GOP Fielded Record 17 Candidates And Couldn’t Find One…

At the start of the Republican primary campaign to select a nominee to wrest back the executive branch for their party I told my wife that this would be a rather unusual campaign .
I told her that in a normal situation Ohio’s Governor John Kasich would probably be the last candidate standing. In fact American voters has shown a preference to electing Governors over Senators. But I got the feeling this 2016 season would be anything but a normal cycle.
This does not mean that John Kasich is a good candidate he is just the least vile of a bunch of rotten bunch.
I was mindful of the fact that after seven plus years of FOX and talk radio anti-Obama invective there was a toxic environment out in the heartland which was ready to explode.
President Obama correctly characterized it by saying Republicans parched the earth Trump simply struck the match.

I began hand­i­cap­ping the field this way.
(1) Scott Walker the Republican Governor of Wisconsin was pret­ty good at win­ning elec­tions at home despite wag­ing open war­fare on Unions in favor of the KOCH brothers.

However after being tricked into believ­ing he was speak­ing to one of the Kock broth­ers by two radio pranksters after he won the Governorship , it appeared this guy may have had too much stuff on him to be elect­ed President.
He was the first to drop out of the race.

(2) Former ® Arkansas Governor and Baptist preach­er Mike Huckabee who ran for the nom­i­na­tion before become becom­ing a FOX com­men­ta­tor is only inter­est­ed in keep­ing his name in the husking.

(3) Bobby Jindal Louisiana Governor’s response to President Obama’s state of the Union was wide­ly panned by all . In fact USA Today list­ed Jindal’s appear­ance as one of the five poor­est State of the Union respons­es seen in recent years.
Jindal was seen as not ready for prime-time. Additionally, the Governor’s poor poll num­bers at home make him a less than attrac­tive candidate.

(4) Rick Santorum Former Republican PA US Senator and peren­ni­al jour­ney­man pres­i­den­tial can­di­date did not have any­thing that would have made a dif­fer­ence from the oth­er times he was a can­di­date. Santorum the sweater-vest can­di­date can­di­date seem to rel­ish the process of run­ning to keep his name in the spot­light as well.

(5) Rick Perry Former ® Texas Governor did not bring any­thing new which would have negat­ed the giant “Oops” which char­ac­ter­ized his pre­vi­ous pres­i­den­tial bid.
It appeared top Republican donors were not going to throw much good mon­ey at a bad can­di­date . Rick’s pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions evap­o­rat­ed rather quick­ly as well.
Perry like sev­er­al oth­er can­di­dates may have been embold­ened to run again know­ing they would not have to face Obama.

(6) Carly Fiorina for­mer tech­nol­o­gy busi­ness exec­u­tive, nev­er had a chance as far as I’m con­cerned . Fiorina a for­mer Hewlett Packard CEO was ulti­mate­ly forced to resign from the com­pa­ny amidst a ques­tion­able merg­er she under­took between HP and Compaq. Fiorina lat­er ran a ill-fat­ed Senate bid in her home state of California against Democratic pow­er­house Dianne Fienstien which she lost.

(7) Jeb Bush the Former ®Florida Governor was run­ning against a name head-wind , there was a gen­er­al sense that the nation had had it’s fill of the Bushes. In fact Jeb’s own moth­er said the nation should look to anoth­er fam­i­ly for peo­ple to run for President or some­thing to that effect. Jeb raised tons of mon­ey and launched his cam­paign using his first name and stat­ing he was his own man.
In the end no amount of mon­ey or run­ning from his fam­i­ly name could save Jeb Bush . Primary vot­ers were clear­ly in no mood for anoth­er Bush and Donald Trump did the rest by defin­ing Jeb as low energy.
Jeb would lat­er embrace his fam­i­ly name by bring­ing his broth­er , for­mer President George W Bush to stump for him , as well as his moth­er the matron­ly Barbara Bush. Trump again ridiculed Jeb laugh­ing that he brought out his mom­my to defend him. Jeb even­tu­al­ly dropped out.

(8) George Pataki the for­mer new York Republican Governor may have decid­ed to take a long-shot grab at the rung . For all intents and pur­pos­es Pataki’s polit­i­cal ship had long sailed , in fact hard­ly any­one remem­bered who George Pataki includ­ing in his home state of New York. But with Barack Obama dis­qual­i­fied by term lim­its , oh why the hell not?
With a fiz­zle pop, pop Pataki’s cam­paign end­ed before it began.

(9) Ben Carson the renowned pedi­atric brain sur­geon’s cam­paign was based on the ridicu­lous things he said about President Barack Obama the nations first black pres­i­dent. Carson likened the President’s sig­na­ture Affordable Care Act to slav­ery. He con­tin­ued to make out­landish state­ments about the pres­i­dent which endeared him to the most vile ele­ments of the polit­i­cal right .
In the end Carson suc­ceed­ed in estab­lish­ing that though a brain sur­geon he was not very smart , he’s out and now he may have all the time he needs to sleep and pon­der the idio­cy of his state­ments about the president.

(10) Chris Christie the ram­bunc­tious New Jersey Governor said in 2012 he was not ready to run for pres­i­dent . At the time there was much hype sur­round­ing his sup­posed ris­ing star in the GOP. I was nev­er one who thought that Christie’s style of lead­er­ship was going to fly on the nation­al lev­el. He was far too loud , abra­sive, dis­mis­sive, and dis­re­spect­ful to be President. Embracing President Obama after the President vis­it­ed his state after the hur­ri­cane in 2012 may have been the death-knell for his chances.

With the bridge gate scan­dal and the loud obnox­ious Donald Trump in the pack this cycle it was clear that Christie was not going to out Trump Trump.
before long Christie was a Trump cheer-leader.

(11) Like his father Ron Paul the for­mer Texas con­gress­man ‚Kentucky Senator Rand Paul decid­ed to throw his hat into the crowd­ed GOP ring . But in a year when the loud mouth brava­do of the likes of Cruz, Christie, and Trump are dri­ving the debate about who can kill more peo­ple by car­pet-bomb­ing or tor­tur­ing them the mild man­nered Kentucky US Senator’s mes­sage of non-inter­ven­tion had no res­o­nance and he too was out.

(12) South Carolina ® Senator Lindsay Graham anoth­er also ran also seem to lose sleep at night think­ing about how to be pres­i­dent of the United States . They say nev­er say nev­er but the Senator with the deep south­ern drawl would prob­a­bly be bet­ter served if he enjoy being one of a very spe­cial club , the US Senate.
I hard­ly believe Lindsay Graham is going to be President of the United States and nei­ther does Republican Primary voters .

(13) Former Virginia ® Governor Jim Gilmore not a bad Governor but no one knew who he was and with a crack and a fiz­zle out went the Governor’s chance of becom­ing President.

(14) Marco Rubio ® Florida of all of the can­di­dates for President I abhorred him the most. The son of Cuban immi­grants he turned his backs on immi­grants plac­ing repub­li­can far right xeno­pho­bic rhetoric over peo­ple. Rubio once said “Barack Obama has no class” in ref­er­ence to the pres­i­dent of the United States. President Obama was twice elect­ed and has had a scan­dal free admin­is­tra­tion. The first fam­i­ly has been an exer­cise in class and grace.
Additionally Rubio was dis­re­spect­ful, arro­gant, and cocky to say the least. He referred to the pres­i­dent by his name only with­out men­tion­ing that he is the pres­i­dent of the United States. This I though was a clear attempt to de-legit­imize the duly twice elect­ed pres­i­dent of the United States of America.
I could tol­er­ate that from a white Anglo-Saxon, they start­ed that , I expect noth­ing less from them, but I would not tol­er­ate it from a Cuban who want­ed to pass him­self as a white Anglo-Saxon.
In the end the peo­ple of the great state of Florida agreed with me Rubio could­n’t even win Florida.

(15) John Kasich ® Governor of Ohio vet­er­an GOP politi­cian a sit­ting Governor of a major indus­tri­al state , a swing state. In a year when vot­ers are not con­sumed with Trumps fas­cism Kasich would be a good bet for nom­i­nee of his par­ty. He is not a ide­o­logue hes is prob­a­bly the best of the sor­ry lot.
John Kasich has no viable path to secur­ing the req­ui­site del­e­gates to win the repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion , but he sol­diers on nonethe­less, hop­ing that through some stroke of mir­a­cle he will pre­vail in a bro­kered convention.
That is as like­ly to hap­pen as I am like­ly to win the lot­to (I nev­er buy a tick­et) Of the three remain­ing GOP can­di­dates Kasich has the least num­ber of delegates.

(16) Ted Cruz ® Texas , is a first term sen­a­tor born in Canada to a Cuban father and he claims a Welsh moth­er, Cruz was a Canadian cit­i­zen util two yeras ago when he real­ized he want­ed to run for pres­i­dent and he could­n’t do so while being a Canadian cit­i­zen. Then and only then did Cruz denounce his Canadian citizenship.
Does any­one recall the stink sur­round­ing Barack Obama’s cit­i­zen­ship? Obama was born in Hawaii which is the United States. The Cuban Canadian Ted Cruz who pass­es him­self as a white south­ern neo­con does not men­tion that he should not be run­ning for pres­i­dent, and nei­ther does the oth­er lying republicans.
In the sen­ate where Ted Cruz is one of one hun­dred peo­ple he is hat­ed by his peers, even though this guy is still in the race it’s dif­fi­cult to envis­age enough peo­ple hold­ing their noses and vot­ing for this pre­ten­tious self absorbed twit.

(17) Donald Trump the self described New York bil­lion­aire devel­op­er and real­i­ty Television star has been the lead­ing GOP can­di­date from the start of the 2016 cycle , recent events seemed to have slowed the jug­ger­naut known as the Trump Campaign a bit .
The Candidate is run­ning to make America great again a poor­ly dis­guised dog-whis­tle which real­ly means, make America white again.
His cam­paign has been xeno­pho­bic, Islama-pho­bic- nar­cis­sis­tic, misog­y­nis­tic, racist, and every­thing in between .
Nevertheless he has found favor with a seg­ment of the GOP which find com­mon cause with his mes­sage of divi­sive­ness and enmity.
It is yet to be deter­mined how this spec­ta­cle will turn out , nev­er­the­less I am hav­ing loads of fun at what is occur­ring in the par­ty which has side­lined Colin Powell , Michael Steele and oth­er black con­ser­v­a­tives for rabid racist crea­tures like Trump and fakes and frauds like Rubio and Cruz.