As election season commences, is this really the best we’ve got?
By Simon Gonzalez, Editorial Director
After months of debates and hundreds of polls, the presidential nominating season finally gets underway Monday with the Iowa Caucus. At last, votes will actually be cast and delegates will be selected.
That’s the good news. And the bad news. Because while Iowa puts an end to the silly season of posturing, pontificating and prognosticating and marks a beginning to the process of voters actually exercising their franchise and selecting delegates, the slate of available candidates is, to say the least, deeply flawed.
As the countdown commences to the nominating conventions in July and the national election in November, it looks like our choices are between a blowhard billionaire and reality TV star running on vague promises to make America great again; a prevaricating and disingenuous former secretary of state who is the target of an FBI investigation into the mishandling of classified information; a self-identifying socialist — because that’s worked so well everywhere it’s been tried around the world; and a senator universally disliked by his colleagues.
It’ll be morbidly fascinating — like watching a train wreck. It might be fun, and funny, if it weren’t so tragic.
An informal poll conducted on that barometer of American culture, Facebook, indicates that the candidate drawing the most passion is Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican pack with between 34 and 41 percent support according to the various polls. Most of that social media passion takes the form of vitriol, but still.
Anti-Trump sentiment isn’t confined to Facebook, or to Democrats. The “National Review,” an influential conservative magazine, just issued an Against Trump issue. Trump has been criticized for his positions, for his lack of conservative credentials, for his history of supporting Democrats, for his braggadocio, for his bullying — he’s said he’s boycotting the Republican debate tonight because Fox News rejected his demand to dump moderator Megyn Kelly, who committed the grievous crime of daring to ask Trump tough questions during the last Fox debate.
Apparently petulance isn’t a disqualifying factor when choosing the Commander in Chief, because nothing erodes his popularity. As he pointed out the other day, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” If Reagan was the Teflon president, then Trump is the Kevlar candidate.
There is also some passion around Bernie. A recent bumper sticker poll showed Sen. Sanders leading about 5-1 (that was the total of the bumper sticker count, not a ratio). Among the vehicles feeling the Bern was a beautiful, late-model Jaguar. Yep, a Jag. Good luck with that, buddy. Hope you enjoy your new tax bracket if your man wins.
Sanders is popular with young people, the demographic most willing to embrace the revolution. And the ones most likely to enthusiastically support free education and healthcare, because they lack the life experience to know that nothing is ever free. Someone has to pay for the $18 trillion his proposals would cost. And when the hated 1 percent is tapped out, beware the consequences of trickle down taxes.
Along with free stuff, Sanders offers the familiar rhetoric of class warfare and advocacy for the “transfer of wealth.” Soaking the rich has a certain egalitarian appeal, until you realize the wealth gets transferred through the government, which isn’t exactly noted for its competency and efficiency.
Still, Sanders is rising in the polls and might actually make a race of it on the Democratic side. The huge negatives surrounding his opponent might have something to do with that.
There’s at least an outside chance that Hillary Clinton could be indicted for mishandling classified information on her unsecure home server while she was secretary of state.
News reports say an inspector general’s letter to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence community affirmed the presence of several dozen highly classified e-mails on her private server.
Then there’s her, um, disagreements with the families of the victims killed in the deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.
During a ceremony to honor the dead three days later Clinton, then secretary of state, blamed the “rage and violence” on an anti-Muslim internet video, even though intelligence indicated it was a coordinated terrorist attack. At least four of the surviving family members say she promised them that the government would get the filmmaker responsible. Clinton denies those conversations ever took place.
No one is accusing Ted Cruz with abusing classified documents or lying, but the man polling second among Republicans has his share of negatives. His supporters love his conservative cred, but the man is simply not liked by his own party. Sen. John McCain of Arizona called him a “wacko bird.” Former House Speaker John Boehner labeled him an impolite synonym for donkey.
He pitches that as part of his appeal in this anti-establishment, anti-government political cycle.
“I will acknowledge that when I’m in the Senate dining room I’ve sometimes wondered if I need a food taster,” Cruz said in Iowa last month. “If you’ve never stood up to Washington, at any time in your life, you’re not going to suddenly discover the courage to do so if you happen to land at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Sure, but policies don’t do any good if you lack the political capital to get them implemented.
So there you have it. The four front-runners, each deeply flawed, and one of them very likely to be our next president.
French philosopher Joseph de Maistre once said, “In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.” If that’s true, what does that say about us? May God have mercy on us all.
