HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL...... and, welcome to 2016 - the year that will be filled with excitement, wonder, and..... the largest number of Presidential candidates in history! Yet, when all is said and done, the number will shrink from the current 14 (11 Rs and 3 Ds) to 2 or 3 (maybe an Independent?). And, then comes the "really big show" this fall. At this writing, some 84 candidates continue in this race. Oops..... did I say 84? Yup..... Right now there are 15 Democrats seeking the party nod, 31 Republicans seeking their party designation, and 38 Independent candidates in the field.
Did I mention a partridge in a pear tree? Of course, the media focus (and that means all of us too) is limited to 3 Dems, 11 Repubs, and.... well... who knows who all those Indies are anyhow????
So, lets see how attuned you really are...... Can you identify the following? Well... lets make it easier.... Identify the following 10 names by party affiliation - D, R, I - and lets see how you do.
Ready? Here goes.... no Google assists now.....
1. Willie Carter. 2. Kerry Andrews. 3. Valma Kittington. 4. Ed Baker. 5. Scott Copeland
6. Doug Shreffler 7. Lloyd Kelso 8. Chad Koppie. 9. Tami Stainfield. 10. Jeb Bush
So..... Recognize a few? Some? A bunch? Just one? Bet I can guess...... JEB BUSH!
Well.... OK... so, that one was a "gimme"... but, I didn't want you to feel like a totally uninformed member or the presidential electorate...... But, given that Jeb is still in single digits after spending millions of dollars in TV and radio ads, he might as well suffer the fate of all the others named above - political oblivion in 2016. But, I leave that decision to the wing-nuts, tea-baggers, and the right-wing crazies who are presently pretending to be the Republican Party..... And, should one of their own somehow become the Republican nominee, perhaps that will lead to the post-Labor Day field of candidates including someone who might make a race of it.... But, I get ahead of myself.
"Wonder"..... I mentioned that in my opening. I do wonder when the Republican electorate might wake up to the possibility that they could be heading to the dustbin of American political history where they can join the Bullmoose Party, the Whig Party, and many others who, in their time, made poor political judgments and suffered the consequences. Is it possible that the Rs will so cannibalize themselves that they give birth to a Third Party? Or, we will see many flee a more extreme example of the reasonable, responsible, and conservative Republican Party of the 20th Century as the party takes on a more extreme and radical agenda as the "new" Republican Party in the 21st century? Time will tell as the primary electorate begins to focus on their candidates in 2016 as it really did not do in 2015. Will the "new" Republican party nominate one of their radical number and burn brightly for a time and then burn out like a meteor streaking through the atmosphere as it burns into a cinder and disappears? And, can Hillary survive the present FBI review of the e-mail controversy, unite the liberal wing of the party, and use Martin O'Malley on the stump to forge party unity for yet another Democratic victory this year? We will certainly bear witness to it all as the election unfolds throughout the year.
2016 - an exciting year in American electoral politics.... and, potentially a very historic one as well.
Could it be the election of billionaire Donald Trump and the rule of the American Oligarchs? Or, perhaps the election of the first woman president in US history? Or, will we all "feel the burn" with the election of an old and angry man from Vermont named Sanders? It is really up to us.... So, hang onto your hats ladies and gentlemen.... And, as Jackie Gleason used to say.. "AND, AWAY WE GO!
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