Jon Stewart Compares GOP Race to Amish 'Rumspringa,' Likens Candidates to 'White Man's' Chocolate Sampler

Courtesy of Comedy Central

With the results of the Iowa caucus still hours away from being revealed, Jon Stewart cracked jokes about each of the GOP presidential hopefuls during the Jan. 3 broadcast of The Daily Show.

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The Comedy Central program returned from a holiday hiatus on Tuesday, addressing the race’s changed landscape since the last December broadcast – which found Newt Gingrich as the party’s frontrunner. Stewart went on to compare the race as a whole to the Amish tradition of Rumspringa, in which teens go out into the real world for a brief time before returning to Amish life.

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“The Republican presidential race and the conservatives desperate effort to explore every other possible option, living or otherwise, before ultimately and unhappily voting for Mitt Romney is a right of passage for Republican voters known as ‘Romspringa,’” he said. “Yes, Republican voters know they’re going to end up with Romney much in the way a 16-year-old Amish boy knows that six months with an iPod will ultimately give way to several decades of hand tool barn building.”

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Stewart continued to liken each of the GOP candidates to a box of Whitmans chocolates -- or a “White man’s sampler.”

“Santorum, really? Republicans, you’re gonna try every chocolate in the box?” Stewart jabbed.

“You’re gonna end up with the plain chocolate. You’re gonna. That’s where you’re gonna end up,” he said, referring to Romney.

Michele Bachmann? “Too many nuts.” Rick Perry? “Oh, the Perry looks great… but guess what, almond nougat! Who puts almond nougat in chocolate?”

As for Rick Santorum: “This is the one you never tried because you know it sucks,” he said while holding a chocolate covered cherry.

Watch the video here. At the time Stewart went to air, Romney and Santorum remained neck-and-neck for first place in the Iowa Caucus.