America's broken election system

Campaign 2016- learning about rapid response

"...Right to Rise, spent more money on negative ads against Rubio than against Trump..."
It's impossible to forget the campaign 2016 moment when candidate Governor Jeb (!) Bush stood like a manikin, stage right of Donald Trump, during the first Republican debate, while Mexican immigrants were being vilified. Jeb Bush was passive, while Trump descecrated the heritage of his wife's family, who he stereotped as being criminals. Jeb (!) and his campaign never recovered.

"He delivered a performance drained of passion" wrote Stephen Collinson

The New York Times reports:

The single biggest strategic failure of the 2016 campaign so far has been the failure of Trump’s opponents to attack him until the die was already cast. Partly, this is because of the preoccupation that Bush, Rubio, Christie and John Kasich had with one another — the antiquated obsession with “winning the Establishment Lane” — and the need to define what they themselves stood for. But the one candidate who did go after Trump, Bush, came off worse for the experience, which no doubt caused the other candidates to think twice before doing so. (That Bush’s “super PAC,” Right to Rise, spent more money on negative ads against Rubio than against Trump will remain one of 2016’s crowning perplexities.)

Jeb! never recovered after the first Republican "debate", when he stood lifelessly, following Trump's attacks on Mexicans.

The hesitancy to attack Trump can also be explained by the fact that much of the resources for doing so remained on the sidelines until very recently. “A lot of the so-called establishment donors didn’t want to commit to anyone, out of fear of offending everyone else,” DuHaime said. “If you’re a friend of Chris Christie, you’re probably also a friend of the Bushes. They all wanted to wait. And waiting ended up hurting all of us.”  (Oh my! So, the rise of Trump was all about the candidates being fearful of turning off donors and risking loosing their money?  Who knew?)

Obviously "you reap what you sew", fits.

In fact, the American election system is broken.  It's ridiculous to see all the candiates spending reckless amounts of money trying to undermine each other, while the issues are not being addressed.

1.  How do we save Social Security?

2.  What does America do to grow our workforce?

3.  Where are American manufacturing jobs?

4.  How can Americans honor our immigrant ancestry?

5.  What is the plan to protect Americans right to access quality health care?

6.  Is there a plan to defeat the evil ISIS (Islamic State) and rebuild a safe and secure Middle East?

7.  Can America rebuild the nation's inrastructure including high speed rail service?

8.  How our president best protect America's national security?

9.  Will the US accept more refugees from Syria?

10.  Can veteran's care and benefits be improved?

Instead of any one of the above issues being discussed, the presidential campaign has, instead, become a series of personal assaults on individual candidates against one another.  

Sooner or later, and inevitably, America's broken election system will take down our nation's public policy issues. As a result, the ineptness of our system will paralyze efforts to engage in progress. God forbid, but something must change and let's pray we can break the log jam by electing a progressive Hillary2016! 

Donald Trump's is ugly ultimate insult to Going Out Party GOP

Racist Donald "Trump the Chump" (now named "Drumpf" by John Oliver), the Republican presidential candidate, has trashed the once-upon-a-time "Grand Old Party". Those who support Donald Trump, like Maine Governor Paul LePage, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and racist Georgia Senator Jeff Sessions, are now the "Going Out Party". They're being sucked into a political vortex of disrepectful mud slugging, void of any humanitarian enlightenment.  

Republicans who support Donald Trump "Drumpf" are being sucked into a vortex of racism

What's even worse (if you can imagine worse) than the childish, ugly and darkly insulting accusations now included in our political discourse are the dual standards created by Drumpfianisms. For example, if our children used labels like "he's a joker", "he's a liar", "she's got blood coming from who knows where", "I don't know David Duke", and too many other stupidity statements and insults to list in any one single blog, we'd punish their immature behavior. Yet, Drumpf gets away with this low life behavior.

Somehow, in 2016 politics, this kind of non-productive behavior is becoming commonplace. Hopefully, however, the trend towards insutling incivility will not be tolerated. Americans must vote against Republicans in every election.

Democrats, on the other hand, are shining like comets in a night sky, with our two inspiring candidates. Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie "feel the Burn" Sanders, are both presidential. They debate with ideas, rather than insults!

Adding to the Republican hypocrisies are the candidates' destructive infighting, splitting their sparse political hairs over who is a conservative, while, at the same time, Secreatary Hillary Clinton has endured overwhelming and unsubstantiated criticisms. Yet, Secretary Clinton has endured the Republican hypocrisy and she's still here. As Barbara Stiesand sings- "I'm still here!"

Indeed, Secretary Clinton has endured horrific Republican mukkraking from right wing politicians, like Congressman Trey Gowdy, who is a look-alike for almost any scary Harry Potter movie character.

Donald Trump doesn't represent Americans. Instead, Trump is an example of the worst of American racist extremism. To my internatioal blog readers, I apologize for the Trump "Drumpfism".

On the other hand, Secretary Hillary Clinton is the First Lady of the World!  I'm asking the American people to vote Hillary2016!

Let the racist Going Out Party be sucked into their black vortex of political shame.

Republicans criticize while they're living in glass houses

Republicans campaigning on their "glass houses" issues should remember the proverb about not throwing political stones.

Republicans are clearly dazed by the number of their political candidates claiming to be qualified to run for the leader of the free world and President of the United States. Candidates are clearly confused by the limelight, because their campaign strategies are pointing in the wrong direction when discussing their political positions on issues. Apparently, they have subscribed to the Pogo cliche "we have met the enemy and they are us".

Here's the short list of how Republicans, who live in political glass houses, have blocked the progress they collectively project and blame to others. Rather than accuse others for a lack of economic progress under the current Obama administration, the Republican candidates would do well to look in the mirror.

1.  Budget sequester - Republicans refused to lift a self imposed federal budget sequestration. They let stand a procedure in United States law that limits the size of the federal budget. Sequestration involves setting a hard cap on the amount of government spending within broadly defined categories; if Congress enacts annual appropriations legislation, that exceeds these caps, an across-the-board spending cut is automatically imposed on these categories, affecting all departments and programs by an equal percentage. The amount exceeding the budget limit is held back by the Treasury and not transferred to the agencies specified in the appropriation bills.  All it takes to life the sequestration is a simple majority vote of the US Congress, but the Republican leadership prevents this from happening.  Meanwhile, money needed to support the military and infrastructure programs cannot be included in the federal budget. (Nevertheless, money for wars seems to be exempt from this cap.)

2.  American Jobs Act - Republicans have refused to support efforts to put more Americans back to work in good paying jobs by blocking a vote on the American Jobs Act. This obstruction has had a ripple effect across the nation by putting infrastructure projects on delayed maintenance schedules and preventing the expansion of public transportation programs. In other words, blocking the American Jobs Act has set back our nation's ability to develop high speed trains and improved highway systems. In fact, it's the middle class who are most impacted by Republican obstruction of the American Jobs Act, because they're most likely to benefit from its implementation via better paying jobs and efficient mobility.

3. Obamacare funding blocked - Republicans have stopped attempts to implement access to health care via Obamacare funding.  Senate Republicans are calling on Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to block any spending bill that pays for a program they deride as an “ObamaCare taxpayer bailout,” a move that could prompt another shutdown. The 14 Republicans, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), are targeting a temporary ObamaCare provision that aims to reduce the risk for insurers accepting new customers through the government-run exchanges. By blocking initiatives to expand Obamacare, or to provide support for the Medicaid expansions that many states are reticent about, the Republicans are preventing many jobs from being supported by the extension of access to health care for all Americans.

So far, Democrats haven't used this "glass houses" argument against Republicans. Instead, typical of Democrats who wait too long to respond to vitriolic political attacks, the Republicans are getting away with blaming the Obama administration for being unable to pass legislation to get something done in Washington DC. Incredulously, it's really the Republicans who are obstructionists, Yet, Republican finger pointers are getting away with projecting blame for non-progress, while Democrats let Hillary2016 get hammered about email messages containing boring content and some low level confidential information.  

As the 2016 political campaign launches into the public interest, the Democrats should immediately politically hammer Republicans where they hurt most - in their Pinocchio "non-truth" moments (which are numerous). Let's stop the daunting email non-controversy currently being stoked by Republicans and get those glass house issues cracked.