Friday, September 18, 2015

Still way too early to learn much of substance about presidential dreamers

I didn’t bother to watch the Republican presidential debate that was televised Wednesday night – I just wasn’t in the mood to sit through political psycho-babble, particularly anything from the mouth of Donald Trump.

FIORINA: The winner?
Although after reading and watching the news accounts from those entities who felt the need to see the supposedly-top presidential dreamers stand in front of “Air Force One” (the closest most of them will ever get to that aircraft), I don’t think I missed much by waiting until Thursday morning to know what was said.

AND I ALSO don’t think anyone who bothered to watch it live is any better informed about its significance – unless they really needed to pretend that they were there to see it all happen.

My own quirk is that after having covered many political debates (including some that involved presidential prospects), they all seem alike.

So what’s the real point here? I still think this field is overly-broad, and that most of the people who blathered on and on will not be a factor next year when people are actually asked to cast ballots for who will get the right to be the next president come January 2017.

The overview I have heard from many is that former CEO Carly Fiorina somehow showed herself to be the most credible persona of the Republican presidential batch.

THAT MAY WELL be true, although I’d say the reason she stands out is that the rest of the batch is so mediocre – past political failures who are trying again, or people whose only qualification to be the nation’s chief executive is their own over-bloated ego.

BUSH: He's sorry
And as for the fact that the so-called most-tweeted moment was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s apology to his mother for having smoked marijuana when he was young?

It was probably a more honest moment than Bill Clinton back in 1992 when he said he smoked, but “didn’t inhale.” Which all these decades later, I still don’t know what he thinks the difference is.

All in all, not the most enlightening of shows.

THE KEY, OF course, is Donald Trump, whose money and bluster enabled him to take large early leads – with some of the candidates coming in so low they barely register.

TRUMP: Will he still be relevant tomorrow?
Although it is interesting that the neurologist, Ben Carson, has had recent polls showing he is running neck-and-neck with Trump. It could be that about half of those who have an opinion back either of those two.

Evidence that the Republican hard-core wants a new name – no matter how much that person may not have a clue about what is actually involved in being president. It’s not all about having a personal jet plane to fly around on, and you don’t get to “bark” orders to Congress.

Just think how much happier Barack Obama would be if he could have told Congress what he wanted, and they would have been obligated to obey.

BUT THE MOST truthful thing I may have read in recent days was a poll in the Washington Post – 27 percent of people actually have an opinion about who should be president. It’s still early. We’re more than a year away from the general election.

The serious people will probably start giving all this a thought come January. Everything we’re reading or hearing these days is going to be so irrelevant by the time it matters. Don’t forget that Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, has already dropped out (his second presidential failure). More and more will fall to the wayside in coming weeks and months.

Would you mess with the U.S. if this man was present?
Which is why I didn’t feel compelled to watch on Wednesday.  The re-run of “Hill Street Blues” that I watched was more entertaining than learning that Trump tried to back away from his past sexist trash-talk about Fiorina.

I say “Capt. Furillo” for president ("Joyce Davenport" for first lady), with “Mick Belker” ("Grrrrrrr!!!!!") as his personal enforcer. It makes as much sense as any of the people who are really in the running.

  -30-

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