Primaries; Can't Live With Them; Can't Live Without Them

As a kid growing up, I got a political education from my father who was a small town newspaper editor in Pennsylvania. I thought I knew all about the processes, twists and turns of the political jungle. How wrong I was! The world's wars in the years from the early '40s up through '70s caused me to leave them, and when those and my military service were completed, I found myself in New England. Now quite a few years later after a few presidential primaries, what I had experienced those many years ago, were not quite the same. Usually processes similar to the primaries are pretty much the same as the years go by; but let me tell you--I don't remember any of the "shenanigans" we see today as ever happening way back then.

To be honest with you, I don't remember anyTHING about the primary processes of those days and considering the bloody and bruising scenarios of today, I am surprised that if any of these processes existed then, that my memory genes haven't kicked in. I somehow remember that primaries weren't in existence due to the rough and tumble "Tammany Hall" politics where the ward or precinct bosses and their famous "back-rooms" made the necessary decisions on who were going to be the nominees. Why waste all that paper on voting? I met first hand just about all the candidates, thanks to my father's position as Editor and his generous invitations to "Come on over" to any pol who happened to call the house on the weekends. My best friend in school David's father was our Congressman and he visited my house and I was at his house with David a lot, so I guess that subconsciously, a lot of the politics of the day must have remained in my brain if not my memory. But in the civilized 21st century, we don't have any more "back-rooms" and selection of a nominee for the political offices are now selected through voting carried out by all of the states in one form or another. And with the advent of television, first public appearances and now a full-fledged balloting process is in place in just about all states. All modern and civilized and well-mannered processes conducted and composed of both sexes both operating and vying for the political office. Uh, did I say "civilized"? HAH!

---

The only chivalrous actions today are the ones which involve verbal shivs that the unvalorous contending candidates keep digging into their opponent's ribs. When the list of contenders for, in particular, POTUS, gets into the teens and twenties, there are more actions than in a boxing match. But in reality, most of the lethal or near-lethal blows are full of hot air and in verbal blasts. Many a candidate meets his/her breaking point in these verbal jousts than in the meat of the issues. Accusations of various good, bad, ugly and horrendous nature have sunk some unwary and innocent contestants to the breaking point and all entries must be on guard against all attacks, verbal and/or physical. Though the latter are very rare. The internet publication, "The Patriot Post" under the stewardship of Mark Alexander, has daily online presentations and they get lengthy during the primary whittling-down-in-numbers season. Ever watchful for a compelling story, Alexander never misses the good ones. His offering dated February 10, 2016, provided a lot of quotes which I have noted here and are duly credited throughout. "The Patriot Post" is one of my daily stops even if just to stay up to date on the latest happenings; of which many are captured in its pages. Mark was one of the early ones to announce to the world online the clobbering that Bernie Sanders gave the noisy Clinton machine in the Presidential Primary Contest on February 9, 2016 in the State of New Hampshire for its First-in-the-Nation Primary. Now don't fault Alexander or this writer for that name; NH is the first state with a Primary; Iowa is the first state with a Caucus, a horse of a different trot than the Primary. I get most of my information from that source, for which I am grateful. It means I can go to bed earlier, knowing the Patriot Post will be among the early-birds out in cyber-space. Getting back to the primary races, it was great seeing the arrogant and at times, vituperative and foul-mouthed Hillary Clinton get the surprise of her egotistical life in that beating after winning Iowa by a mere handful of votes. But then we discovered that she had "bought" the class of long-time pols who wore the label of "super-delegate" and were not bound by the voters wishes. It was just as if the voters didn't count, the super-delegates were already in the sleazy and nefarious clutches of Clinton. So much for the Democrats rant about democracy. More akin to the Soviet iron hand of yore. The truth is that people are very much turned off with the conduct of BOTH Clintons, in public and not-so-public arenas. They are both narcissistic egoists who firmly believe that the world owes them a living; and that goes back to the "hippy" days when they were much more sparse in worldly goods. Now they both face charges of a VERY UNPRESIDENTIAL quality involving governmental top classified material mishandling for her and another sort of mishandling of females for him. May they both get what they truly deserve this time. This is by no means a pass for Hillary's opposition, Bernie Sanders who, as Mark Alexander states, "Sidebar: It's no small coincidence that both Sanders and Obama are products of the "Chicago Marxist Mafia," both having their radical roots in the Windy City's leftist movements, and neither having ever created a private sector job. It's no small irony that, while they lament "the rich" living off the labors of the poor, both Sanders and Obama have spent the vast majority of their adult lives living off the labors of taxpayers." For Sanders I will also hope that he gets what he deserves, which does not mean the POTUS office. Damn, here I am blasting away at the slick-talking and slippery acting of some of the pols and showing my disgust. But then I remembered my headline about primaries: "Can't Live With Them; Can't Live Without Them. Where did I go wrong, Pa?