Time For A Change

There’s a lot going on in politics all over the world, and it’s time to put it all in perspective.

But don’t expect me to do it. I’m not smart enough.

Instead, let me tell you why I have reached my limit with politics in America.

Let me be clear about this. I will be taking a break from blogging about politics for at least a month or two.

I might blog about the Houston Astros now that baseball season in starting, our national emotional attachment to stars we have never met, or even the odd fact that as many people believe in astrology as support Bernie Sanders.

Damn, politics is sneaking in again. Hard to quit cold turkey.

It seems like the only way I can get this all out of my system is to file one final political blog. If I’m lucky it could be the last political blog I write until we actually find out which two candidates will be running for President in November.

So, here goes.

First, a riddle. What is the difference between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? Well, one yells and screams, sets impossible goals and promises to do things that we can’t afford. The other just yells and screams, sets impossible goals and promises to do things that we can’t afford.

Second, a question. What do you call a bunch of Democratic candidates who all say that any one of them would make a better President than Donald Trump, but spend most of their time in debates attacking each other because of things some of them did or said 10 or 15 years ago?

The answer is easy. Call them a bunch of Democratic candidates.

Now that I have that out of my system,  I have an observation. If money is so bad when you are a very rich person, you are attacked for buying the nomination, But, if you raise lots of money by pandering to your base, you are praised for buying the election. And, pray tell, what happens to the candidates for president who don’t raise enough money? Obviously, they don’t get the nomination. They just suspend their candidacy.

Which raises yet another question. Why can’t any of them say they are dropping out. They could always parachute back in later if all the other candidates are kidnapped by Martians.

(We all know that couldn’t happen. Donald Trump’s new Space Force is on the job.)

Well, while you breathlessly look at charts of likely election results and follow the delegates seeking the magic number of 1,991, let me give you some numbers.

There will be 3,979 delegates at the Democratic nominating convention, but the 771 superdelegates do not vote on the first ballot unless the nomination is uncontested, So, to win on the first ballot a candidate needs 1,991 delegates out of 3,208.  Good luck with that this year.

By the end of March, two-thirds of the delegates will be selected. If you want to look like a wise pundit, here is just one more number - by the end of March, a winning Democratic candidate should have gotten 1,328 delegates.

Again, good luck with that.

So, before I go to work full-time thinking about ethical questions - things like why is it wrong for a batter to steal signals from the catcher and pitcher in baseball when the same batter is rewarded for stealing second base? - let me tell you about a plan I have to monetize politics. Several plans, actually.

If you want to buy in to any of them, I could always use the money. No guarantees of course. And, if there are any legal issues involved, I could always run the plan past our nation’s Attorney General. I think I know a way to get his attention.

First, I will start an import-export business. I would import money from other countries, and export lies about candidates to the internet. I know some actors we could hire who would wear t-shirts identifying them as members of ethnic or economic groups. You know, guys who go to a rally with “Bankers for Jones” t-shirts on demanding we increase taxes on the poor to cut our national debt. “Of course, the poor,” one would say when they are interviewed. “There are so many of them.” The other candidate, call her Smith, would love it.

Second, I will start a not-for-profit and collect money for a very important project, which will be a source of national pride. I would raise hundreds of millions of dollars to carve the face of another President on Mt. Rushmore, which would instantly create an economic boom in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.

Well, not instantly, of course. The face of President Trump would have to be designed - I want it to be at least 120-feet tall, twice as big as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, and then I would have to decide if it would be to the right of Lincoln or the left of Washington. I don’t want to make a political error.

The money would be supervised by - and get this - President Trump himself, who will have some spare time to do it after he leaves office, Heck, I would use some of it  to build him a private 18-hole golf course near the construction site. All I want is my cut for administrative expenses, paid directly to my not-for-profit set up in an overseas tax haven.

Third, I would start a production company to run new TV shows- contests like Scientist verses Athletes. Give each contestant a baseball bat, hire a major league pitcher, and see who wins a baseball game, the people who can chart the curve of a ball or the people who can actually hit a home run.

I was thinking about a dating show too. Rich verses Handsome, where a half dozen beautiful women have to decide who they want to date - a really attractive man or a slightly ugly, slightly older but really rich one.

I just don’t know if I would be accused of setting up a situation where someone buys a date, After all, that would never happen in real life, would it?

The Sudden Storm

The storm that swept across the political landscape this week had all the elements of the dramatic tornadoes that sweep across the midwest, or the hurricanes that sweep across the East Coast, or even the firestorms that sweep across California.

Nice images. I like them. But, take a minute to think about it, and you will realize there is a lot more going on here than some dramatic words and images.

The political storm roiling our nation and the real storms that turn the world upside down for the people they hit have lots of things in common.

They are predictable. They are incredibly powerful and disruptive. And, they change things, sometimes permanently.

Powerful, no doubt. Something has shaken our political establishment to the bone. Look at the angry crowds at Trump rallies, just looking for other people to blame for their problems. They are organized, and they are wrong.

Then look at the Bernie Bros, the people who were right in saying that the last time the Democrat picked a president the field was tilted against Bernie Sanders, and they were right. Now, they want revenge. And, they are wrong.

Storms are like that. Lightning flashes down, and illuminates the landscape. The strikes show us things that were there all the time, but that we tend not to see until they are brilliantly brought to life by a flash of light.

The Democrats in Congress who pushed for impeachment - who threatened to shred the fabric of the party unless they got their impeachment - haven’t said a word publicly about their bad timing.

Not even one “I’m sorry Nancy. You were right, and I was wrong.” That might have cleared the air a bit.

The Republicans who are now being exposed for moral cowardice for not voting for impeachment for reasons as obvious as the nose on their faces didn’t have a sudden lapse of character.

When they all stood in line and did nothing while the President’s men stole hundreds - maybe thousands - of children from their families, put the kids in cages, and then said they couldn’t find the records to reunite those families, it was a marker.

They all stand tall for family values, providing the family looks like them. Nothing else. Moral cowards all, and we ignored it in the whirling landscape of Washington until this storm pointed out their flaw, right there for all to see.

Can you imagine the Republican Party shifting its own formidable weight against Mitt Romney because he really believes that an oath to God carries moral weight? Boom. Crash. Flash.

Well, that’s the obvious. Now, let’s look a little closer at some of the other things illuminated by this impeachment.

First, like any storm, it will eventually blow away. Here on the East Coast, storms usually blow out to sea, or to others states. We look at paths on the weather map and know their course.

Now we have a map of the primary season, where it will be going next. New Hampshire, Super Tuesday when a third of the Nation will hold primaries, then New York and New Jersey and everywhere else.

By then, of course it may all be over. If California and Texas come up with the same candidate on Super Tuesday,  it well may be. Or not.

I look at the future and see chaos.

Boom. Crash, Flash again. That might not happen. One candidate might just pick up the 1,990 pledged delegates needed to be nominated on the first ballot.

But I don’t think that will happen. Instead, California and New York and Alabama and Hawaii and all the other states my not pick a single winner, which means someone will have to get 2,376 votes in later ballots after those delegates are released.

That means we are heading toward that most unthinkable of things in modern politics, a political convention where no candidate is inevitable. 

There will be floor fights and backroom deals, made by people who offer to swap their delegates if you agree to make Vice President, or Secretary of State or put them in your cabinet.

You know, those terrible appointments made to insiders. Just the way Donald Trump put people in those posts. And Barack Obama, and Lindon Johnson. And Abraham Lincoln. Well, not quite Lincoln. The system was different then. Team of Rivals explains it well, if you care to read it.

The question is, would it really be so bad if all those squabbling Democrats had to get together and figure out just who they really represent, just what they hope to do if they get elected and what their priorities for the nation are?

What if they agree some kind of universal health care for all should be available in the United States, just as it is in every other industrial nation, democratic or socialist or even communist?

What if they all agree the environment should be protected, and that food and shelter should be available to anyone who works at a low paying job, or who can’t work at all?

Hey, these things cost money. I know where we could get a quick trillion dollars. It involves reversing the Trump tax cut, that added that much debt to our economy every year.

What if a Democratic majority, along with a Republican minority, actually got together in Washington to hash those things out, talked about it, reached some conclusions?

You might call that a golden age of politics. I would call it a caucus.

Flash. Crash. Boom.