Who knew that when the inevitable end of Trumpmentum - the slide of amateur pol and professional huckster Donald Trump - came about, the replacement candidate for Republican voters would be someone even worse?
The most current poll - as of October 25th - has Ben Carson with 26 percent of the voting base with Trump sliding to a respectable second place at 22 percent. The Iowa poll - the official starting line of the Republican rat race - has Carson at 32 percent (!) with Trump falling to a sad 18 percent.
Which proves my other argument that we really should NOT have our primaries go state-by-state, because the early states - small-population and slanted to extremist voters - skew to Teh Crazy and it ruins the grading curve. I'm still all-in for a nationwide One-Day Primary for everyone to vote the party candidates for President.
Ah, let's focus back on Carson. Because now with him as the statistical front-runner, we have to pay attention.
Previously when I listed him for a Presidential Character review, I didn't even give him a serious look. Carson was... is a neophyte rookie candidate for office that under normal circumstances of previous elections never deserved a serious look at all.
He still doesn't deserve it. Carson is a disaster as a political leader, not just because he's brand new to the whole profession - and yes it IS a job - but because the sizable evidence of his ill-informed ignorance of history, politics, and social issues are massive disqualifiers.
And yet it is that very point - his disdain for historical facts, his need to distort reality - that is driving Carson's rising poll numbers. Much in the same way the numbers went up for Carly Fiorina - another rookie at politics - when she lied and kept lying about her personal work history and about Planned Parenthood.
Are such numbers sustainable? At some point won't he come down to Earth the same way Fiorina did - she's now back to a tolerable 6 percent or so in polling - and the way blowhard Trump slid to Second Place?
Would it matter? Because think of it this way: If Carson slides down after this euphoric run ends, who will take his place at the top spot then? Hint: it won't be Jeb.
We're witnessing not the rise of a particular candidate, we're witnessing the desire of the Republican primary voters to express their hatred of their own party's Establishment and their eagerness to promote dangerous radicals with no governing experience. For months now - longer than any sane political race needed it to be - the front-runners for the Republican ticket were the likes of Trump, Carson and Fiorina. Meanwhile, the "sane" Establishment choices like Jeb, Rubio and Kasich sank and currently languish in single-digit purgatory, and the likes of Scott Walker - the preferred Midwest Savior choice of the Beltway elites - dropped out altogether.
The regular dynamics of a Republican primary have changed: the mass of voters having been told for years (decades) that government is bad have turned against the very idea of competency as a political necessity. When you put Trump and Carson's polling numbers together you get around 48 percent, near half the polling population. Throw in Fiorina's 7 percent we're now talking 55 percent, a clear majority of voting Republicans. That's not even including the likes of Huckabee, Cruz and Jindal who would love to take a chainsaw to the Constitution in the name of God and Guns.
That 55 percent of the Republican voting base is what's worrisome: it's large enough to make a dent in the primaries by confirming the likes of Trump or Carson as the winner come convention time. It's large enough to make the general election against the Democratic candidate a troubling matter. Despite the potential for a Dem blowout - I would like to think the threat of a disastrous Trump/Carson regime would drive all the Indy and moderate Republican voters over to an energized Democratic bloc - there runs the risk of a close and messy campaign depending entirely on how effective the Democrats could be in GOTV efforts.
Hoping for a campaign collapse among the Republicans isn't going to cut it. The party itself is now beholden to a radical anti-government agenda regardless of who their main candidate will be.
The Democrats have to work harder than expected to stop that Far Right voting base. This is not going to be an easy run.
1 comment:
I read someone on Crooks and Liars say that they hope Trump doesn't implode, because Rubio has the possibility of beating Hillary in the general. I don't think that it's very likely, but I didn't think W would get in either...
-Doug in Oakland
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