by Robert M. Traxler
Given that there is an Infantry rifle squad plus of candidates for the Republican nomination for president, most of us who are staunch Republicans have a favorite or five. The rather large field features a wide variety of experience, education and skills, making it difficult to settle on any one this early, but time will whittle down the numbers. The first primary is still a good way off and each primary will destroy the hopes and dreams of a number of the candidates.
The Donald is a very interesting candidate, a Ross Perot with a good hair style and designer suit. Mr. Trump is rich and very outspoken, beholden to no group; he is the current candidate du jour for the angry mass on the right.
The Democrats will choose Mrs. Clinton; Mr. Sanders is merely attempting to push Mrs. Clinton to the left, he is too old, and the United States is not ready for an admitted socialist. Vice President Biden, unless President Obama comes out early and strongly for him, is not a serious threat. Vice President Biden is too old to undisciplined, and fodder for late night comedians.
Mrs. Clinton is an interesting person; she was raised a good Republican. Her father was a Republican committeeman and she worked for Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. As so many did, she turned hard left when she went to college in the 1960s. Yale Law School was a training ground for the anti-establishment and anti-America types, and she graduated a confirmed social justice advocate, if not a pure socialist.
Over the years she lost her zeal for the underdog and became a closet champion of capitalism. She was paid very handsomely to serve on the Board of Directors for Wal-Mart. Mrs. Clinton was paid, according to AP, $6,000 per meeting (in 1986 dollars) plus the use of the corporate jets, and was able to use her corporate connections to bring millions in business to the Rose Law firm, at which she was employed and paid a large bonus. Mrs. Clinton was also involved in several lucrative, but questionable land and stock deals.
The storm clouds surrounding the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Foundation will cause problems, as the apparent candy dish it is for the family to use for funding all aspects of their lives. Private jets, luxury hotels and large personal staffs at the expense of the poor and downtrodden in the third world countries they claim to be helping will be difficult to explain away. Reports of clandestine meetings between Mrs. Clinton’s staff and Wall Street capitalists will not sit well with the rank and file Democrat voters.
Mrs. Clinton will have an uphill climb to energize the base of the Democrat party, and Democrats need a large turnout to win. The nation has more Democrats than Republicans, but traditionally Republicans vote in larger numbers. President Obama got the voters to the polls and Mrs. Clinton must get the base energized as President Obama did. Quite frankly I do not see the young, who vote Democrat when they do vote, turning out for a person with her baggage.
Mrs. Clinton is a capitalist, rich, privileged and greedy; upon departing the White House she and President Clinton made tens of millions of dollars a year. Sure sounds like a capitalist rather than a socialist to me. Please do not get me wrong; I applaud her making millions, but explaining it to the young idealistic Democrat voters will be problematic. Her time on the Board of Directors of the Wal-Mart Corporation, the largest corporation in the world and the favorite target of the left, will not energize the young ideology-driven voters she desperately needs to turn out and vote. The reported donations of up to $5,000,000 by the Walton family (the owners of the Wal-Mart Corporation) to the Clinton Foundation will again make her claims as a champion of the poor and downtrodden a bit harder to explain.
This early in the process, who knows what will happen, but the social elite who run the Democrat party must wish they were in the same place the Republicans are: having a large field of good candidates to test in the crucible that is a challenging primary. If the Republicans are smart they will choose a candidate who is able to appeal to the 18-to-30-year-old demographic. The Republicans need a candidate who will remain true to the Constitution and return our nation to its origins as a republic and a nation of laws.
It will be interesting to watch the party of the socialist left being championed by a candidate who is a wildly successful, uber-rich corporate capitalist. The term spin (a polite way to say lie) is credited to the first President William Jefferson Clinton presidential campaign; Mrs. Clinton will get very dizzy attempting to spin her dossier from capitalist to socialist. She just may be successful with the media’s exuberant assistance.
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