Thank goodness and all the gods that be that the election is over, that we've seen the last of the nasty television ads and can once again turn on the TV without some politician slyly telling us about the evil traits of his/her opponent.The relief at an election concluded (except for Arizona which seems to have more ballots still uncounted than counted) is like taking a deep breath of fresh air. Ahhhhh.
But is it really over? I just read how people are already talking about and positioning themselves for 2016! The pundits, too, are busily predicting who will or who will not run in four more years. Arghhhh! Perhaps we could do some governing before we start running?
Quesions are being asked. Will Biden be the Democratic nominee? Is Hillary going to go for the gold? Chris Christie will surely be a top Republican contender. Or maybe Huckabee, he of god and country (in that order) will give it another try. The problem is that there isn't a Republican left in this country that would be worthy of the White House.
If you differ, please name one. Just don't say Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin or Paul Ryan. That would exclude you from polite conversation anywhere on earth.
The hard truth is that Republicans don't seem to be much concerned as to the qualifications of those who run for public office. Consider the group of would-be nominees from this last fiasco: Huckabee was one, a lying, sleazy Southern Baptist preacher/pundit, nasty as a Florida gator; Ginrich threw his hat in the ring not knowing that he was a dead man so far as politics go; Santorum? Please. He's an ideologue in love with the Pope. Ron Paul has a lot of noisy supporters, but his libertarianism is as nonsensical these days as is Communism. Rick Perry faded early after he showed the world he didn't have a clue about much of anything except he didn't like the federal government giving Texas money unless they did and then he kept it. Perry also loved Jesus and thought the government should sponsor prayer fests led by really whacked Pentecostals who are looking to take over the world for Haysus.
But I'm going to make a prediction. I don't have any feel for who will end up being the Democratic nominee, although the Dems have a large group of competent and capable men and women any one of which would do a good job as the leader of the free world.
The Republicans, as we've said, are really out of ammo. They were so desperate in this last contest they nominated Romney even though most of them didn't like him, thought him to be a hollow man, didn't trust him and didn't know anything about what he believed about anything. Which makes sense because as we found out, Romney himself didn't know what he believed about anything.
Here's the deal. If you've read the latest crapola as to why the Republicans lost the election, you know a lot of it had to do with the Latino vote. As I recall, about 70% of Latinos voted for Mr. Obama. Which should have been no surprise. The Repubs showed clearly they didn't care about the Latinos or what the Latinos cared about. They were an anti-immigrant party, and their plan for immigration reform was essentially "Send the bastards back to where they came from!"
For some reason that didn't sit too well with Latinos or Hispanics. And the Repubs lost the Latino vote big-time!
What can they do? That's easy. Put Jeb Bush up as their nominee. Jeb is married to a Hispanic, he speaks Spanish and he's well thought of by people who don't know his record as governor in Florida. Of course, Republicans think he was a great governor, but then they thought the same of Romney in Massachusetts. The truth is much darker.
Jeb is better-looking, younger and much smarter than his brother, Georgy. He can talk a good game even though his game-plan is the same old tired "less taxes, more privatization, deregulate everything in sight; give public money to private religious schools, blah, blah, blah."
But most importantly, Jeb, who has insisted that he isn't going to run for public office again, is now making noises hinting he might, just possibly, if necessary, be open to the Republican nomination. He probably figures if Romney could get nominated, just about anyone could. He would be a formidable and very dangerous candidate.
But my bet is that Jeb Bush will be the Republican nominee in 2016.
