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The Shiny Ball Theory of Politics

<p>If a four-year-old child walks into a toy store&comma; and you tell him he can have any ball he wants&period; Does he pick the custom made leather football for &dollar;59&period;95&quest; No&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Does he pick the signature series Michael Jordan NBA basketball for &dollar;48&period;57&quest; No&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Does he pick the official New York Yankees endorsed baseball for &dollar;34&period;99&quest; No&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The four-year-old walks over to the bin of shiny bright red&comma; green and blue plastic balls for &dollar;2&period;95&comma; picks one and proudly&nbsp&semi;hands it to his mother to pay for&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The four-year-old does not understand the dog will bite through it the first day or it will be scuffed and dull within a week&period; &nbsp&semi;He does not understand a high quality ball will provide a great experience&nbsp&semi;for years and years to come&period; The four-year-old only understands bright and shiny in the moment&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>That is the way I see political campaigns&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Leaving Trump aside for a moment&comma; we have two freshman senators Cruz and Rubio whose careers are exceedingly limited&period; They speak well&comma; they dress well and they have memorized the proper dogma&comma; but they have never been in charge of anything&comma; never had to allocate resources&comma; never been accountable for any of their actions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On the other hand&comma; we have two governors Bush and Kasich &lpar;and Christie&comma; if you want to add a third&rpar; who are top performing governors&comma; have proven themselves to be capable leaders&comma; whose actions and results have been highly successful judged by the most important measuring stick&comma; they were re-elected in their states&period; They are the highest quality people available for the job from our political system &lpar;remember at this point we are not yet considering Trump&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>And yet&comma; the shiny ball senators are leading in the polls against the high quality&comma; tough and proven governors&period; Does this make sense&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Of course&comma; it does from a propaganda and mass influence standpoint&period; The &&num;8220&semi;low information voter&&num;8221&semi; chooses based on the information forced upon him&period; Our educational system has failed to teach our kids to properly participate in elections&period; The people who take the trouble to evaluate quality are too few and not as influential as a 30-second campaign spot during &&num;8220&semi;The Walking Dead&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Trump may actually have the combination of shininess and quality needed&comma; but its the shininess that is keeping him in front right now&period; &nbsp&semi;One could easily say Bernie Sanders is riding on shine&comma; not substance&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It is still my hope a governor will emerge from either South Carolina or Nevada as a contender&period; If Trump emerges victorious over such a contender&nbsp&semi;he will have truly earned the nomination&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If Trump only defeats two freshman senators then the RNC and the conservative political system&comma; in my opinion&comma; are broken&period; If the Democrats nominate Sanders&comma; an avowed socialist with no substance&comma; then their political system is broken&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Did we not learn anything from the last time a freshman senator was elected&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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