Nevada results

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATES below]

I’m starting a new thread, because the old one was more of a post about other things.

Results are not in yet, but some frightening and ominous features have been reported (these are tweets):

Recap:
1. 11 names on ballot despite dropouts
2. Counting system w/texted ballot photos
We are done mattering.
https://twitter.com/juliaritchey/status/702297762256154624 ”¦
8:07 PM – 23 Feb 2016

Man here says “it’s a disaster.” No one is checking in or checking IDs. They’re handing out ballots willy nilly. Some guy voted trump twice
8:24 PM – 23 Feb 2016

Says caucus volunteers are wearing Trump gear (they’re not allowed to show preference). “Actively bullying folks. Not checking IDs.”
8:39 PM – 23 Feb 2016

Read more at the link.

I seem to remember Hillary supporters citing something similar from the Obama campaign back in 2008. Ah yes, found a link.

UPDATE 12:20 AM:

Although I’m seeing only 4% of the votes in, the results so far are pretty much as predicted. Trump around 40%, Cruz and Rubio are each in the 20s (Rubio ahead with 25 at the moment, but my guess is that all the scores will shift somewhat and Cruz/Rubio may tighten). Carson and Kasich are around 7 and 4 respectively; they merely confuse things and should drop out.

It’s becoming more and more clear—and it was already clear—that if Cruz and Rubio stay so evenly matched it will benefit Trump. For a while I thought that a three-way race would allow one of them to dominate, and then the real picture would become more clear. But no. And in the meantime, they are working hard to destroy each other rather than Trump. This is very hard to see, since I think either of them would be a thousand times better than Trump.

Now, it’s certainly possible that if it were a two-way race, Trump would continue to win. At least then the GOP voters’ preference for Trump as candidate would be clear. I’ve thought for quite a while (long before the Trump phenomenon) that there should be no open primaries, no winner-take-all states, and a runoff if no candidate gets 50% of the total popular vote. That could extend the primary season, but it would be worth it. People are always grumbling that the conservative vote was split, and that’s why a RINO got nominated. Well, that’s not quite the situation this year, since Trump is no conventional RINO (although I believe he actually is a Republican In Name Only). But the principal is the same.

Pretty soon, either Cruz or Rubio must drop out unless one can start dominating in the primaries. But I wonder if either would give up that easily, or if they’d ride that horse to the end—and to a Trump nomination (and IMHO a probable Hillary victory).

Hey, let’s give Trump the power of the presidency!

The New Neo Posted on by

This sort of thing is one of many, many reasons not to support Trump, if you care at all about liberty vs. tyranny:

[Yesterday Trump threatened] the Ricketts family, the owners of the Chicago Cubs, over their support for Our Principles PAC, a super PAC run by former Mitt Romney advisor Katie Packer with the goal of beating Trump. Trump tweeted:

“I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”

…The Republican frontrunner is now threatening private parties for contributing to a campaign against him. This follows on him threatening Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) with a lawsuit for running an ad using old footage of him talking about abortion. And that follows on him threatening to sue a reporter who wrote about the failure of the Taj Mahal Casino. All of this has happened within the last four weeks.

We already have a president of the United States who uses the FBI and the Department of Justice to target his political opponents, who has utilized the IRS to harass and punish private parties ranging from nonprofits to Mitt Romney donors, who threatens to put his “boot on the throat” of private corporations who don’t do what he wants.

Do we really want to elect a Republican Obama?

Some people do indeed want to do just that—they long for it and would celebrate it—right up until the moment the crocodile eats them. The human desire for tyranny knows no bounds, left or right, and people delude themselves when they say it won’t or can’t happen, or that it will be okay if it’s used in the interests of their own pet causes.

And by the way, this isn’t some anomaly on Trump’s part; it’s a deep and abiding character trait and favorite weapon. This is the pattern of his entire adult life: threaten, threaten, threaten; insult, insult, insult; sue, sue, sue. Anything he can to hurt his enemies. He makes Nixon and Obama look like pikers.

The article continues:

The phenomenon of the right joining the left in its desire for a Great Man to “win for them” represents a frightening moment for those who cherish freedom from government. Freedom from government requires a government free of Great Men with great power.

The Founders knew that, down to the marrow of the bones. Some conservatives know it. Others who call themselves conservatives have forgotten it.

[ADDENDUM: Hat tip commenter “Wooly Bully.”

Time to wonder which “old days” Trump was talking about here:

The real-estate tycoon said [at a rally yesterday] he’d like to punch a protester in the face and fondly recalled the “old days” when “guys like that” who disrupted a political rally would “be carried out on a stretcher.”…

…the demonstrator who drew Trump’s ire emerged toward the end of the rally as the Republican talked about unemployment and slow GDP growth.

“He’s smiling. See, he’s having a good time,” Trump said before going on the offensive. “Oh, I love the old days, you know? You know what I hate? There’s a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches, we’re not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days, you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out in a stretcher, folks. Oh, it’s true.”

And while Trump explained that “the guards are very gentle with him,” his own reaction would’ve been different. “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you,” Trump said to cheers. It’s unclear, however, if the protester was actually throwing punches, though he was smiling as guards escorted him out.]

[ADDENDUM II: Did you know that Trump is being sued for fraud in connection with Trump University? Why isn’t this a top headline?

Oh, and does this sound familiar?:

On Dec. 10, 2015, during a day he was making international headlines over his pledge to ban Muslim immigrants from the United States, Trump managed to escape any press attention and give a closed-door pretrial deposition in the case, according to court filings reviewed by Yahoo News. Exactly what he said in the deposition remains under seal, but lawyers for Tarla Makaeff, a California yoga instructor who is the lead plaintiff in the case, cited portions of his testimony (blacked out in her pleadings) to support their contention that Trump has threatened to ruin her financially for bringing the lawsuit and that she needs protection from his “retaliation.”

Now, what could possibly go wrong?]

One of the worst crimes ever

The New Neo Posted on by

This was a creatively diabolical thing to do:

Amazingly, the victim still seems to be alive, all these years later, although her health has declined according to parole hearing testimony.

Heart of darkness.

There is no question that the Janice Trahan’s behavior was far from exemplary. But I think you’ll agree it was small potatoes compared to what happened to her.

That Forensic Files program aired in 2003.

How does the RNC solve a problem like Trump?

The New Neo Posted on by

This article at the conservative website ricochet suggests a novel approach to the RNC’s Trump problem: disown him. Exactly how that could be done is unclear, but the reasoning is that the party can’t support a candidate who holds so many views that are diametrically opposed to what the party stands for. The article ends this way:

According to most polls, Trump will lose to a Democratic nominee. More and more party faithful are announcing that they cannot in good conscience pull the lever for an anti-conservative like The Donald. After dithering for months, waiting in vain for Trump to fail on his own, the RNC has a decision to make.

The only way the party has a future is for them to cut Trump loose so he can fall on his own. Otherwise, the entire organization will go down with him.

Of course, Trump could easily run third party if that were to happen. I have long thought that the Trump phenomenon has probably already destroyed both the GOP and the conservative movement, although conservatives who support Trump don’t see it that way. But my sentiments run along the lines of this commenter on the thread:

Taking him out now will destroy the GOP. His disciples will burn the party down and he will go 3rd party, taking them with him.

Having him as the nominee will destroy the GOP. Lots of principled conservatives will stay home or vote 3rd party. I know I will. He’s toxic to independents and Democrats, and that’s before the media onslaught that will come as soon as he’s picked.

There are lots of moderate Republicans and swing voters who are going to take one look at this train wreck and bolt and say “No way.” His crazy anger, which is what his fans love about him, turns off so many people. The media will amplify it.

The thing is, even if, by some miracle, Trump loses fair-and-square his supporters will burn down the Party and he will go third party.

All scenarios lead to President HRC. Unbelievable. It’s almost like it was engineered this way.

Actually, though, not all scenarios. In polls of two-man races between Trump and Cruz or between Trump and Rubio, Trump does not win. Somehow, this has to become a two-man race. I don’t know how it can be done, but one way is that it could happen naturally, as one candidate rises and the other falls; so far they’ve been roughly equal and split the non-Trump vote. I’ve been a Cruz supporter, but Rubio is okay with me and were I voting in a primary right now I would vote for whichever one of them I thought was doing best. Momentum builds momentum, and time is of the essence.

Today: Nevada (and musings on conservatism, the GOP, and the establishment)

The New Neo Posted on by

Another day, another primary. This primary season has felt like a runaway train to me, hurtling down the tracks with no brakes on.

Another thing that’s become clear this year is that the members of the GOP “establishment” are not all-powerful puppet masters pulling all the strings. The Trump phenomenon proves to me that they can’t even really control their own primary process, because I have little doubt they did favor Jeb Bush and don’t like Trump (although I think they hate Cruz even more). They couldn’t make the Jeb! phenomenon happen because voters actually have minds of their own, and because Jeb was a bad candidate for this time and place.

That doesn’t mean that the establishment doesn’t have its own interests and candidates it supports and pushes. But I ask you, why shouldn’t they? Why should they be immune from promoting what they see as their own interests, which they may even see as being in everybody’s interests? What’s more, even though I consider myself a conservative, over the years I have grown tired of the constant carping of much of the conservative wing of the party that they are insufficiently listened to. The reason is that conservatives actually don’t make up the majority of the GOP.

So maybe the main reason Cruz isn’t doing all that well is that—in addition to the Trump phenomenon, which is definitely a factor—is that he’s very conservative and also non-charismatic. And I say this as a person who supports Cruz (in fact, he’s been my frontrunner for some time) and who thinks he would make a good president.

Sometimes I think Reagan spoiled conservatives. A myth was engendered that said the country really wanted a conservative. First of all, the country in 1980 was a very different country than it is today, and I’m not sure Reagan could have been elected in say, 2008 (I think he could now, but only because the Democrats’ field is so weak). But second of all, Reagan didn’t win in 1980 because the voters suddenly decided they had become conservatives, he won because there were enough voters like that and because of his winning (literally) personality.

Oh, and if conservatives run off and form a third party, that’s the best way to assure that the left wins.

And don’t forget that it’s the culture—particularly education and its leftward pull, in my opinion—that has created this set of affairs in the first place. Many things have paved the way for this possible (probable??) Trump vs. Hillary battle, involving the worst two presidential choices in a single year in American history, but some are cultural and include the glorification of celebrity and of symbol and chatter over substance. Just as Obama was not about Obama but about the American people, so Hillary and Trump are not about Hillary and Trump, they are about what the American people are willing to accept and even admire.

Victor Davis Hanson is not feeling sanguine about the future: life is a cabaret, old chum

The New Neo Posted on by

Weimar comparisons abound. You may need a good stiff drink when you’re done.

When I think about Weimar compared to today, one of the biggest parallels I can find is the degradation of popular culture and also of what used to know as high art. If Andrew Breitbart was correct when he said that politics is downstream from culture—and I think it was a brilliant observation—then what’s going on today politically is to be expected, if you consider our long Gramscian march towards the decline of our own culture.

About two years ago I wrote a post making some of this cultural Weimar comparision, and I’m going to reproduce a portion of it here.

This is what the well-dressed starlet/model/whatever is wearing lately:

abbeyClancy

jaimieAlexander

Dresses that leave so little to the imagination seem to me to have almost nothing going for them except their power to shock (then again, perhaps the men in the crowd would disagree). And we’ve grown so accustomed to the display of more and more skin that such things have lost some of that power, so it’s necessary to escalate to get the requisite effect.

As in long ago Rome:

In lifestyle Roman actors did not enjoy a good reputation and their morals challenged even the decadence of Roman society. Their performances could be lewd, highly sexual and offensive, even going as far as to appearing naked on stage and engaging in sexual acts. They could also be highly critical of the political status quo and so ran the gauntlet of emperor and senator…Far from being great dramas most Roman plays were whimsical, more mimes and pantomimes; the classics we know and respect were in the minority…in the Imperial period a number of women emerged as famous actresses, earning reputations as infamous as their male counterparts…Over the years a number of actors became quite influential, counting among their friends men of high standing within Roman society.

And musn’t forget the ill-fated Weimar Republic:

Apart from the new tolerance for behaviour that was technically still illegal, and viewed by a large part of society as immoral, there were other developments in Berlin culture that shocked many visitors to the city. Thrill-seekers came to the city in search of adventure, and booksellers sold many editions of guide books to Berlin’s erotic night entertainment venues. There were an estimated 500 such establishments.

If you’re not familiar with Anita Berber (and I certainly wasn’t until I did the research for this post), her performances and life may retain their ability to shock, even now.

The Weimar Republic and decadence—makes me think of the Sally Bowles character in the musical “Cabaret,” which itself was a somewhat-cleaned-up version of the real Weimar goings-on. Sally was based on a British actress and writer by the name of Jean Ross, who lived with writer and playwright Christopher Isherwood in Berlin in the 30s (just as Bowles did with the highly fictionalized Isherwood character in “Cabaret”).

Unlike the apolitical Sally, Ross was a lifelong Communist, and possibly even an undercover agent for the Comintern. She latter married the British Communist journalist Claud Cockburn, one of whose three journalist children from his third marriage was Counterpunch’s leftist editor Alexander Cockburn.

That’s the end of the excerpt.

I’ll close—as I have several times before—with this poem by W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming.” Written in 1919 in the disillusion and desolation following World War I (the year the Weimar Republic began in Germany, and a time I believe to have been the beginning of the modern era in which we are still living), it goes like this:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Path to the GOP nomination—path to truth

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve noticed that all of a sudden post-SC primary there are a ton of “Trump is inevitable” posts and articles. There are also a few “no, he’s not!” pieces, too, but the former predominate.

The whole thing is odd, but I suppose that’s what sells. Frighten people or please them, depending on their attitude towards Trump, but make it sound like you know what you’re talking about and can see into the future in a campaign season notable for the fact that “unprecedented” actually seems applicable here.

So I am not going to say what’s going to happen. I simply will say that Trump keeps getting a third of the vote, and that for a while there have been two other leading candidates (Cruz and Rubio) who split the non-Trump vote of 2/3 evenly enough between them that even if Kasich and Carson drop out, or fade to even lower numbers than their currect 7% (as sometimes happens when candidates stay in the race despite waning-to-nonexistent prospects), the results may end up with no candidate over 50% in any primary, and even with a brokered convention.

We just don’t know, It’s not just the unusual nature of the Trump candidacy, which has so many people in what passes as his own party—the GOP—saying they can’t stand him and will never vote for him. It’s the strange evenness of the rival candidates Cruz and Rubio (who are already somewhat unusual as two prominent Hispanic GOP senators) that makes it difficult for either to get traction against Trump, although each of them beats him in two-way polls.

“Strange” doesn’t even begin to cut it. And it’s frustrating for those of us who most definitely do not trust or agree with much of what Trump says, and who also believe (I am basing this on polls of all kinds) that he is the weakest GOP candidate in the general and that his nomination would probably lead to the election of Hillary Clinton.

It has also been very frustrating to me to watch Cruz and Rubio tear each other apart. Their real enemy is Trump, and if they don’t see it they ought to. In the thread about the SC primary there was a long long discussion in the comments section that is well worth reading, and soon I may write a post about some of the issues discussed there. For those of you who didn’t follow the discussion I’m referring to, it begins around here with a comment by “Bob_CA” and continues for many many comments back and forth between Bob and me. Please read all his comments and all of mine; other people chime in, too.

The main issue there was how to decide what’s true and what’s false about a politician. Hard task. During a political campaign the mud flies fast and furious. Then blogs and periodicals that are for this candidate and against that one (not to mention such larger disagreements as liberal or conservative) will amplify the stories that reflect badly on the enemy, and even sometimes lie and certainly distort, while doing the opposite for their favored one.

It’s not just one candidate who does this, it’s the whole wretched business of politics. To ask candidates to stop doing this is like asking the sun not to shine (or perhaps, to ask night not to fall).

The task of the reader and the voter is to sort through it as best he/she can, and I don’t make light of that task, because it takes time and is seemingly endless. It a version of the same undertaking, by the way, that led me to my political change so many years ago. I followed the story trying to get to the truth, knowing that truth is knowable but that my goal is to get as near to it as I can.

That process led me to my political transformation, which was absolutely not what I thought would happen when I started on that journey merely out of curiosity, sparked by the terrible events of 9/11. But that’s where that pursuit led me—to this blog, dear readers. I’m still trying to get as close as I can to the truth, knowing I can never really reach it in the absolute sense.

National Review: Trump the elitist stomping on the little guy in Scotland

The New Neo Posted on by

A kind reader alerted me to the fact that National Review has come out with a lengthy piece titled “The Playboy Bully of the Western World”* about Trump the elitist and the shenanigans he engaged in around the construction of his Scottish gold course.

It’s the same story I tried to push here and in a similar post at Legal Insurrection. The point of all the stories is the same. This is how Ian Tuttle, the National Review writer, puts it:

Two properties provoked Trump’s particular ire. David Milne’s home, in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was built in 1954. It was then a Coast Guard station, occupying the same spot on which another Coast Guard station had stood, going back to the 1860s. Trump thought it was an eyesore. Likewise a house and several outbuildings owned by Michael Forbes, a salmon fisherman who had left school at 14 to learn his trade, and whose family had lived in the area for several generations. “His property is terribly maintained,” Trump told reporters. “It’s slum-like, it’s disgusting. He’s got stuff thrown all over the place. He lives like a pig.”

…It would be an extraordinary irony if Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination riding a groundswell of working-class anger toward “elites.” In Scotland, Trump teamed up with “elites” in the local and national government in an attempt to railroad working-class residents out of their homes. In Scotland, Donald Trump was not against “special interests.” He was special interests.

The article is long, and I wish it had emphasized Trump’s elitist statements more, and included the video. Also, I’d like to have seen it drive home the point that Michael Forbes’ property was wanted by Trump not to build anything, but because Trump felt it ruined the view for the rich people who would be using the golf course.

However, I’m happy to see it, and I wish some candidates would pick up on it. The visuals involved in the video are awful for Trump, just awful. I think they would make an incredibly hard-hitting campaign ad. It’s not just his attempt to force the sale of the land, it’s the elitist nature of the vicious personal attacks on Forbes that would hurt Trump’s populist image with at least some of his supporters.

As I said, I’ve tried to get someone to pay attention to it. Maybe National Review will succeed where I failed. Or maybe a reader has a way to reach someone involved with the candidates. If there’s not enough time left to make an ad, there’s always social media.

The videos can be found here, towards the end of my post.

Time’s a wasting.

[* NOTE: The National Review’s title is a reference to this play set in Ireland.]

Today is the South Carolina primary

The New Neo Posted on by

[BUMPED UP]

In case you’d forgotten.

This post is an open thread for discussing it. And here’s an article analyzing what’s at stake, how the candidates stack up, and what they’re hoping for.

Polls close at 7 Eastern time. That’s when the results start coming in.

UPDATE 8:10 PM:

It’s a funny thing, but I’m so weary of politics that I haven’t been able to bring myself to turn on the TV. That doesn’t mean I’m not following it; I am. I’m just trying not to obsess about it. I read a bit, and from that I’m aware that the news is better than feared. In other words, although realistically I pretty much knew Trump would win, if current trends hold he is not doing as well as predicted, and both Cruz and Rubio are doing better than predicted. Their totals would beat his. Late-breakers are going to them. This is all to the good.

It would be even better if the bottom three—the troika of Bush, Carson, and Kasich whose ego-driven quests seem at this point designed to guarantee the nomination of Donald Trump—were polling at around 1% each. As it is, at least so far they’re doing worse than expected, and that’s good, too. I want each of them to come to their senses and go home, thanks very much for your service.

I am going to take a nice break now and wash my hair. This activity takes the better part of an hour. You don’t want to know.

UPDATE 9:15 PM:

Jeb Bush is out. I am glad. I never disliked him, but I disliked the role he took on as this campaign has worn on. He became destructive rather than constructive to the larger picture, and I’m happy that he realized it (or someone realized it and made him realize it). I respect him for doing this. I would respect Kasich and Carson, too, if they went the same way. Now.

If they don’t do that, they earn my enmity. Not that they care.

UPDATE 11:30 PM:

One of the odd things about this primary season is the even splits. What do I mean? Looking at the results right now, with 99% reporting, we get Trump at 32.5% (his expected third), Rubio at 22.5% and Cruz at 22.3. Let that closeness between Rubio and Cruz sink in for a second. They are splitting 45% of the vote right smack dab down the middle at a tad over 22% each. Then you have Bush at 7.8%, Kasich at 7.6%, and Carson at 7.2%. Couldn’t be much closer among those three, but if you add up their portion you get 22.6%, which is basically what Rubio and Cruz get.

There is some very odd math mojo going on here, folks. I can’t explain it, but I can notice it.

Aldous Huxley has a little talk with you

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, yes, I’m well aware that Huxley died in 1963, over fifty years ago. In death, he had the strange fate of being eclipsed by JFK, who was assassinated on the very same day (C.S. Lewis died that day too, by the way).

I have read most of Huxley’s books, even some of the more obscure ones, and his Brave New World continues to impress and amaze me with the detail and creativity of its dystopic vision, so different from that of Orwell and yet equally brilliant.

This interview is from 1958, and the questioner was Mike Wallace. Huxley may get a few unimportant details wrong—for instance, subliminal messages turned out not to be the tool he thought they might become—but on the big picture he could not have been more correct. When I watch him and listen to him, I get an overwhelming impression of a powerful intellect that has spent an entire lifetime pondering the Big Questions, attempting to express answers in words that any simpleton (that is, everyone else) can understand, and to do it without any condescension or arrogance whatsoever. Huxley seems to be searching for elegant simplicity of expression, and I think he attains it:

Brits will vote on membership in the EU

The New Neo Posted on by

A June 23 date has been set for a British referendum on its EU membership:

Cameron said he was making good on a 2013 commitment to give British voters a chance to decide whether to remain in the bloc, which is seen by some Britons as meddlesome, overly bureaucratic, and unable to control its borders.

Britain has always remained somewhat apart from the European project, preferring to keep its own currency rather than adopt the euro and declining to join the passport-free Schengen zone in place in much of Europe.

The June vote will come as the EU struggles to cope with a sustained immigration crisis that last year brought more than 1 million people fleeing war and poverty to its shores.

The referendum battle pits those who believe Britain is better off in a formal union with Germany, France and other countries against those who see Britain as a proud island nation better capable of managing its affairs on its own.

Cameron is for membership, and he’s selling it to the people with the idea that Britain will be able to get the benefits of EU membership without the pain:

He said a landmark deal reached the day before with EU leaders in Brussels would give Britain more control over its future, lessen welfare payments to migrants who come to Britain, and protect Britain from being absorbed into a feared European “superstate.”

I know that, were I a Brit, I’d vote to stay as far away from the EU as possible. I would not trust a deal, because the British goal of relative autonomy runs directly counter to every impulse of the EU leaders for homogenization “for the greater good.” Polls say the electorate is pretty split on the issue, and most business leaders favor Cameron’s position.

If Britain does end up voting against the EU, I wonder if the effect could be contagious.

2016 is the codger campaign

The New Neo Posted on by

Whatever happened to all those concerns about the age of candidates?

Remember back in 2008, when Democrats were hootin’ and hollerin’ about how old John McCain was? I remember writing this post arguing that if elected he was almost certain to be perfectly fine for his first term and probably even a second, and explaining why. And here he is, eight years later and still in the saddle at 79, although I know that a lot of people wouldn’t mind if he dismounted (in the job sense, that is, not in the fuller sense).

Now the orthopedic shoe is on the other, more Democratic foot, and they are mostly silent about it. Hillary Clinton is 68 but would be 69 by election time, and Bernie Sanders (who would also be the first Jewish president, something else we don’t hear much about) is 74 but would become 75 by the time of the election. That would make him the oldest president ever, and the oldest presidential nominee. The oldest previous president at first inauguration was Ronald Reagan, who was just a few days shy of 70 on taking the oath of office for the first time. McCain was only the second oldest nominee at 72, the first having been Bob Dole at 73 in 1996. Note that Dole is still alive (and seemingly functional, although you wouldn’t want to hand him the Oval Office) to this day.

Even if Joe Biden were to be called on to run in a somewhat-unlikely scenario, this would most certainly not help the Democrats in that regard. He’s 73, and would be 74 at inauguration.

But that doesn’t mean Republicans are home free. Kasich (63), Bush (63), and Carson (64) are very close to each other in age, in the range (early-to-mid-60s) that’s not uncommon for contenders. Cruz and Rubio are 45 and 44 right now; it’s just that Cruz looks older than his age and Rubio younger. But the frontrunner, Donald
Trump, is currently 69 and would be 70 if he were to become president, the oldest president ever.

Trump does not project an image of near-70, and his age is barely ever discussed. It ordinarily would be almost certain to come up if he were the nominee—the Democrats will be eager to bring up every negative thing about him, of that you can be sure. But if his opponent is either Clinton or Sanders or Biden (and it’s hard to see how it could be anyone but one of those three) Democrats won’t breathe a single word about Trump’s age—although they’ll have plenty other flaws to talk about, of that you can be sure.

It’s not that 70 is so very old in the scheme of things, particularly not these days. At least, I hope it’s not, for personal reasons. The ages of these possible nominees do make their VP choices even more important than usual, however.

And I have no idea—none—how any of these candidates keep up the pace of the seemingly endless campaign. Young or old, it seems inhuman, and some of them (particularly the younger ones) keep up a schedule in the weeks close to each primary of up to four or five appearances a day.

Something drives them, though, and drives them hard. Ego is certainly part of it, and the adoration of the crowds feeds that. I imagine that those who drop out—especially if, unlike Scott Walker or Chris Christie, they have no current office to return to—feel a certain amount of withdrawal pain. Nevertheless, I hope against hope that we’ll see at least three dropouts after South Carolina. I doubt that particular wish of mine will be granted.