2016!

I have not posted on my blog, Political Itch, for four years.  While the primary season is now well underway, I have not felt compelled to post.  The Republican candidates for President are distressingly bad with the exception of John Kasich who is clearly the most qualified and most thoughtful of the current lot.

Jeb Bush gives the impression that he would rather being doing something else.  I don't think he really wants to be running for President.  It was expected of him and it was his turn so he felt compelled to get in the race.  I think he is fundamentally a decent person but he should not be running for President.

Rubio, Cruz and Trump are equally terrifying, each for their own reasons.  Trump defines narcissism!
He is a blowhard and very difficult to take seriously, but I think we must.  At the end of the day he is not electable.   I have been calling him the Pillsbury dough-boy!   His physician said he was in the best condition of anyone who had ever run for President.  How ridiculous!  Everything about Trump exudes hyperbole and excess. 

Cruz defines mendacity.  He will say anything to curry favor with and pander to the electorate.  He is similar to Trump in his self-promotion and ambition.  He looks like a rat and acts like one as well.  Some make light of the fact that he has no friends and no supporters in the US Senate.  But, can't you tell a person by the friends they keep....and if you keep none doesn't that mean something as well?
His one professed friend is Peter Thiel, the libertartian investor who wants to create a floating nation free from the constraints of government....to be inhabited one imagines by the one percent and served by "illegal immigrants."  The fact that Cruz wears cowboy boots also offends me.  He may be from Texas, but he is Ivy League at heart and a big hat, no cattle kind of guy.

Rubio looks like a teenager and is clearly not ready for prime time.  The arc of his career, his education and background provide to me the picture of a person who has been perpetually ahead of his skis!  And, he wears shoes with high heels!  Pretty funny.

I like the fact that Bernie Sanders is raising serious issues and moving them into the national dialogue.  That is important.  I will write more about that in the future.  And poor Hillary.  I have such Hillary fatigue.  More about that later as well.

Barack Obama has been the coolest President we have had in a long time.  David Brooks wrote a wistful piece on Obama which is interesting coming from his Republican (albeit it centrist and moderate point of view).  Here is a link to that column:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/opinion/i-miss-barack-obama.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fdavid-brooks&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection&_r=0

Stay tuned!  The world is a bit upside down right now!  That seems to be a rather constant state since the days of Ozzie and Harriet.  Although, the 1958 that the Republicans want to embrace only exists on television re-runs.