picture of another politician caught in an adultery scandal with a side article on a UFO alien abduction does not lend credence that you’re looking at serious journalism.

However, The National Enquirer does tend to get its adultery scandals right: Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, John Edwards — all notable politicians with a “woman problem” who were big scoops on the Enquirer’s colorful pages, and they made the mainstream media within weeks. The Cruz story has been hot on the news feed since Friday, surpassing the threshold of a 24-hour news cycle; so, therefore, it looks as if the story’s got legs.

For those of you in our international readership, let me break this down. This all started the week after the solar eclipse, a week before the March 22nd Utah primary when an anti-Trump political action committee — in hot pursuit to take down Trump’s march to nomination inevitability — posted a nude picture of Melania Trump on Twitter.

Trump retaliated by posting side-by-side comparison shots of Heidi Cruz at her worst, and Melania looking every bit a Vogue model. Cruz fired back, saying Trump had insulted “the love of his life.” A Twitter war ensued.

Then last week, the Enquirer published what we now know has been old news on the campaign news circuit: Mr. Cruz apparently liked doing his staffers. Both Pierson and Carpenter were formerly on Cruz’s staff before joining Trump’s campaign. Cruz immediately suspected Trump, whose friend is editor of the National Enquirer.

Not to be outdone in this scandal clusterfuck, Pierson, acting as Trump’s spokesperson, went on a “defensive offense”, accusing Heidi Cruz of being a Bush operative. So now everyone of note running for the Republican Presidential nomination is in on this war of accusations: Jeb, Donald, and Ted.

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But it gets even better. Today, Cruz’s five alleged mistresses accused Marco Rubio — one of the Republican candidates who recently suspended his campaign after losing his home state of Florida to Trump — of planting the story.

So, now, we have everyone-and-their-mama accusing each other in a five-way shootout in the tabloids: the four principal nominees and the group of five mistresses. The icing on the cake is that Ted Cruz is a hard line Dominionist who believes in the sanctity of marriage (between a man and a woman, of course), that contraception of any kind is an “abortifacient,” and even victims of rape and incest don’t have the right to terminate a pregnancy resulting from it.

Regardless of who planted the story, the lack of a response from Reince Priebus, the Chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), speaks volumes, and does so rather loudly. As of today, there is no response to the Cruz mistress scandal story, which is still hot after four days.

What does this mean? I speculate it means that a fifth player, Ohio Governor John Kasich, is being set up to run against Trump by the RNC. Kasich is more moderate than Cruz. And everyone in Washington — even his own party leaders — hates Cruz.

Kasich is an acceptable alternative now that Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush — the former RNC crown princes — have dropped out. Kasich could run as the establishment candidate against Trump, who the Republican fear will crater their party, causing massive political damage in congressional races.

Are you following this so far? If not, let me know in the comments and I will clarify.

Beyond all this scandal du jour from your trusty gossip columnist Fe-911, and beside relishing the doggie joyride I’ve had following this story, the moral underpinnings of the right wing are coming unglued right before our eyes, and their chief proponents exposed as hypocrites. And it really is a beautiful and massive clusterfuck of dogs. You just can’t look away from the splendor of it all. But the moral of this story really is: don’t start shit the week between eclipses. There’s hell to pay, especially for dogs of the homo sapiens variety. Isn’t that right, Ted?