Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
By P.J. O'Rourke
This election is like watching a horror movie starring an actress I can't stand and an actor I don't like... so I'm rooting for the ghouls and goblins that infest the haunted (White) house.
However, a lot of scenes still make me scream and cover my eyes (or my ears, in the case of Trump).
I don't care much about what happens to either of the stars, but nonetheless, I'm on the edge of my seat anticipating how the movie will end.
Just when I thought that Trump had been fatally strangled by the tentacles of the Microphone Monster from the Access Hollywood crypt, FBI Director James Comey is revealed to be one of the undead, leaping out of Anthony Weiner's laptop from hell and sinking his fangs into Hillary's lead in the political polls.
Last week, just after Hillary's new e-mail scandal broke, I had a chance to talk to syndicated newspaper columnist and Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer (a personal hero of mine). I said to Charles...
WTF! The Secretary of State using her personal e-mail to send top-secret State Department documents to her somewhat strange and scary personal aide Huma Abedin, who is married to a crazy person, Anthony Weiner, who has destroyed his political career twice by sending lewd Tweets and Instagram photos to random women and who is now under investigation for sexting with an underage girl. And top-secret State Department documents wind up on HIS computer! How much weirder can things get?
Charles is always quick with a quip. "What if," he asked, "the underage girl speaks Russian?"
So, yes, things can get weirder. On Sunday, WikiLeaks announced, rather ominously: "We commence phase 3 of our U.S. election coverage next week." And nobody ever knows what Trump will say or do next.
So I'm waiting for the other shoe – or the rest of the underwear, or whatever – to drop.
In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I've been pondering a question that has been bothering practically everybody in America...
How did we wind up with these two jerks as our presidential candidates?
We'll probably wrestle with that question for years... But I do have some thoughts.
The Democratic and Republican Parties act like they are integral parts of the U.S. government. But in fact, they're private organizations with no more Constitutional standing than motorcycle gangs.
Maybe in 2020, we'll select our two major presidential candidates with fists, chains, and knives in the parking lot of a biker bar... in which case, expect either Leadhead Eddie of the Bandidos or Gypsy Joker member Bob the Beef to oust the Oval Office incumbent.
Currently, however, we have a dumber way of picking who'll run for president. This involves primaries and caucuses. Both Democrats and Republicans have them in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
(Although until 1961, people who lived in D.C. were considered to be overexposed to the debilitating effects of political radiation, and therefore they were not competent to vote.)
Democrats and Republicans also have primaries and caucuses in American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Marianas to make sure that residents of U.S. territories who don't get to vote in presidential elections have a say in who they don't get to vote for.
Things were never any better. Until the 1830s, a presidential candidate was usually selected by a political party's congressional delegation. We can imagine the insider deals hatched in the era's smoke-filled rooms. (Although, I guess in those days they were "snuff-filled rooms.")
Back then, the Senate wasn't directly elected, and the general franchise was severely limited. Voters had about as much say in choosing the presidential nominee as you have in choosing your airline seat when using frequent-flyer miles to travel on a holiday weekend.
Nominating conventions were thought to be a more democratic alternative. But the first presidential nominating convention was held in 1831 by the Anti-Masonic Party. It was adamantly opposed to Shriners in miniature cars driving around in circus parades. Or something. And that pretty much set the tone for wisdom and intelligence at national political-party conventions for the next 70 years.
State- and local-party bosses quickly took control of the conventions. To wield political influence, you no longer had to be anything as elevated as a crooked elected official. Just being crooked would do.
Of course, there's nothing that can't be made worse by reform. Reformers of the late 19th- and early 20th-century "Progressive Era" took aim at the conventions, seeking to replace them with some type of referendum – a preliminary vote (a "primary") or a public committee meeting (a "caucus") – through which ordinary citizens would select convention delegates.
In 1901, the first state law creating a presidential primary was enacted in, of all places, Florida, which was, then as now... you know what I mean... Florida.
The practice of holding primaries and caucuses spread to every place like a flutter of those famous 2000 Florida presidential election "hanging chads" shaken loose from a tampered ballot.
With results for all to see.
The primaries and caucuses have different rules, depending on your location. It's like a baseball game where if you're on first base, you're supposed to dunk the ball through the net... But if you're on second base, you're supposed to knock the puck past the goalie... And if you're on third base, you're supposed to kick a field goal.
Primaries are make-believe voting. You have an election, but instead of electing a candidate, you elect a candidate for election.
Caucuses are coffee klatches for people who need to find a bingo game.
State and territorial primaries and caucuses take place at different times. Each is scheduled to be either so early that who you vote for doesn't matter or so late that it doesn't matter how you vote.
Who's in charge of this process? Nobody. Because that's who's in charge of the Democratic and Republican Parties. The Democratic and Republican national organizations aren't in charge because they're run by the Democratic and Republican Party state organizations... which aren't in charge because they're run by the Democratic and Republican Party county organizations.
The U.S. has 3,143 counties. The Republican Party county chairman is a retired Dairy Queen franchisee in polyester slacks with a white vinyl belt and matching shoes. The Democratic Party county chairwoman owns 19 cats.
Only a little more than a quarter of eligible voters cast ballots in Democratic or Republican primaries and caucuses.
More than half of the Republicans and nearly half of the Democrats supported candidates other than the two we got.
According to figures from the New York Times (and, per Trump's claims that the Times is part of the liberal vote-rigging process, the Times should know), it was just 14% of the people entitled to vote who gave us Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Regards,
P.J. O'Rourke