First off let me set a couple of ground rules if you’re going to comment. 1) If you’re liberal/left/progressive, I am not interested in snarky insulting comments. Insults are not discourse. 2) If you are right/Republican/conservative I’m not interested in ‘Squirrel’ posts where you start pointing a finger at liberals/Democrats and such. This post is about Republicans, not Democrats.
I watching the current primary season and I just can’t fully fathom what if going on with the Republican Party. As I type this the top two leading candidates (Trump and Carson) for president of the united states are polling a combined 48.8 percent and neither is a person who would normally be considered a serious contender for the position.
Setting aside philosophical and policy issues, it perfectly fine to have deep and serious disagreement with many of the stands presented by the Republican Party, heaven knows I do, what going on right now is bonkers.
Look at what has happened already in the race. Two governors, both with re-elections under their belt, were tossed aside, never seriously considered by the general population of the party while a carnival barker and surgeon without any government executive experience rocket to the top. Right now the distance from Carson to the next leading contender (Rubio) is a whopping 13 points. People with real standing and real experience as trailing what should be fringe candidates.
This is not normal. Last presidential cycle we have a parade of not-Romney candidates because the base really did not trust or like Romney. However the establishment backed him, and those not-Romney tended to flame out fairly quickly. That’s not the dynamic this time around.
There is no single candidate that fully has the establishment’s backing, and the summer has evolved into fall with winter coming and Carson and Trump show no signs of crashing. Why?
Has the population of the Republican electorate changed that much? Did younger voters go elsewhere while too many members, like me, left in disgust? Is the field so weak that bombast fills in for seriousness? Have eight years of ‘no compromise’ conditioned an electorate to view anything except rigid purity as unacceptable?
I hold as an article of faith that someone other than Trump or Carson will win the nomination, but I don;t know who or how. In the meantime, I watch as one of America’s two parties thrashes in the throes of madness.