Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The State of Freedom in America Today: Polls and Billionaires Cull the Field

That was interesting.

It would seem the aging process, when combined with a certain amount of medical quackery, can add up to not just a painful experience, but a time consuming one as well. But, as they say, that's a story for another time and place.

Now, let's focus on the ugly business at hand. A while back Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker promised the American people that he was eminently qualified to take out those brute criminals known as ISIS because he had done the same thing to organized labor in his home state. His candidacy made large numbers of conservatives swoon and pledge undying fealty.

Well, at least until Don Trump got into the race with all the eloquence and swagger of Benito Mussolini. Compared to Trump's savage rants, Walker sounded like just another anemic little shit--a  poor man's Newt Gingrich as it were. In a campaign which, at this point, is driven by the media, not actual votes, he couldn't buy a sound bite. Within a couple of months he had become irrelevant.

On Sunday he called it quits. In Madison he spoke to a crowd and said, "The bible is full of stories about people who are called to be leaders in different ways. Today, I believe I am being called to lead by helping clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message will rise to the top of the field. With this in mind I will suspend my campaign immediately."

While Governor Walker is correct, the bible certainly is full of stories, his withdrawal was prompted by something far less spiritual in nature. The campaign was broke and while it might be free to vote in a presidential election--at least for now anyway--running for the office costs truck loads of cash.

The governor's poll numbers had sunk abysmally low. The latest CNN/ORC survey showed him pulling less than one half of one percent. According to the Daily Kos, one supporter said Walker's donors were walking away from the campaign as fast as they could. Why shouldn't they? If you're going to buy a politician he ought to be one who at least has a chance of winning.

The same source said once the contributions dried up, the people running the campaign decided there was no reason to incur a huge debt in order to keep a lost cause on life support in Iowa. Indeed, you don't mortgage the home, then put the whole check on some implausible long shot. Losers who pull that sort of self destructive nonsense inevitably end up living out their lives in Las Vegas storm drains.

So who will go out the door next?

Probably Mike Huckabee. Despite grandstanding with Kim Davis in Kentucky his campaign has no traction at all. He increasingly sounds like a circuit riding tent evangelist more suited to delivering apocalyptic sermons than the political bacon. In fact the former Arkansas governor's appeal seems to be strictly limited to the sexually deviant Duggar family and those few churches who keep boxes of snakes near the altar for convenient handling.

The second option would be, Bobby Jindal. He isn't doing any good either, but his campaign appears to have been fueled entirely by exotic and powerful hallucinogens from the start. In such cases there is no telling when the visions will be replaced by a terrible head first crash back into reality. The only thing certain is that it will eventually come and when it does even the strong hearted will look away in disgust.

In the end, everyone knew this GOP field was too bloated to last, but now we're confronted with a sobering truth. The herd is not being culled by people actually participating in the election process, but by anonymous polling outfits sponsored by run amok media outlets and the billionaires who place their bets based on those results.

Such is the state of freedom in America today.

And now you know why the bar is, once again, open.



sic vita est


9-22-15

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