Monday, February 29, 2016

Voters likely to cast ballots against, not for, the candidate of their choice

There’s only one thing I’m sure about with regards to Election ’16 – I don’t think anybody is going to be pleased with the outcome.

Who do we hate more? going to be ...
Heck, I’m convinced that 99.999999 percent of all people who bother to vote will be doing so because there’s someone on the ballot to whom the thought of that individual as president of the United States will thoroughly repulse them.

“PRESIDENT HILLARY,” OR the very thought of it may be the only way that Donald Trump actually wins the general election come November. Or the only way in which Bernie Sanders actually wins the primary elections coming up in the next few weeks

That is, unless the thought of “President Trump” is so repulsive to people that they wind up holding their noses when they cast their ballot either for “that broad” or “that f*@%# socialist.”

Then again, will the idea of having an admitted (as in he doesn’t think it something to be ashamed of) socialist as president be the only way that either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump can actually win an election.

Whatever happened to the days when an election was about picking the person we thought was best qualified to hold a political post? Instead, “Who do you hate more?” seems to be the guiding philosophy people use when deciding who to vote for.

I’M SERIOUS. THIS weekend, I stumbled across the news reports indicating that former New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman fully intends to support Hillary Clinton for president if Trump actually manages to win the Republican nomination.

Of course, this came in response to the fact that current New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gave his endorsement to Trump – the man who back when he was a presidential candidate himself said that The Donald was unfit to be U.S. president.

... key question on minds of voters ...
He hates the idea of the second coming of President Clinton that much!

There also was the New York Times report about how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is preparing a strategy to ensure that the presence of Trump on the ballot does not hurt the re-election chances of incumbent Republican senators.

IT’S ALREADY BEING billed by some political observers as McConnell’s strategy to undermine the Trump candidacy – which he allegedly would hate so much that he’d rather have a “President Hillary R. Clinton.”

... as they cast ballots March 15 in Ill.
That idea strikes me as being a stretch of the imagination, since McConnell is the guy who triggered all the hysteria over the replacement of Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court because he absolutely, positively does NOT want President Barack Obama to be able to make that political appointment.

You’d think that such a strategy would mean going all out for whoever does win the Republican presidential nomination. Otherwise, all it does is put off the inevitable. Unless McConnell’s priority truly is to ensure that control of the U.S. Senate remains in the hands of conservative ideologues operating under the Republican label.

But how much similar hostility will there be to people who hate the idea of Hillary Clinton in control? Particularly if it legitimizes the idea that the Bill Clinton presidency was the victim of partisan political hostility.

HOW MANY TACKY jokes will we have to endure about how a Hillary victory means the need to hide all the girls at the White House, because Bill’s back!!!

Of course, the Chicagoan in me thinks this is not a new trend. Let’s not forget the 1983 election cycle – the one in which so many hard-core Democrats suddenly converted to the Republican Party and Bernard Epton for mayor, “before it’s too late.”

Who gets to redecorate come 2017?
Or if you want a more recent example, think of all the Latino voters who gave Obama those large victory margins in both 2008 and 2012. My ethnic brethren didn’t really like Barack that much – we just didn’t want the idea of either presidents John McCain or Mitt Romney.

This could mean that 2016 winds up acting the same way Latino voters did the past two presidential election cycle. The American people will wind up making a political statement – Who do we hate the most?!?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I still don’t know whom I’m supporting for president, even though I’m likely to show up at an early-voting center some time this week. There are some seriously off-putting characteristics about everybody with delusions of living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

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