If quantity makes the difference, the GOP definitely wins. They have the numbers, fourteen to be exact, and those are just the ones you’re likely to recognize (there are twenty-one others). The Dems are down to a paltry three, not counting the twelve unknowns who have announced their candidacy. So if there were a street fight today, no question, the Democrats would get their lights punched out.
Fortunately, the 2016 Presidential race will not be decided by how many gang members you have, but on who shows up to vote in November.
We call ourselves a democracy, a word dating back to ancient Greece, and means “Rule by the people.” But if only one side makes a convincing case for their members to vote, and that side happens to be Republican, it will be rule by the minority.
This seems to be the case for off-year elections, where the majority party would rather attend a weinee roast than vote for candidates and/or ideas that might actually serve them. Women who stay home on election day do themselves a particular disservice, and could explain all of the misogyny that exists on the books today, with more to come.
Tea Partyers and Evangelicals sacrifice their weinees and show up in significant numbers. This is what contenders like Ben Carson and Ted Cruz are banking on, and explains why they make statements that have zero validity. Carson wants us to have an all Christian Army, as did King Richard the Lion Hearted and many other participants in the Crusades of the Middle Ages. But, Doctor, with all due respect (or maybe not), these are not the Middle Ages, although that might be a tough position to sell to some of our enlightened electorate.
The tone of the debates is so different that it’s sometimes hard to believe that both sides are striving for the same goal. Among the Republicans, there are still significant numbers who don’t believe President Obama was born in the United States, and continue to insist that he show his birth certificate to prove he is native born. But by the way some GOP candidates act, maybe they should show their Earth certificates to prove they are not from another planet.
The Climate Change issue is a big separator of the two parties. Republicans have gone out of their way to forget that this is one of the greatest threats to humankind since Duck Dynasty. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Pretending something doesn’t exist does not make it go away. If that were the case, I’d pretend most of the GOP doesn’t exist. There hasn’t been a single world mentioned in the Republican debates about this monster that is getting ready to kick the crap out of us, our children and our children’s children. They do, however, guarantee that they will approve the XL Pipeline on day one of their presidency, probably before their morning bowel movement.
The Democrats are a little gentler with each other than their GOP counter parts. They don’t accuse one another of failing to show up for votes, or criticize a perfectly well-thought-out plan to deport 11 million Mexicans.
