Inside D.C.

Candidate X is scary; Candidate Y is scarier still

Now that we’ve got the first Republican candidates’ debate and that of their Democrat rivals behind us, the panic has begun to set in among those who curry favor within the Washington, DC Beltway. The polling numbers on both sides of a prospective presidential election ticket indicate at this point in time, the more “outrageous” the candidate’s statements, the higher the poll numbers.

“They can’t be serious,” t DC insiders say, followed quickly by “They’ve got to be kidding, that guy’s a joke.”  But as I’ve said before, Washington, DC, is a deep pool of shallow people, not easily given to analysis or introspection, so these reactions are based on enlightened self-interest and little if any connection to the folks in the fly-over states.  That both parties have fielded a slew of candidates outside the traditional mold – and that it’s those candidates who currently draw the big numbers – says more about what’s intrinsically, but only occasionally right with nomination system than it does about our national collective sanity.

If Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, VT) declares he will ensure free college educations for one and all, the needle on the applause meter swings wildly; when he adds he’ll pay for this largesse by taxing “the billionaires,” that needle goes off the meter.  When Donald Trump trumpets he’ll “deport ‘em all” as his answer to the immigration crisis, and he’ll achieve this by “rounding them up in a nice way,” his base erupts in glee.  When Hillary Clinton changes her position on three key election issues, she explains by asking, “Who among us over time hasn’t learned and grown and changed their mind?”  When a Republican presidential wannabe conjures the Almighty to make a point – and several of them do on a routine basis – the base approaches rapture.

This political sideshow, however, is my favorite part of the presidential election process, this round made all the more entertaining by the sheer number of magic acts on the bill.  Current front-runners for their party’s nomination are saying all the right things to pluck the nerve endings and heart strings of a frustrated public.

America’s faith in DC institutions on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is so eroded, and voters have become so deaf to the politicking and business-as-usual in Washington, DC, that outrageous solutions to very real problems strike like lightning with an increasingly disenfranchised public.  The voter is so frustrated that merely hearing a candidate say out loud what the voter has privately been thinking elicits a very vocal and almost visceral response.

We’ve yet to descend into the mind-numbing, seemingly unending cycle of candidate TV ads; rather we’re still in that phase of trusting the media to tell us what we want to hear, and I thank the general media for keeping this political vaudeville show alive.  While the various network and cable news shows through hired “pundits” decry one candidate or another, the producers of said shows sit in darkened control booths, rubbing their hands together in glee, because the more outrageous the candidate and his or her declarations, well, “that’s just good TV.”  Ditto the print and internet equivalents of our TV brothers and sisters.

However, I sense the bloom is starting to fade, the fascination with the most outrageous ebbing just a bit.  I point at polling numbers to make my point.  In the case of one truly high-profile candidate, while upwards of 40-50% say they “like” or “prefer” the candidate and his positions compared to others in the pack, less than 30% of that bunch admit they’d actually vote for him.  Similar numbers are emerging about other “front-runners” in both parties with similar revelations found deep in the weeds of the percentages.  This is nothing particular to politics, rather loud opinions very often don’t translate in the privacy of a voting booth into behavior.

Another benefit of this unprecedented parade of aspirants is they seem to be turning much of election history on its ear.  President Obama proved those “must-win” primary states, such as Iowa, aren’t so necessary after all.  The conventional wisdom that the candidate leading in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada at this point in time – just ahead of the first round of caucuses and primaries – will go on to most likely win the nomination and the White House, is now more folklore than fact.

If the side-show is just too much, and you’ve started eyeing Canadian real estate as your fallback, keep this fact in the back of your mind when you track polling numbers over the next few months:  Eight years ago, in October, 2007 – one year and one month out from the 2008 presidential election —  every poll on the planet showed Hillary Clinton as the anointed Democrat nominee-presumptive; no one was talking about Sen. Barack Obama (D, IL).