We're about to see the first culling of the absurd GOP presidential field. Not one of these clowns has a clue about Foreign Policy, Economics or any of several other important topics, and most have presided over at least one catastrophe bad enough to bring the career of someone in a real political party to a screeching, permanent halt.
Andy Borowitz has a particularly clear-eyed view of it.
Let's see. We have a reality TV star who was the son of a wealthy real estate mogul and has been able to leverage the extraordinary advantages he was born with into several bankruptcies.
We have a governor who screwed up so badly that a recall election was petitioned for, and run. A few weeks before the recall, he was losing badly. But through gigantic spending and one exceptionally slick and dishonest ad by the Koch brothers later, he managed to squeak by. His policies have significantly damaged his previously fairly successful state...the state next door, with weaker fundamentals but a democratic governor, is doing far better economically. He would be the flagbearer for extreme corruption, except:
We have the governor who presided over massive election fraud in the stealing of the presidency 15 years ago. His term coincided with a massive real estate bubble unleashed by deregulation--much of it presided over by the president he foisted on us--and he left office just in time for the bubble to collapse into the worst recession in 70 years. Therefore he thinks he knows something about economics. His forays into foreign policy discussion have been equally embarrassing. His team is essentially the same team that backed off watching for terrorists and opened the door to 9-11, caused the disaster in Iraq, and hyped the the real estate bubble.
We have a retired governor who doesn't understand the principle of separation of church and state and would like to turn us into a theocracy. He's actually pretty honest about his principles although he doesn't understand why the the founders were so dead set against them. He doesn't know that, or much else, either, although he plays an OK Bass.
We have the two Cubans. One of them is doing a good job of mostly following along with his party's "leadership", which is probably the best way to the front of the pack, but he speaks to the incompetence wing of the party and as far as I can tell, has never done anything of real consequence. His tax cuts while he was speaker of the state house have caused terrible budget problems, but that doesn't distinguish him from any other republican leader.
The other Cuban is slicker, and more openly corrupt, but plainly even less competent. He thinks any media attention is good. If the attention comes from a consequential screw-up or throwing sand in the gears, so much the better.
We have a retired and apparently successful surgeon who somehow managed to get into medical school without understanding one of the most basic principles of biology: evolution
We have a currently serving governor who has bullied and terrorized his state's population so badly that his approval less than a year after his reelection is in the 20s. Several of his close allies are under indictment, several of whom are clearly stepping up to protect their leader, and it seems unlikely he'll make it all the way to next November without being under indictment himself.
We have another physician who is the son of a perennial crackpot candidate. He disagreed with the board which certifies the competence of his class of surgeons, so he used his political connections to create a new certification board. I have no idea if he's competent at his old job. He managed to get elected senator, where he is proving his incompetence. He is more honest than some of these guys, but no smarter. He seems to believe in his dad's crackpot economic theories.
We have the current governor of an important swing state. He seems to be the most competent of the pack, although this is an incredibly low bar. He gives lip service to most of the bad ideas of his party.
At the kids table, we have:
A former governor who thinks the way to show his brain power is to wear glasses and challenge the front runner to a pull-up contest. He is under indictment already. We've had numerous regional politicians who have come back after being convicted of a crime, but this is first for a presidential candidate.
A current governor who does a great Alfred E Newman impersonation. That really is the best thing about him. He did a "rebuttal" to the president's state of the union a few years back and he totally embarrassed himself. In a better party, his career would have been over before he got a chance to bankrupt his state.
A former senator who would like to turn us into a theocracy and actually understands enough about how the legal system of this country works that he might make some progress at it were he to have the chance. He doesn't actually know much about the founding principles of his own religion, either.
A former CEO who came very close to running one of the great high tech companies into the ground, before she was deservedly fired.
And many more. There actually are over 30 declared GOP candidates, but the media only lists 17. Not one is really credible, although three of them have unconscionably large amounts of money to spend.
