That pretty much sums up the New Hampshire primaries today.
To borrow a word from Donald Trump's ridiculous lexicon, Bernie Sanders schlonged Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. I use that word because my disdain for Hillary grows each day, and her latest strategy is calling everyone who isn't voting for her sexist. ...Bernie's voters are sexist, the Republicans are sexist, everyone who doesn't like Hillary is sexist. Madeleine Albright spoke on her behalf and said that women who don't vote for Hillary have a special place in hell. To be fair, Madeleine Albright is probably familiar with hell. But really, this is all very despicable, because if you don't vote for Hillary, it doesn't mean that your sexist. It means that you have a brain.
The only woman Hillary really cares about is herself. She doesn't care about women who serve in the military or women who say they were victimized by her husband. At one point, she even went so far as to defend against allegations that she is not "a progressive" by playing the "I'm a woman running for President, so of course I am" card. Yeah, that holds a lot of water. By that definition, Carly Fiorina is a progressive. I mean, at least Carly Fiorina cares about women and unborn babies. Heck, Ben Carson must be super progressive, seeing as he is running for President and is the son of two black parents. Hillary is a felon who needs to go away, both from this race and to prison. Bernie destroyed her in New Hampshire, and rightfully so. A Democratic Socialist is far more worthy of the nomination than a hateful felon, regardless of whether or not she has a penis.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump solidly won in New Hampshire. As unfortunate as it is, this was in line with the polls, and it came on the heels of probably Trump's best debate performance yet. Maybe taking a debate off helped him rest up and prepare for the next one. He actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about for some portion of the night. But I still think that the lower-tier candidates need to drop out and Republicans need to eventually rally around someone who can beat Donald Trump. A Trump nomination could be disastrous for the Republican party.
Where did John Kasich come from? I had no idea who this dude was prior to the first debate. He started off very underwhelming, but has gained momentum in each debate, and I think he did the best out of anyone in the most recent debate. Accordingly, Kasich has shocked many people by landing in second place in New Hampshire. This is great news for Republicans, because Kasich now appears to be a very electable common sense conservative. And one who isn't crazy and seems like a pleasant person to be around too! This is amazing. What a rare breed. He's still polling quite low nationally, and is a long shot to get the nomination, but at this point, I honestly think he is probably the best option for the Republicans. He has one person to thank for that...
Domo Arigato, Marco Ruboto! Like Cruz's poor performance in the Trumpless debate, which followed his best debate performance, so went Marco Rubio in the most recent debate. I actually think he did pretty well in the second half of the debate, but his terrible beginning overshadows that. He pretty much repeated the same "25-second memorized speech" like four times within a few minutes, and Chris Christie (rightfully) called him out on it! I do still like Rubio, but he has got to avoid absurd things like that. That's even worse than awkwardly sipping water. Yes Marco, we get it. Obama is intentionally changing the country to make it like the rest of the world. He knows exactly what he's doing. Got it. You don't need to repeat it four times in virtually the same way.
All the votes aren't tallied yet, but third through fifth are pretty close between Cruz, Bush, and Rubio, but it's time for Bush to get out of the race. He's blowing through ridiculous amounts of money and isn't getting many votes or favorable poll numbers anywhere. Christie, Fiorina, and Carson should drop out too, after rounding out sixth through eighth in New Hampshire. They're done, and that pains me, because I really have a deep respect and admiration for Carson. Jim Gilmore is a joke at this point, for some reason still not having formally declared that he's out of the race despite getting virtually no votes in Iowa or New Hampshire and polling under one percent basically everywhere.
Here's hoping that we'll at least be down to the final four before the next primaries: Kasich, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump. ...Although personally, I could do without Cruz and Trump as well.
[The picture here is from a rock climbing trip in New Hampshire this past summer.]
The thing to understand about Hillary is that she has been attacked more frequently and continuously than any other politician in US history. I personally don't like her very much, but it's hard to think about how such an intense crucible of scrutiny (deserved and in some cases undeserved) and abuse could produce a likable person! At the end of the day, she's a politician, and in order for a politician to survive such a formidable gauntlet, they have to either be squeaky clean or a disciplined manipulator. In Hillary's case, I think she's got half of both: She doesn't actually have a lot of dirt on her, at least, nothing extraordinary, so the focus has been on minor dirt, like the email scandal, and before that, Benghazi. I also think she is a disciplined manipulator, because you frankly can't make it that far without being that. But yeah, I think the biggest threat she faces isn't the Republicans; it's alienating, or simply failing to excite, the Democrat base. She risks doing that with her Sanders attacks, just like how she set herself back in 2008 with her attacks on Obama. I pray to whatever gods may exist that we have a President Sanders, but I'm preparing in advance for a President Clinton. But for the record, I'd be fine with Kasich; he's one of the few Republican governors who I believe is honest. A good example would be how he participated in the Medicaid expansion in his state, which helped poor Ohioans, whereas most GOP governors said "fuck you" to both Obama and their poor constituents in rejecting the expansion for purely political reasons.
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