The Campaign
"There are no rules. All of the rules have changed." - Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press
Yes, Tom. We're not in Kansas anymore. And just because the rules (including the ones that don’t seem to exist) have changed doesn't mean that there aren't any - it’s just that you might be a little slow to catch on to what the new ones are.
From over here, the way that the American public seems to have decided to deal with the almost total disfunction of their national government is though the creation of separate movements (one per party) to “throw the bums out.” We haven’t seen anything like this since the anti-war movements of the 1960’s. As usual, the people who are the last to know what’s happening outside of the lines are the people running (sic) the ship, and that includes the talking heads at NBC News. I guess that Tom just got the memo that things aren’t as they were.
There are signs that at least some media folks are getting beyond the “horse race” of individual candidates metaphor however and they are starting to analyze the campaign as a fight between a collection of interest groups. It’s good that someone in the media is waking up. For example, Matt Taibi has a good analysis of the Trump campaign in this month’s Rolling Stone, for example.
With the Dems, we have the corporate verus the anti-corporate, with the anti-corporate surprisingly gaining steam and making people nervous.
On the Repub side, at the moment it’s clear that Cruz and Huckabee are vying for the religious right (Huckabee going to pray at the altar of St. Kim), Scott Walker is the candidate of the Koch’s, Bobby Jindal is in the total thrall of Grover Norquist, Pataki is looking for someone (anyone) to listen to him, and The Donald seems to be the candidate for the White Nationalists. All of these guys (and girl) are fronts for somebody or are looking to me and the only question is who. The primary process is the process where we get to find out which of these interest groups win.
So far, the racists are way ahead. Stay tuned (you too Tom).
President Kanye
Getting a early, early start on his campaign, Kanye West announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States at the MTV Video Music Awards last week. He may or may not have been announcing for the 2016 race, his announcement was not clear. I’ve never found anything very clear when it comes to Kanye, but maybe I’ve just run out of hip-hop.
I personally would love to see a Trump/West Republican ticket. What would happen the first time that there was the two of them on the stage with only one microphone would undoubtedly be priceless.
Brady Freed
I ‘m so happy that the multi-millionaire was freed from the restraints of unfair treatment by the multi-billion dollar corporation for which he works. Hopefully we can now spend time and attention on finding other multimillionaires with beautiful wives that are in trouble and need our support. Play ball.
High Alert
All ears on Amherst Street have been tuned for the past few days to the sounds of our cat Harry about to cough up a hair ball (or not, as it turns out) at any moment. Day or night, when you hear that distinctive sound, you have to be prepared to rush to wherever the cat is and make sure that he’s on a bare floor and not on a rug. This makes cleaning up after the thing that I have no control over that much easier.
There’s a metaphor for the current state of my life in there somewhere, I just don’t know what it is.
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