Enough Already!

I had just settled down to watch some before dinner TV last night when all programming on the cable channels turned to New Hampshire and Trump.  Please.  Is he the only one running for President?

I listened to his aggrandizing opening one more time then a bit longer when he announced he was going to something different - take questions.  Really!  He did.  But he never answers them.  Not one while I was listening and some were indeed quite specific.  Just the same old "I guarantee you when I'm President that won't happen..."

What he did do is savagely attack Carly Fiorina.  He must be worried about her burgeoning popularity.

Neither of them are perfect by any manner.  Both have had business successes and failures but I see the beginnings of the "Romneying" of Carly. She's to blame for everything that went wrong with HP and Lucent and now everyone who lost their job in shake ups is coming out of the woodwork. Oh, she ruined my life!  And how long  ago was was that?  Haven't you done anything since?  Stuff happens.  Hub lost more than one job due to corporate turmoil. We didn't like it but we didn't wallow in it.  We moved on.

Okay.  That's a prejudiced paragraph because I like Carly Fiorina. That being said, to date other than Ben Carson, she and Trump are getting all the press.  And Carson darn little at that other than poll results.

Frankly, I would like to hear about other candidate rallies and speeches.  From both parties.  I don't care about network ratings, I care about information and I'm not getting it. Where is Jim Webb?  Where is Martin O'Malley and Lincoln Chaffey and what issues are they campaigning on?  I haven't a clue.  Do you?

The same holds true for Rick Santorum and George Pataki.  They certainly aren't sitting at home twiddling their thumbs waiting for Trump to topple.

The media has an obligation to cover all the candidates, not be the determining factor of who has the right to move up and who doesn't. It's no wonder politicians have a love/hate relationship with the media.  They have the power to make you or break you depending on their own personal ideology.  That's wrong.  They're supposed to be objective but with the lines blurred between punditry, reporting and entertainment, we the public are being ill served.

I shouldn't have to watch FOX to hear about the Republicans nor MSNBC to hear about Democrats.  I should be able to listen to either and get the same perspective.  Objectivity.

We rightfully put a pox on both political parties; the media deserves the same.

My Take

I'll admit I didn't watch the debate from beginning to end.  Hub kept switching to reruns of M*A*S*H.  But I saw enough to form an opinion independent from what FOX told me I should think after the fact.

It is said Trump won with Carly a close second. I don't think Trump won.  It was the same old self  aggrandizing hype with no specifics and way too  much mugging.  His attempts at covering up past gaffes were embarrassing in their lack of sincerity.

In some instances I though Carly was strong.  Especially on our military needs looking forward and her poignant response about the hidden evils of marijuana.  It's tough being the only woman on a stage full of men, all able to out shout you by virtue of the tenor of their voices!

Stronger, I thought, were both Rubio and Christie.  Ben Carson was so low key as to almost get lost. Kastich was his usual pragmatic self.  He may be the sleeper in the group if you lean toward one who is basically a career politician.

I may not be giving the remaining candidates a fair shake because I didn't see enough of them when they had a chance to speak. I heard little from Cruz other than his usual defiance of just about everything.  Rand Paul's ideas are far different than my view of things, especially on drugs.  I feel Huckabee is wrong about Kim Davis deserving special considerations due to her religious beliefs.  That's a slippery slope that has already gone too far.

Walker and Bush?  Bush just doesn't inspire me nor does Walker.  That's just personal taste.

One thing I did notice though is each spoke with a degree of passion only on their achievements as narrow as some may be.  It made them appear one dimensional. The question is what strength do they have beyond that one?   Questions about what their code name would be or who should be pictured on our currency add nothing to the debate.

Hopefully next go round it will be a tighter field and the questions designed to draw out candidate positions rather than the moderator's Q ratings. It isn't about them!

An Aha! Moment

I watched the beginning of the Trump rally in Dallas until dinner was ready and found, to no surprise, a certain sameness to it.  That's okay.  All candidates have their stump speeches and if you don't follow politics to the extent I do they will be new to a certain percentage of rally attendees.

That being said, Trump's rarely contain substance.  That too is okay at this point. Whether or not he succeeds in the long run, though, will depend on substance in certain forums. Because certain forums haven't yet died.  The political pundits.

In that vein I also listen to the Washington insiders discussing the Trump phenomenon and their seeming inability to "get it".  I think I've figured out what they're missing.

People are so disgusted with Washington they want an outsider.  That's been the consensus and probably the correct one.  More than that I think they no longer care who fixes it - Democrat or Republican.  Just fix it!  This is where Trump is the master.  He preaches nothing but the positive.  We will be great again.  He'll do it. People love it.  Some of his ideas are more to the left, some more to the right and all likely to change as will the circumstances.  The people get it.  The politicians and pundits don't.

I think political ideology is shrinking into the walls of establishment enclaves be they in the media or the halls of Congress.  The people aren't so particular.  Gay marriage is now legal.  Okay. No big deal except for a few on whom the media choose to focus. Cops are under fire because of the lack of balance of those they target.  We get that the field isn't level because those committing the crimes aren't equally dispersed among ethnic backgrounds.  We get it.  The pols and pundits don't seem to.

We don't care if it's Republican policies or Democrat policies that are causing our financial woes. Both are to blame.  We get it.  The pols and pundits don't.

So aha! That's the deal.  We want someone who cares for the country and we who call it home and tells us in no uncertain terms he can fix it. We don't care who he or she is. But Trump has the track record of success.  Who wouldn't want to follow his lead on that basis?

Forget what the party says, listen to us and to borrow from Nike, just do it!

Just Thinking...

I ususally love it when  real life gets in the way of my blogging.  The last couple of weeks were just that.  During this time I found out my patience wears ever thinner and my desire to "be involved" has greatly diminished.

So here I am back at the keyboard and reflecting on our current state of affairs.  Not much has changed other than one presidential candidate has formally suspended his candidacy - Rick Perry.  The upcoming debate could do without a lot of the others but alas, they'll be there and get to say little as Trump reigns at the center podium.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I think he's beginning to unravel.  The insults will be his undoing.  I'm still waiting to see who will emerge.  I think Carson is too low key, Bush too uninspiring and the rest unable to break out which says a lot about them too.  Go Carly!

And of course Hillary is the gift that keeps on giving as is Bernie Sanders for completely different reasons.  If I were Biden I'd say thanks, but no.  Spend your golden years with Jill and be happy. Are there other Democrats running?  If so where the heck are they?

Congress is still a sham.  Neither party is worth a hill of beans.  The rest of the country muddles on as best they can not yet rising up against the ineffectual but the time is getting close.

Actually the country is running amok.  More campus shootings.  The head of Black Lives Matter is white.  Rachael Dolezal, the black/white or white/black is pregnant and unmarried.  The holier than thou Kim Davis is how many times divorced and has how many out of wedlock children yet screams for her religious principles when it comes to gays.

Hub and I went out to dinner for our anniversary Saturday night.  It was reputed to be a fairly nice restaurant.  So why was I disgusted to see men at the tables in muscle shirts and shorts?  My dearly departed mother would have said my reaction was due to a standard of living.  Hub and I cling to that.  It's easier than admitting we're dinosaurs.

Everything is so different these days.  Standards have changed to the point of there being no such thing.  Standards.  Political.  None.  Personal.  None.

So here I am, just thinking.  I don't fit in this world any more. I'm in no hurry to leave it, that's for sure, but I'm more content now to sit on the outside just observing rather than trying to make a statement of change. Just watch and wonder about this new normal and if there is a pendulum attached that will one day swing back.  I doubt it.  We only dwell in the past when we can celebrate our victimization by it.  Never on the good that was.  Or the standards we upheld.

Sigh,  The good old days.  There were so many.  Now I'm just thinking I'll be content if I can just dwell in my own past and relish the good time that it was.

The Pain Of Change

I was so glad to learn Carly Fiorina's people shamed CNN into changing the debate participant rules.  Why is it the Republicans are trying so hard to marginalize her while the Dems cling so desperately to Hillary? The two couldn't be more different in both experience and character!  It seems to me the clamor for a female candidate is focused on the wrong woman.  But then the Dems have long had the women's vote and the stuffy old Republicans just don't get it.  A bit chauvinistic are they?

Have you noticed that much of what Obama is  expostulating on now has only two alternatives? His way or total disaster.  His nuc agreement or war.  His climate change mandates or the world is going to disappear in a horrible, tortuous, painful expulsion from the universe.  Sheesh! What's going to be horrible, tortuous and painful are his last months in office.  That and watching Congress continue to malfunction.

The war on police. Wow.  We have a friend whose son is a beat cop in D.C. He tells his dad that all the cops get insulted, threatened and spit upon no matter their ethnicity.  Nothing like equal opportunity thugs. We need more men like Milwaukee police chief David Clark at the helm of departments across the land.  Men who see it as it is and aren't afraid to say so.  I worry about him though.  I'm sure he's a target.

I'm wondering if politics will get back to "normal" or if we're seeing the beginnings of a "new normal" that is positive for a change.  I don't think Trump will get the nomination but I'm willing to bet it won't be a old school politician, even a young one.  Fortunately people are beginning to have their voices heard and the astute have picked up on it. It just so happens the most flamboyant of them has taken the lead.  I'm still watching Florina, Carson, Cruz and Kasich to be the wild cards that become mainstream before it's all over.

Maybe Bush should let it go.  He strikes me as a man who doesn't have his heart in it but is doing so because he's been pushed and doesn't want to disappoint.  Well, he is disappointing and hardly inspirational.  Warm and cuddly and loving isn't necessarily inspirational. It is, however, a bit cloying.

So here we are.  Back to what this blog used to be all about.  Just musing.