Face It, Folks, We're Gonna Have A Republican President Come 2016.

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 12.06% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

Mind you, I don’t want a Republican President, especially given the current crop of batshit insane candidates.  The idea of Ted Cruz’s grubby hands on the economy makes me shiver, and I see absolutely no moderates anywhere in sight.
But there’s three factors that feed into my impending fear that 2016 is the Year of the Right-Wing Nut:
First off, we’ve had eight years of Democratic Presidency, and one of the weird things about America is that we can only tolerate about eight years max of one party being in charge.  Sometimes we’ll extend a strong Presidency with a Bush I, but then they’re one-term chumps before we flip right back to the other side.  Basically, you generally get about eight years of your dude in charge max and then America says, “All right, time to give the other guy a chance.”
Second, the times when someone has extended the term of power to twelve, it’s been an incumbent after a great Presidential term, going, “…what he said!”  We do not have that grace with Obama, who loves passing laws but seems oddly reticent to actually advertise what these laws actually do – as witness the electoral terror over OBAMACARE, where people are in favor of what it does when you go down it line-by-line, but thanks to Obama’s reluctance to double down and go OBAMACARE IS FRICKIN’ AWESOME HERE’S WHAT YOU GET YEAR BY YEAR BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S IN THIS SHIZ, you instead have Republican candidates quietly caving in to add their support for Obamacare without giving Obama any credit for it.
So we don’t have a President who mainstream America is, largely, going, “Yeah! More of that!”
(Note that I still resent Gore for fucking up the 2000 election because all he had to do was go, “Yeah, four more years of Clintonian greatness without the unfortunate roaming penis problem!” and instead he tacked hard to the right in a mangled attempt to pick up more voters, thus bobbling a should-have-been landslide into a weak dribble where he got mugged in the back alleys of Florida.  Yeah, Bush arguably stole the election, but Gore was so dumb he put himself in a position to have it stolen with a handful of hanging chads.  He should have been ahead twenty electoral votes, not hundreds of Florida retiree votes.)
And lastly, in the Democratic candidacy, we have… Hillary.  And pretty much Hillary.  Bernie Sanders has thrown his hat in the ring (I gave him $25, merely because I liked the way his donors weren’t largely banks), but I don’t think he has a chance.
I think we’re doomed because once again, I hear dim democrats tossing around the “E” word.
“Well, I’m not thrilled about Hillary, but… she’s electable.”
“Electable,” to Democrats, means, “Doesn’t have any objectionable qualities.”  And I don’t know whether this is because Democrats are so used to The Big Tent, where charmless policy wonks who offend nobody seem like a really good idea – but every time I’ve heard the shrug of “I’m not really for ’em, but they’re electable,” we have crashed and burned.
Hey, remember Kerry? He was electable. Except he wasn’t.
Hey, remember Gore? He was electable, too. Except he only started to become interesting once he gave up hope grew a beard, and started getting strident about shit.  And except he wasn’t.
Remember Dukakis? God, Dukakis. Totally electable, according to Democrats.  And wow, he wasn’t.
Obama? He wasn’t electable. He was a black guy with no experience, and he’d pissed a lot of people off by stating pretty firm opinions in his books, and I’m not sure about this guy, but – oh, hey, he won!
(Admittedly, it took the choice of Sarah Palin to get him over the hump, I admit.)
“Electable” is the Democratic curse. Every guy you slump shoulders for and go, “Meh, but… electable!” dies in a horrible electoral fire.
Stop choosing people you don’t like personally, but think will win.  You have no clue.  Hey, if you’re a die-hard Hillary fan and tout her to the heavens, great! You’re the sort of person I’m in favor of.  I want y’all going RAH RAH RAH for your person.
But I don’t hear too many of you out there.  What I hear a lot more of is that resignation of “Well, I guess she’ll do,” because why? Yeah, she’s electable. And I think in the absence of greater events, that moping “electable” gets us killed in the polls.
Who knows? Maybe Hillary will buck all these trends and win.  I think she’d be a decent President – don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about her competency, this is about her chances.  She’d be fine.  I’d be happy with her in office.
But what I suspect we’re going to get is another candidate who no one but a handful of people is super-thrilled about, but we’ll line up behind her because, well, she’s got that mysterious “electable” vibe that Democrats never seem to realize is an illusion. People don’t vote because a candidate is inoffensive; they vote because they are riled so much up for their guy, they’ll overlook their sins.
They did that for Obama, and hoo boy did he have sins. Maybe they’ll do that for Hillary- I hope! – but I suspect what the Hillary talk we’re seeing is just an admission that most of us Democrats don’t have anyone we’re really stoked about, and so we’ll give her a shot, and I think we really need someone strident and new to get people off their chairs and out to the polls.
No, I don’t know who that is, either. Because Elizabeth Warren won’t run, damn her clever eyes.
In the meantime, I’ll chip a few bucks to Bernie and see what he can stir up. God bless his unelectable little socialist heart.

4 Comments

  1. Eric James Stone
    May 5, 2015

    I wish I were as confident as you about the outcome of the election. I still think Hillary’s odds are pretty good.

  2. Alexis
    May 6, 2015

    I’m going to have to disagree. There are plenty of people fired up about Hilary, and plenty of people who hate, hate, hate the GOP. Lots of Hispanics hate Republicans, especially since they’re so hostile to undocumented immigrants. I know I’m going to be thrilled to vote for the first woman president, just like I was excited to vote for the first black president. Besides, the GOP has a terrible bench. Jeb Bush? He’s got a coke-head daughter and the charisma of a bowl of oatmeal. Ted Cruz? Crazy eyes, psycho ideas. Marco Rubio is the biggest risk, but he’ll never get past the primaries.

    • Dawn
      May 10, 2015

      Right, but going by historically, the parties generally change between presidents except in a handful of limited circumstances -such as when a president dies in office.. etc. We rarely see two democratic presidents in a row. That’s historically speaking.
      Now, taking just pure Republican and Democratic voters out of the equation here, there are how many political moderates across the country, too, that have to choose a candidate to vote for? If they pick from one of the two major parties the likelihood of putting the vote into someone who is just “meh” is pretty slim.
      People are willing to forgive sins for someone with charisma and who can yield results they like. This has been proven in gubernatorial elections across the country lately.

  3. Raj Menon
    Jul 7, 2018

    Reading this again on July 7, 2018 (last time was before the election)! Superbly written! Obviously very prescient! I’d love to hear what you think about how it has worked out for Democrats!

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