As a rule there is never a more exciting time to be a professional amateur armchair political pundit (as I fancy myself) than primary season. It's even better than a close general election, because the characters are more colorful, the chance for craziness is exponentially more pronounced, and best of all about every single week from the Iowa Caucus onward there is a primary or caucus that has the potential of upending all the prior conventional wisdom. Also, importantly the stakes usually feel lower, so getting amusement from the civic process itself just feels less icky. Case in point, Newt Gingrich as a potential but unlikely Republican nominee is pretty entertaining (and boy was he.. maybe I'll write a post at some point about his epic 2012 flair up and flame out ). Newt Gingrich as a person who has a good shot of being President not so much. All the traits that made his Don Quixote-esque run for the White House hilarious (like narcissism, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and paranoia just to name a few, I could keep going for awhile) make the prospect of his actually being President really sad and scary.
So, given the above you can imagine my delight at how the 2016 race is shaping up.I would like to say that it has lived up to my wildest political fantasies, but that's giving myself way too much credit. Even at my most imaginative I never it thought it possible that a candidate like Donald Trump (although is there really another person "like" Donald Trump out there?) would flourish, and actually have a decent shot at winning the nomination of one the political parties. This is because I've always operated under the assumption that the political parties (gate keepers that they are) were too powerful, to let a person with absolutely no political/govermnent experience, and no real ties to the the party, get even close to the nomination. That's not just my conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom of the entire country, and specifically the non-armchair actual professional pundit class until about a month ago maybe. But Donald Trump has upended political conventional wisdom as we know it. We are all now just along the ride. Buckle up, as Sarah Palin would probably say, we are in for a lot of bumps on that which... many in the mainstream media would call a ride...
So, given the above you can imagine my delight at how the 2016 race is shaping up.I would like to say that it has lived up to my wildest political fantasies, but that's giving myself way too much credit. Even at my most imaginative I never it thought it possible that a candidate like Donald Trump (although is there really another person "like" Donald Trump out there?) would flourish, and actually have a decent shot at winning the nomination of one the political parties. This is because I've always operated under the assumption that the political parties (gate keepers that they are) were too powerful, to let a person with absolutely no political/govermnent experience, and no real ties to the the party, get even close to the nomination. That's not just my conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom of the entire country, and specifically the non-armchair actual professional pundit class until about a month ago maybe. But Donald Trump has upended political conventional wisdom as we know it. We are all now just along the ride. Buckle up, as Sarah Palin would probably say, we are in for a lot of bumps on that which... many in the mainstream media would call a ride...
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