AND——“WE’RE OFF!”

Next week, after the mid-term elections, we have the unofficial start of the 2016 Presidential Race (although numerous Presidential hopefuls have already begun “testing the waters,” traveling the country and watching the polls very closely).  For me, it’s a great time to be writing a blog because there will be no shortage of “subject matter” for the next 24 months.

Thanks to Hillary Clinton’s, big gaffe during her interview with Charlie Rose, “businesses do not create jobs,”  we are off to a great start.  The entire race looks a lot like a NASCAR race.  All the candidates are jockeying for the “poll position” that will give them an early lead.  Just as with the racing cars, it becomes a race of attrition, with the winner being in many ways, the last man or woman standing at the end.  NASCAR drivers have pit crews to get them back in the race when they have a malfunction or they need new tires, the politicians have their “spin control doctors” to get them back in the race when they make their inevitable gaffes.

Sometimes the damage from a crash or an engine malfunction is so great, that even the best pit crews, cannot get the driver back in the race.  It’s no different with politicians.  In the last presidential race Governor Perry, during a campaign debate, could only remember 2 of the 3 departments of the federal government he wanted to close down.  With that one gaffe, he was out, but now he’s back for this race wearing glasses, hoping to look more intelligent.  Sarah Palin was a virtual “gaffe fountain” which earned her my “Jerry Springer” award.

George W. Bush made so many gaffes he engendered the term “Bushisms.”  Joe Biden stated that the middle class had been “buried over the last 4 years.”  The problem was, this declaration was made at the end of the Obama administration’s first 4 years in office.  Al Gore made the ludicrous claim that he invented the “internet.”  But he recovered nicely with a simple power point presentation that won him a Nobel Prize.

Obviously, politicians from both parties continue to give us “well documented” evidence that we are not being led by our “best and brightest.”  Watching Hillary Clinton’s pit crew try to explain what Hillary was actually saying has been entertaining but it is also sad.  Her comment was so offensive that I have serious doubts about her completing very many laps in the coming race.  Even China and Russia came to the realization over the past century that businesses are more efficient at creating jobs than the government.