US Election 2016 – Battle of the Egos
Nov 01
With one week left before the 2016 federal election, I cannot be the only one who wants to leave their computer behind and book a flight to any location where my cell service does not work.
Watching the battle between two candidates whose egos outstrip their viability has become painful. As I watch Clinton or Trump, or their surrogates, I almost always know what is going to come out of their mouths before it is utter. Credit to Donnie, he still has the capability to surprise, to go where no civilized candidate would ever venture.
I am surprised that, as I watch each side, my overriding emotion is pity. Having apprenticed in the political dark arts, I recognized that each party knows that with any other candidate they would be ahead by 20 point, gliding to a massive win.
The poor Democrats. The last two elections gave them a candidate who could lift his base and their independent cousins on flights of oratory. He was the heir to the previous Democrat, a speaker so gifted he could entrance an audience by reading economic projections. And who do they have now? A person so unable to connect that she lost the 2008 primary to a young, relatively inexperienced black man.
And the battered Republicans. While none of their 17 primary candidates was a winner, their basest base chose someone whose name was familiar. They chose a reality TV personality. They chose someone whose business acumen allowed him to build a fortune he estimates at $3-4 billion where a straight investment in an index fund would have grown it to $15B. They chose someone who would not open his personal or financial kimono, guaranteeing one controversy after another. They chose the uncle we are all tired of, the one who leans back after a family dinner and expounds on the kind of political conspiracies that make us want to get him some tinfoil for his head.
Think about if Sanders or Biden was the candidate for the Dems or if Kasich or Bush was the Republican candidate. American would have an opportunity they really want, to ignore Trump and Clinton and elect someone that does not make them want to vomit in their mouth.