The last time I wrote about politics, there were 8-10 Democratic hopefuls. At the time, I called the race a flea market because there were so many people running and a lot of them were randos who came out of nowhere.

Well, it pains me to say that it’s gotten worse. At last count, according to this article, there are 21 hopefuls. I don’t even know what to say.

Remember the show West Wing? Even though I only started watching it well after it was off the air and on Netflix, I love that show. Same thing for House of Cards and Madame Secretary. Do you know why? Because every political move was written as if it was all planned. Politician A promised politician B a seat on some committee if politician B could convince politicians C-E to vote a certain way. The best part was when party A put up politician C to run for POTUS and talked politicians D-M out of running for POTUS for the benefit of the party.

I loved these shows because I could clearly see the parallels between real life and the drama that was written “for entertainment purposes only.” I was convinced that Hollywood, that had managed to um…”predict” so many other political happenings, had the inside scoop.

But, I swear….this Democratic race has disabused the fuck out of my conclusions.

As I’ve said many times, I’m a Centrist. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Mitt Romney primary Donald Trump. I’d even like to see Kasich give it another try.

But when I read articles like the one I posted above and this one that talks about Democratic hopeful #47753037 selling bumper stickers so they can get on the debate stage, I become a tad perplexed at whether the Democrats even have a plan for lunch this Thursday, let alone their nominee or the direction of the country.

Yes, I know that anybody who meets the criteria to be POTUS (and has the donors or cash to sustain a campaign) can throw their hat in the ring. I just wonder if the “top” Dems have stopped to look at what’s happening with the party right now long enough to realize that they’re going to have to use actual strategy this time around instead of just hope that Millennials will be so touched by student loan cancellation and Medicaid for all that they’ll rush to the polls to put whomever the Dems settle on into office.

Because you see, they did that last time and we all saw (and are seeing) what happened.

Let me back up though.

In my opinion, the Dems have tried to engage in a sort of political foreplay. They got their constituents hyped about Russia, Russia, Russia. They’ve spent (and still spend) inordinate amounts of time pointing out every spelling mistake Trump makes on Twitter. Then, they pretended to take the ADOS Movement’s demand for reparations seriously.

But what happened?

No penetration. You can forget about an orgasm.

They knew good and damn well that they had no real intentions of pursuing impeachment. Instead of organizing or drafting some type of substantive and REALISTIC policy initiatives, they wasted time pointing and laughing trying to make Trump look like a clueless illiterate buffoon (ie. the 3 months of “covfefe”). And last I heard, many of the hopefuls say that they agree with reparations but (in the words of Iris Murdoch) between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.

Then, they trotted people like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez out as the progressive voice that they know they will never support en masse because they know Millennials love that shit.

I never thought I’d say this but Republicans seem to have more sense at this point than Democrats.

How?

They are backing one person. Even though many (if not most) of them think he’s the wrong choice for POTUS, they are putting the party above their own personal feelings simply to have the GOP rule the roost another 4 years. They are closing ranks; and although I take issue with many of the things that GOP’ers do and say, I must state that they are doing what’s logical when you want to win.

I suggest the Dems do the same. I’m no political pundit but I think they need to all…ALLLLLLL…sit down and have a come to Jesus (that’s HAY-SOOS, not your Lord & Savior) meeting and choose 3-5 nominees to put up that they truly think can compete and defeat Trump. Then, those chosen can get busy strategizing and forming a sound set of policies that they can easily support during the debates and beyond.

But this thing they’re doing now where everybody and their cousin is suddenly running is simply too many cooks ruining a broth that, to be quite honest, wasn’t that good to begin with.

Nevertheless, I’ll end this the same way I ended Part I. I wish all the candidates luck.

 

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