So the conventions are over and we've entered the penultimate stage of this presidential demolition derby. Your muted murmurs of "yippee" and "hooray" have been duly noted. That's enough, put the horns away, this is not an overly large celebration.
Striding onto the Philadelphia stage resplendent in a white pants suit like a heavenly sent business bride walking down the aisle to tie the knot with America, Chelsea's mom jettisoned the "presumptive" and accepted the Democratic Party's invitation to become their nominee in the 2016 race for the Presidency of the United States. And contrary to prior dire warnings, the gates of hell did not open up.
Now that the DNC four-day, multi-network infomercial is mercifully finished, the memory of the RNC version grows a bit dim, except for nominee Donald John Trump's speech that ripped the wallpaper off the Quicken Loans Arena. According to him, life in America today is dark, dangerous, dismal, dystopian, full of doom and the only light on the horizon is coming from the blinding white teeth of the "Blue Collar Billionaire" himself.
A Vice Presidential pick is a defining moment in a campaign, motivating nominees to utilize unique strategies. Some try to accentuate their heavyweight status by partnering up with less vibrant versions of themselves in what might be called the "Bad Xerox Without Any Toner" maneuver. Think... Dan Quayle.
Now that the presumptive nominees are set, the presidential campaign has officially entered its "begging for money like we're raising bail for our little sister who's being held in a Turkish prison" stage.
Donald Trump likes to brag he's not a politician. And he's not; he's a hustler, a scam artist, a grifter, a modern day P.T. Barnum who deserves congratulations for running the ultimate con on the American people. He's a carnie with a glob of inedible cotton candy on his head.
If the goal is to cause both sides of the political spectrum to quiver, twitch and shake like a raccoon clinging to the outside of a cement mixer speeding through a railroad yard, just casually throw out the term, "gun control," and step back. The left considers all guns the reprehensible tool of warriors, criminals and primitives, while in most of red state America, the definition of gun control is using two hands and hitting the target.
Every four years our nation's electoral eccentricities escalate exponentially and people throw up their hands and shout, "you know, every election cycle is wacky, but especially this one."
A hearty congratulations to conservatives for a seamless transition from party-wide disgust to near unanimous endorsement of a gorilla as their presidential nominee. Considering the tortuous undulations required, this metamorphosis seems to have occurred with shockingly few chiropractic adjustments.
Oh dear. Not pretty. The upcoming presidential campaign is ugly now and destined to ratchet up to epic uglier as soon as Bernie Sanders decides to bow out. Which is imminent. Not soon enough for Hillary Clinton, but not long.
One of the oddest moments in a presidential campaign filled brim-spillingly with them is the sight of the Republican Party struggling to rally around the man looking more and more like its presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump. Perhaps "rally" is too strong of a word. More of a depressed dawdle. A lackluster loiter. Melancholy mosey. Crematory crawl.
As evidenced by his hair, Donald J. Trump is pretty much wrong all the time. Every time. About everything. Except when he isn't.
A major silver lining in this cruelest month of April is a lull between show business awards galas. The lack of gold plated statuettes being flung about mercifully allows many Americans to stand upright for the first time in months.
And once again America reaches for the Tylenol after wrenching its collective back recoiling from the wacky ugliness monopolizing the presidential election primary process, but this time, it's... the Democrats.
Go ahead, exhale a deep sigh of relief because our long national nightmare could very well be over. Yes, dear friends, Donald Trump might have bitten off more than he can chew and we may be mere moments away from combing him out of our hair for good. Then throw away the comb.
How low can a presidential campaign go? In 2016, the answer to that question is find a snake belly and dig.
The "Stop Donald Trump" movement began as a gentle trickle within the Republican party. Now the number of GOP groups intent on preventing the New York real estate developer from becoming their presidential nominee is about to exceed broken March Madness brackets. Thanks, Michigan State.
It's become painfully obvious that the term "Super Tuesday" was coined for the quantity of elections contested, not the quality of participants involved. Otherwise, we'd be forced to change the name to Kind of Okay Tuesday. Or Is It Really Necessary to be This Loud Tuesday.
This huge brouhaha between the FBI and Apple has escalated into a battle royale between the righteous and the wicked. And, as often happens, both sides are claiming to be on the side of the angels.
Q. Has the issue of Justice Antonin Scalia's replacement on the Supreme Court turned a mite political? A. You could say that. You could also say that flight simulation wind-tunnels are tough on comb-overs.
