This list does not include those who might have declared and wouldn't have made bad candidates, like billionaire Michael Bloomberg and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. They looked, said they were looking, became part of some conversations, took a deep breath, then said no.
What does this say about our politics? Allow me to hazard some speculations:
- There are some serious egos out there. To even pretend that you either know enough, are strong enough, or experienced enough to take on by far the most significant position in the history of the world, means that your self-esteem doesn't need rework and polishing. Or maybe that it does, since that's clearly true of the incredible misfit we now have in there.
- There is serious money out there. Whether it's enough to go around is something we're going to discover as we go, but there won't be many of the 22 Democratic candidates at present who will fall short of the 65,000 individual donors necessary to qualify for the first round of debates next month (though one of them, according to her online ads, is apparently New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, which would be a shame because she's got the chops to stand in there with the rest). Granted, it's a big country, and the contributions vary widely, but for at least that many candidates to have enough to get campaign engines started says that, as a driver of the economy, politics doesn't take much of a backseat to anything else (and this doesn't include all the Congressional and state races happening next year as well). All of these campaigns must have staff hired to run offices in all the primary states, print information to be mailed, and run the overwhelming TV ads that will serve the purpose of pounding our sensitivities into submission yet again. Remember that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama each spent one billion dollars on the 2012 campaign. 45 will spend more than that; you can count on it.
- There will be highly qualified, personally interesting candidates who will go one-and-done, but probably shouldn't. We'll get exactly one look at them before the polls will render them off the radar, or keep doing so because they never really got on it. Some of the bigger names (Biden, Sanders) may or not not do well, but their support is probably well enough established that, if they goof, they'll have enough time to recover and stay in the battle. Candidates like Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg will need to do well, and will probably survive, too, barring a Whoa! comment of some kind. But Tulsi Gabbard, Seth Moulton, Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper and others on what appears to be a kamikaze mission? Whatever they say, it will have to be first, completely unique (good luck there) and/or sufficiently and noticeably attractive as to bump their polling to 4 or 5 percent (up from, maybe, 1) and call it a huge win. Just sit there for a minute and think, especially if you're a Democrat: What possible combination of phraseology and word candy would be something that you haven't heard before and would sell out to vote for and even work for at this very, very early point, especially if, in the back of your monkey mind, you've already eliminated at least one-third of the group?
- Our political perspectives are going off the rails. Polarization takes place when people can't and don't see the big picture, when people grab at the first thing that looks new and flashy, yet manageably shallow and simple to absorb. Gerrymandering has deepened this inclination, since more officeholders being in increasingly wink-and-nod, okey-doke, automatic-win districts means that the only foes they have to hold back are people supposedly on their own side, but who have dreamed up something even more severe than the ideas that made the automatic winner automatic. So to stand out in a field of nearly two dozen, a candidate has to say something so different as to draw upon something outside the mainstream (see above). But then, we used to understand the presidency as a position for which a broad consensus was desirable and necessary. Not with 45, though. The only thing he thinks he needs to do is keep his slavish minions close to his hip and hope that the economy's success and the, uh, advantage of actually having been president take care of the extra five percent he'll need to sneak into the back door of the Electoral College, the only majority that means anything. Again.
- Respect for the presidency has taken a big fall. This has been evident since Bill Clinton's administration, where the haters took hold even before Monica Lewinsky got into the household lexicons. Disrespect has easily traded hands enough so that many more people are no longer awed at the concept of being president, when that other person, as incredibly incompetent as he is (we can still say 'he' referring to past presidents), stands there and shoots off his mouth and has no idea what he's doing. Regardless of results, and especially since we have a complete, lying, terrible dolt in office right now, don't expect this to change soon.
Some of this just flat isn't fair. But some of it makes sense. There's only one president for this whole, increasingly ungovernable country, and the winnowing out process has to start earlier to sift out those who the public doesn't prefer, regardless of reasoning. The person who will have to stand up in 45's face will have to be the one quick on their feet and unafraid of staring down numerous insults and countless lies. It's probably better that that person will be the result of what might be a needle in a political haystack. When the first process ends, we must hope that that needle is still sharp enough to see the second process through.
Be well. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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