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| Is this how we should perceive Ted Cruz AND Bernie Sanders? |
Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders faced off against each other Sunday night in debate
in Flint, Mich. – that small city where the water is tainted and everybody
enjoys a chance to take a partisan pot shot or two.
WHILE
DONALD TRUMP couldn’t quite finish off all his challengers in the elections and
caucuses held on Saturday. It seems that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is becoming “The
Thing that Wouldn’t Leave.”
He
gained enough support from that Kansas primary that he can’t be written off yet
– even though the delegate math is such that it would take a collapse something
along the line of the 1969 Chicago Cubs for Trump to fail to win the Republican
presidential nomination.
Does
this mean Marco Rubio and/or John Kasich are out looking for a black cat to
toss into Trump’s path?
As
for Cruz, should he be played in a movie by the spirit of John Belushi – who after
all was the “Thing” in that old Saturday Night Live sketch that parodied old
horror films?
FOR
WHAT IT’S worth, I can still hear in my mind Jane Curtin’s blood-curdling
scream in that sketch – which is probably what many establishment-minded
Republicans feel these days about both the Cruz and Trump campaigns – although the
latter is the one that seems to terrify them the most.
 |
| Is this what it would take to stop Donald Trump now? |
Even
though it probably serves them right. All those years of pandering to the
nativists and xenophobes and outright bigots of our society empowered those
people to think they run the one-time Party of Lincoln (which is now the Party
of Reagan, and I don’t mean the late first lady Nancy) to the point where they
no longer want to hear from the “establishment.”
The
haters have BECOME the party’s establishment!
Whether
that means there’s some future sense of détente that can be achieved between
the two sides is yet to be determined. Or do some of those people wind up
working their way into the Democratic Party establishment the way that some
one-time hard-core Democrats would up having children who couldn’t envision not
voting Republican?
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| Will this one-time Goldwater Girl win in '16? |
AS
FOR THE Democrats, it’s intriguing to see how their primary is turning out.
Challenger Bernie Sanders also doesn’t want to wither away – even though it is
becoming more clear that Hillary Clinton will wind up being the party’s
presidential nominee.
Even
though, I’m sure in Willie Wilson’s mind (and only his mind), he’s still a
legitimate option for the presidency!
If
an opportunist like Trump or ideologue like Cruz winds up getting the GOP
nomination, Hillary really will wind up being the establishment’s candidate.
Which, for a one-time Goldwater Girl from suburban Park Ridge means she would
have fulfilled the life that would have been prophesized for her way back when.
But
there was the liberal touch to the campaign – which made sure to have its
debate in Michigan in anticipation of Tuesday’s primary in that state.
THE
PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS will get to pile on with other political people who like
to remind us that the local pols who allowed the local drinking water supply to
be tainted with lead are Republican. Just like the Republicans held their
debate last week in Detroit so they could claim to be showing us the result of
failed Democratic Party policies.
 |
| In mourning for spouse of modern-day GOP figurehead |
All
of this comes as we in Illinois – along with Missouri and Ohio – prepare for
our own primary elections a week from Tuesday. Which may not matter so much because
all the previous political action would make our electoral results a moot
point.
We
may have to focus our attention on the U.S. Senate seat up for grabs, or the
Cook County state’s attorney race that will get national attention because we’ll
want to see if the Laquan McDonald video was strong enough to dump incumbent
Anita Alvarez.
More
activity from the “silly season,” – which I’m sure has some people anxiously
awaiting Nov. 9 (the day after the presidential election). Although for others,
that date means the beginning of the process to try to re-elect (or dump to the
wayside) Gov. Bruce Rauner!
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