The Inez Principle

The one thing I have learned in the initial stages of the 2016 Race for The White House:  I have no idea what is going on.  "Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?"  I'll say.

For example, take Jeb Bush. Please.

I have nothing against Jeb Bush and was prepared to invoke The Inez Principle if he became the nominee.

I have named a deep political maxim after my mother, Inez. Back in 1972, I asked who she was going to vote for: George McGovern or President Nixon.

Just to recap some history. George McGovern, even though he was a brave fighter pilot in World War II (The Big One), was as crazy as a betsy bug.  He was for ending The Vietnam War, giving people money for just being around, drugs, and that old long hair that the kids wore back then.

President Nixon was known as "Tricky Dicky" because the man could find a loophole in a stop sign. Honesty wasn't his best policy, if you catch my drift.

Inez answered me, "I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Nixon".

Most of the time, you have to hold your nose. No candidate is perfect and they all have problems.

Back to Jeb. To me, Jeb is the brother that should have been President. But, he lost the Florida gubernatorial election in 1994 and lost his place in line. He seems more thoughtful that W and he's definitely more articulate than the old man. On top of that, my wife's boss sat next to him at a dinner. (Full disclosure: my wife's boss also had Mike Huckabee help her with her luggage.)

But you know, there's no law that says the nominee has to be a Bush. There are plenty other people that could do the job and Lord knows the Republicans have a bunch of people who think they could do the job.

One of the others is Donald Trump, just in case you haven't heard.

I wrote a few weeks ago that I didn't think Trump can be elected President, mainly because the Constitution says you have to be a human being to be President and not a gorilla.

Last time out, Republicans nominated Mitt Romney. Whatever you think about Mitt Romney, you cannot deny he seems like a nice guy and would make a great Baptist deacon if he wasn't a Mormon.

However, the market (i.e. the majority of voters in the last election) told you that they think of Republicans as a bunch of misogynistic possibly racist angry rich white men. So, this time around The GOP field features a woman (the impressive Carly Fiorina), an African-American brain surgeon (Ben Carson) and the son of a Cuban bartender (Marco Rubio).

But who gets the attention?  The misogynistic possibly racist angry rich white man: Donald Trump.

The appeal of Trump totally eludes me.

I thought he was horrible in the debates. His post debate tantrum about Megyn Kelly showed he hasn't the temperament to be President. I can't imagine what Inez would have said about it.  It was tacky. He should be ashamed of himself but I'm not sure he has that capability.

But what happened? He went up in the polls. Fox News, which showed all of the other news outlets how to run a debate, has been Trump News for the past couple of weeks. Trump sure gets a lot of free airtime for someone that is so rich.

I keep hearing "Trump tells it like it is". No, he's telling you what you want to hear, if you can understand it between the grunts. I mean, "We're going to build a wall and Mexico will pay for it". I'm not against the wall, but you don't have to have an MBA to know that it is not in Mexico's interest to A) build a wall and B) to pay for a wall that it is not in their interest to build.

I have no idea who I would vote for between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I'm not sure who Inez would vote for between those two either.

Hillary Clinton is an amoral snake that can't tell a frickin' joke. (Hillary Clinton telling a joke: "Why (long pause) did (long pause) the chicken (and by the way, I have a fifty point position paper on humane treatment of chickens) cross the road? What difference does it make?".)

Honestly, is this the best we can come up with?