The election season is starting up again (isn’t it always doing that?) and I’ve consulted my seer‘s stone, Magic 8 Ball and vice-presidential voodoo dolls (how else do you explain all of Joe Biden’s faux pas?) to bring you my predictions for the 2016 presidential elections and the candidates who will be featured in next year’s race to the top. And bottom.
REPUBLICANS:
New Jersey governor Chris Christie delivers remarks in support of Gov. Rick Scott during a campaign stop in Ormond Beach, Fla., Monday, Oct. 27, 2014. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT)Chris Christie: The New Jersey governor is the safe choice and the one I hope the Right picks, actually, because it would make a decent battle in November. Christie cries, but not too much (looking at you, House Speaker John Boehner) and also has a fair track record at home, with nothing huge against him. And no, "Bridgegate" is not a career-killer.
He may pose a significant challenge, by virtue of how understated his capacity to win may be. He's got vanilla Republican talking points and attitudes, a nice smile and a bit of passion and empathy for good measure. I’d rather have that crack-smoking mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, running in lieu of Christie — if only for the populist appeal that comes from entertaining the drug habit of a person with one-tenth of his income, though.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R- Texas, speaks at a RedState Gathering at the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday, Aug. 8, 2014. (Richard W. Rodriguez/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT)Ted Cruz: Dumb people listen to crazy people. Servile, husk-like followers cling onto those who yell the loudest, whether they use alarmist attitudes or reactionary rhetoric to draw their moths to bright, brief flames.
Cruz is to Congress what Pennsatucky Doggett is to "Orange is the New Black." Charlie Manson had the Spahn Ranch from which to base his operations for a lengthy two years; Cruz now has the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, a damnable sign for anybody pro-space, pro-science or pro-competition.
If you’re confused how a man with a Canadian birth certificate can run for President unquestioned on behalf of the same group that pulled a full-scale media assault on an American-born black man’s right to run for the presidency, then be assured that you don’t meet the I.Q. requirement to enter the funhouse.
Cruz is extreme, but ultimately unelectable, and not harmful in this capacity, though pernicious he may be in many, many other ways. In his own words, “our true enemy has yet to reveal himself.”
Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, gives a commencement speech after being awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Service on Dec. 15, 2014 at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. (Tracy Glantz/The State/TNS)Jeb Bush: I’m a student of statistics, so it is exceptionally worrying to realize that 100 percent of Bushes who were governors have become president upon running. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, younger brother to Dubya, is next in line to continue the time-honored tradition of alternating Bushes with good Presidents.
Keep running that racehorse until it stops winning, I suppose. They’d certainly have the money and power to make it workable. Does anybody even know what happens when you get fooled thrice?
DEMOCRATS:
Former Sen. Hillary Clinton takes the stage during the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/MCT)Hillary Clinton: Now for the second time in the 21st century, the U.S. is prepared to give presidential power to a traditionally beleaguered minority — this time, women.
Is Clinton the woman for the job? It seems likely. She definitely casts a wide enough net, with friends in many places. However, it would be a challenge in itself to get out of her husband’s shadow.
I can already see the Fox hosts whining ceaselessly about despotism in the former First Lady’s administration. Basically, without Obama in the way this election, she’ll take her spot as second-best-but-first-by-default and lead the Democrats into riches or ruin, at most two years from the moment you read this.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks at the Netroots Nation convention in Detroit on Friday, July 18, 2014. (Eric D. Lawrence/Detroit Free Press/MCT)Elizabeth Warren: The senior senator from Massachusetts is the perfect, palatable Progressive and the candidate the Left would throw up if it had a spine.
Some progressives say she doesn’t go far enough, but the ideological battle is won by hard-fought inches, and Warren is aware of that. Her rhetoric — strong and simple, like these “11 Commandments of Progressivism” — would be a good rallying point for the Democratic Party after it lost both houses of Congress in November.
Warren is steadfast, intelligent and anti-Wall Street. She is no bridge builder; she is the all-in for a motivated, energetic, organized Left that hungers for change (but who probably won’t vote on Election Day anyway). No chance.
Vermin Supreme: Ah, yes, the “pony for everybody economy,” an age-old notion that I believe the Huns or Mongols originated. Their ancient ponies lead to victory, but Vermin Supreme’s ponies will be awarded to every citizen after his successful election.
Even though his continual pursuit of the Oval Office started as a joke, the self-proclaimed “Emperor of the New Millennium” has started early and officially put his hat into the Presidential ring for 2016.
His support has been steadily increasing over the last two decades by generous fractions of a percent per year. The fight for the Democratic nomination will be tough, but Supreme’s anti-zombie strategies will likely do him well against many of the candidates who will no doubt be paraded in front of the nation as viable contenders for leader of the free world.
Reach the columnist at hfinzel@asu.edu or follow @OnlyH_Man on Twitter.
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