Is it time for Hillary? Have you seen the other choices?
The 2016 elections are coming up again. And this time around, it is Clinton versus Bush. Oh, sure, the primaries haven't even started yet, but we know how this will play out. This time around, Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee as the Democrats are not fielding any serious candidates.
And on the GOP side, the only candidate who could even hope to get a national majority is Jeb Bush.
Ted Cruz? Be serious. Besides, he's Canadian - and we've seen his birth certificate. Sorry, but that game plays both ways. Born in a foreign country? Can't be President. Oh, there are different rules for Republicans? I see. Or have you been lying to us for nearly eight years? The latter, I'm afraid. Which is why I can't vote GOP - they insult my intelligence with this "birther" nonsense, which they foster and fester. I'm not a fucking idiot. Thanks for playing, though.
So it will be Jeb, unless he does something really stupid. Bobby Jindal and the other munchkins don't really have a chance.
So like it or not, we have to political dynasties fighting for the Presidency. Like that never happened in the USA before, right? I am reading Gore Vidal's Empire series of historical novels. He is a bit of a kook (Vidal) but the novels send you clicking on Google and Wikipedia frequently. Did that really happen, or is this the fictional part of the novel? Oddly enough, odd things have happened throughout our history. And political dynasties are one of them.
The Roosevelts, of course come to mind, as one family that had two Presidents. Elenore was, by the way, Teddy's niece, and she and FDR saved a lot of money on monogramming (not having to change her name after marrying her cousin).
The Adams family (not of TV fame) spawned two Presidents (Nos. 2 and 6) and was active in politics until the 20th Century. And yes, I am sure people said at the time, "What, another Adams in the White House?"
So just get over this "political dynasty" thing - our nation spawns political families, so just get over it.
The real question is, of the choice presented, who is the best candidate?
Note that I did not say, "Who is your ideal candidate?" because that is never the question on the ballot.
As I have noted time and time again, political maturity dictates that you pick the candidate you feel best suited for the job, not the candidate that panders to every one of your whims. Because the latter candidate will never exist.
And if you decide to stay home in a hissy fit because your "perfect" candidate isn't running, then the worst of your two options often wins by default.
This is the real danger for Hillary. A majority of the United States doesn't feel that Jeb Bush is the best choice for President - nor any of the other Republican candidates. But people on the right have been waiting eight years to give Obama his walking papers, and they will passionately vote for whoever the GOP puts forth.
On the other side, well, you saw how the mid-terms went. Since our Black President wasn't on the ballot, most voters who put him in office stayed home, with predictable results. Hillary faces the same problem. Many folks have vague unease about the Clintons, which is predictable, as the GOP has been cranking up the Clinton FUD machine for decades now. Clinton Death Lists? Check. Clinton Financial Misdoings? Check? Benghazi? Check, Check, Check, Check, CHECK!!!!
So when I talk to dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, their response to Hillary 2016 is a big yawn. Oh, maybe she'll win, but there are all those questions, right? And Hillary hasn't made the personal appeal for money that Obama did. By getting people to send in $10, $20, $100, or $2000 (as I did), Obama not only out-raised his opponent, he got people to invest in the election. Why stay home on election night when you've bought into the process, literally?
(By the way, the Hillary website is horrific. The "donate now" tab is fraught with HTML coding errors. If you click on an amount to donate, it bombs out. If you fill out the donation form and manually enter a dollar amount and click "donate" it bombs out, but apparently takes your donation. America might be ready for Hillary, but Hillary is still not ready for the Internet.)
I still get e-mails from "Obama" asking me for money. Hillary has yet to beg for a single cent. You would think Obama would give her access to his mailing list or something. But no. Hillary, it seems, is courting the big money donors, just as she did the last time around. And that is exactly the sort of thing that keeps people home on election night. You don't need my money? You don't need my vote, either.
And no, spending a billion dollars on advertising isn't going to drive me to the polls. Investment is.
So, this is Hillary's election to lose. And sadly, I think she will lose it, and this will be disastrous for the United States. We will see Social Security cut. We will see taxes for the rich cut. We will see even more deficit spending, as we did under the last Bush. And we will see more needless wars in the Middle East - the wrongs wars fought at the wrong time - wars that created the situation we are in today.
And like the last Bush, we will see gas to to $5 a gallon and the economy collapse. And it is not far-fetched, because (a) it happened before and (b) we have a guy who is beholden to the energy companies, and (c) with more deficit spending our currency will collapse and inflation take off.
Oh, and Bush will kill Obamacare leaving everyone scrambling to figure out just what the hell we're going to do for healthcare. My advice? Don't get sick. Shitty advice, I grant you that.
Instead of just fixing Obamacare, the GOP will just toss it out in favor of nothing which in turn will create chaos in the medical market.
And all of this may very well happen. If you thought buying gold was a good idea because Obama became President.... well, maybe we will see $5000 an ounce under Bush.
Sadly, the sentiment I am hearing from most Democrats is that since the leader of their choice (who is an unnamed "someone else") isn't running, they will stay home rather than vote for Hillary. And in swing states, this amounts to a vote for Jeb Bush.
I am usually an optiimisitic person, but I see our country heading off a cliff, because a lot of people are politically immature, and not being able to get "their way" will stay home and pout instead. I will have no sympathy for them when Jeb Bush cancels their Obamacare and tosses the country in to deep recession and sends their kids off to be killed in a foreign war.
No sympathy at all.
