This is shaping up to be one of the strangest presidential election seasons I can remember. And I voted for the first time in 1976.
The obvious factor that makes for strangeness is the mob of Republican wannabes. While pretty much any of them would make a better president by my standards than Hillary Clinton, 17 is a really high number to have to whittle down. Donald Trump is sucking all the air out of the process, but he doesn’t have enough votes in the polls to clinch anything.
Also strange, but refreshing, is that establishment darling Jeb Bush is lagging in the polls in spite of raising the most money. That’s a sure sign that the natives are restless and won’t abide an “it’s-his-turn” candidate dished up by the GOP powers-that-be this time around.
Everyone else gets lost in the sameness of conservative principles they all agree on, with the exception of Rand Paul, whose libertarian bent causes him to often clash with the others. But that doesn’t really give him an advantage in the polls.
But strangeness in the Republican camp is totally outdone by the Democrats. The nominal front-runner and “it’s-a-woman’s-turn” candidate, Hillary Clinton, is having trouble maintaining a lead against an old white guy from Vermont, because she has more skeletons in the closet than Jeffrey Dahmer. She has serious problems with the FBI investigation into deeds that, if it was you or me, could mean jail time, or losing the security clearance necessary to BE president, at the very least.
So Bernie Sanders, self-confessed Socialist and eccentric curmudgeon, is garnering huge crowds and, in some polls, beats Clinton in New Hampshire, an early primary state. And then there’s two other forgettable white guys running for the Party of Diversity. Meanwhile the party of Old White Men has fielded two Hispanics, one African-American, one woman, one billionaire and two medical doctors, along with a variety of career politicians.
Like I said, strangeness.
