The next president won’t be selected until nearly 15 months from now, but the process is already in full swing. We’re here in August of 2015 and there’s a phalanx of Republican Presidential Candidate Wannabes; 17 serious candidates at last count with one website listing 38 declared (Declared Republican candidates). Granted, most of that number have never been heard of outside their own little corner of the globe, but 17 is still ridiculous! Eventually, most of even the “main 17” will succumb to the realization that this is just not their year and drop out. Trump is getting a lot of press, mostly negative. It seems that virtually everything that comes out of his pie-hole annoys or embarrasses the majority of people (even my staunch Republican friends), so I’m somewhat mystified how the polls are being conducted (or whom is being polled) that show him the front runner of that motley crew. And for someone who claims he’s not in the least affected or influenced by polls (he says he never pays any attention to them), he’s been doing a lot of crowing about being out in front.
But the circus that is Trump is fodder for another time.
When the Republican debates of a couple of days ago were being advertised by Fox I was deciding which of my recent book acquisitions I should read first, or whether I should catch up on work emails, or almost anything but what time the debates would begin. I had no interest in hearing what any of them had to say; I figured it would just make me mad.
But I’ve talked here previously of the obligation that we have as participants in our society to educate ourselves. Understand the issues and carefully select from among the various option. So…How do you know what each candidate actually stands for?
I have found debates like the other evening to be a terrible way to find out. All the answers are carefully scripted in advance by teams of handlers (except for Trump; he seems delighted by the taste of his feet). I think they are more opportunities to see how a candidate comports him or herself in front of an audience.
Same with listening to the sound bites on the evening news. Those all seem too carefully scripted to tell anything. It’s a Catch-22: at this stage of the process, the putative candidate has yet to be selected to represent their party; that happens at the national conventions. That means a centrist hasn’t a prayer of getting any traction; the people that get attention now are the ones that best represent the interests of the fringe (who are the most passionate and thus most activist). But a far-left-or-right candidate probably isn’t electable nationally, since most Americans are centrists. So after throwing red meat to the fringes in order to get on the final ballot, each candidate then has to about-face and try to remake themselves as a moderate (admittedly a Left-Leaning or Right-Leaning moderate, depending upon which party they’re in, but certainly way more moderate than they appeared to be in order to get their party’s nod).
So we (the voting populace) are left with a dilemma. Either a) the candidates left standing on the second Tuesday of November have been trying to appeal to a broader group in the actual campaign, and their real beliefs are what they expressed during the run up to the primaries, or b) what they said during the primaries doesn’t really reflect their views; they just said those things to get on the ballot as Republican or Democrat. How do we know what they will really do, once in office?
Which time are they lying to us? Oh, OK maybe “lying” is too strong a word. Which time are they being disingenuous?
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
What do they really believe?
The next president won’t be selected until nearly 15 months from now, but the process is already in full swing. We’re here in August of 2015 and there’s a phalanx of Republican Presidential Candidate Wannabes; 17 serious candidates at last count with one website listing 38 declared (Declared Republican candidates). Granted, most of that number have never been heard of outside their own little corner of the globe, but 17 is still ridiculous! Eventually, most of even the “main 17” will succumb to the realization that this is just not their year and drop out. Trump is getting a lot of press, mostly negative. It seems that virtually everything that comes out of his pie-hole annoys or embarrasses the majority of people (even my staunch Republican friends), so I’m somewhat mystified how the polls are being conducted (or whom is being polled) that show him the front runner of that motley crew. And for someone who claims he’s not in the least affected or influenced by polls (he says he never pays any attention to them), he’s been doing a lot of crowing about being out in front.
But the circus that is Trump is fodder for another time.
When the Republican debates of a couple of days ago were being advertised by Fox I was deciding which of my recent book acquisitions I should read first, or whether I should catch up on work emails, or almost anything but what time the debates would begin. I had no interest in hearing what any of them had to say; I figured it would just make me mad.
But I’ve talked here previously of the obligation that we have as participants in our society to educate ourselves. Understand the issues and carefully select from among the various option. So…How do you know what each candidate actually stands for?
I have found debates like the other evening to be a terrible way to find out. All the answers are carefully scripted in advance by teams of handlers (except for Trump; he seems delighted by the taste of his feet). I think they are more opportunities to see how a candidate comports him or herself in front of an audience.
Same with listening to the sound bites on the evening news. Those all seem too carefully scripted to tell anything. It’s a Catch-22: at this stage of the process, the putative candidate has yet to be selected to represent their party; that happens at the national conventions. That means a centrist hasn’t a prayer of getting any traction; the people that get attention now are the ones that best represent the interests of the fringe (who are the most passionate and thus most activist). But a far-left-or-right candidate probably isn’t electable nationally, since most Americans are centrists. So after throwing red meat to the fringes in order to get on the final ballot, each candidate then has to about-face and try to remake themselves as a moderate (admittedly a Left-Leaning or Right-Leaning moderate, depending upon which party they’re in, but certainly way more moderate than they appeared to be in order to get their party’s nod).
So we (the voting populace) are left with a dilemma. Either a) the candidates left standing on the second Tuesday of November have been trying to appeal to a broader group in the actual campaign, and their real beliefs are what they expressed during the run up to the primaries, or b) what they said during the primaries doesn’t really reflect their views; they just said those things to get on the ballot as Republican or Democrat. How do we know what they will really do, once in office?
Which time are they lying to us? Oh, OK maybe “lying” is too strong a word. Which time are they being disingenuous?
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.