{"id":3116,"date":"2015-08-06T10:24:40","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T17:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=3116"},"modified":"2015-08-06T10:24:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T17:24:40","slug":"theatre-of-the-absurd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=3116","title":{"rendered":"THEATRE OF THE ABSURD"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this point there are 17, that\u2019s right, 17 Republican candidates for President.\u00a0 It is the theatre of the absurd.\u00a0 Today is the first major audition for these candidates and it is likely to be a hot mess.\u00a0 The big event is the \u201cdebate\u201d <\/strong>between the top ten candidates.\u00a0 Theoretically they all get equal time, but of course that won\u2019t happen.\u00a0 This is the Donald Trump variety show and his personality will dominate the stage.\u00a0 That is not necessarily a good thing for him, but it certainly creates challenges for everyone else. Trump is the master at making himself bigger than life.<\/p>\n

The format is ridiculous.\u00a0 Candidates will have one minute to respond to a question with a 30 second follow up.\u00a0 It is a two hour debate and there are ten candidates.\u00a0 That amounts to 12 minutes per candidate.\u00a0 When you subtract the pauses and the questions by the moderators, who will be showing off too, each candidate will be lucky to get five minutes of air time.\u00a0 Regardless of who is speaking, odds are that Donald Trump will be part of the picture.<\/p>\n

Every participant, other than Donald Trump is focused on how to handle Trump.\u00a0 Some will decide to attack him, some will pretend to ignore him, but he will always be the elephant in the room and everyone\u2019s attention will be riveted on him.\u00a0 I doubt this will do much to help us choose a President, but it could be fun to watch.<\/p>\n

If all the other candidates attack Trump, that will just make him look even bigger.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t attack him, he will continue to soar in the polls, for a while. In the long run, Trump is a lot like Newt Gingrich.\u00a0 People really like him because he is good at hammering people, but then they are reminded of all the reasons they don\u2019t trust him and he will plummet in the polls.\u00a0 Trump is destined for a huge fall when people learn about some of the positions he has held and the outrageous things he has said and done.\u00a0 Conservatives do not like people who are inconsistent on core values and no one is more consistently inconsistent than Donald Trump. In the meantime, he is likely to leave bodies all over the political landscape.<\/p>\n

Some people have a lot at risk tonight.\u00a0 Jeb Bush is most vulnerable because if he does not look like he is capable of handling Donald Trump, everyone will question whether he is capable of handling anyone else.\u00a0 Scott Walker needs to show that he can handle the big stage.\u00a0 Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio can just be themselves and watch the carnage.\u00a0 Mike Huckabee will be Mike Huckabee and no one will care.\u00a0 Ben Carson will be Ben Carson and people will care but that won\u2019t make him look Presidential.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Chris Christie is beyond desperate and he has to hit a homerun.\u00a0 He is a formidable street fighter and he may take on Trump directly.\u00a0 Christie is very dangerous in these situations.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Christie has the same problem as Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump.\u00a0 He has way too much baggage and conservatives will never fully trust him. His \u201cbromance\u201d <\/strong>with Barack Obama after Hurricane Sandy was beyond pathetic.<\/p>\n

John Kasich is the guy who snuck in under the tent and people will question whether he is worthy.\u00a0 He will be lucky to get a word in edgewise.\u00a0 In addition he has a bad habit of talking about himself and, so far, he has difficulty inspiring people.<\/p>\n

I predict chaos and people are going to get hurt.<\/p>\n

The pre-debate forum scheduled for the other seven candidates may actually be far more important.\u00a0 Rick Perry caught a huge break by missing the cut.\u00a0 If he was on that stage, everyone would have treated him as an irrelevant piece of used furniture.\u00a0 It would have been nearly impossible for Perry to impress anyone in that scenario. Donald Trump will make everyone else on the stage look small in comparison. That would have been devastating to Perry.<\/p>\n

Now he will be front and center and he won\u2019t be competing in a circus event.\u00a0 He just may get that coveted chance to re-introduce himself to the American people.\u00a0 Even the liberal media is likely to treat him well, if only to take a shot at Fox News for unfairly cutting him from the \u201cbig debate.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 Perry has been transformed into the underdog worthy of a chance. That is probably the best thing that could have happened to him.<\/p>\n

Carly Fiorina is very sharp and she will hold her own.\u00a0 She probably will spend her time taking on Hillary and is unlikly to challenge Rick Perry.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t really matter what Bobby Jindal, Jim Gilmore, Rick Santorum or Lindsey Graham do because none of them are likely to challenge anyone for the nomination. They will just provide further justification for Fox New\u2019s decision to exclude them in the first place.\u00a0 I doubt that any of them will take a shot at Perry, they will attack Obama, Hillary or Trump.<\/p>\n

Rick Perry is the only one, in either forum, likely to provide a vision for a better tomorrow.\u00a0 People already know who to hate, they are looking for someone to inspire.<\/p>\n

One final note:\u00a0 Ted Cruz will be the smartest man on the stage and he is by far the most skilled debater.\u00a0 So far he has avoided attacking Donald Trump.\u00a0 That is likely to continue, but Cruz is a very dangerous man because when he does attack it is with great skill and determination.\u00a0 He is the person least likely to make a mistake during this debate.<\/p>\n

TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this point there are 17, that\u2019s right, 17 Republican candidates for President.\u00a0 It is the theatre of the absurd.\u00a0 Today is the first major audition for these candidates and it is likely to be a hot mess.\u00a0 The big … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nTHEATRE OF THE ABSURD - SCOTS HONOR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=3116\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"THEATRE OF THE ABSURD - 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