In the past I’ve live-blogged the majority of GOP and Democratic Debates. I haven’t kept up much with the endless Town Halls, forums, awkward “meet my family” hostage takings, or Trump’s daily appearances on cable news networks, but who could really blame me? Only the debates really “matter” if anything at all matters in this increasingly drawn-out primary season. So why am I not Live-Blogging Tonight’s Democratic Debate?
“Perhaps you’ve got plans?” Nope, probably won’t do a damn thing. “Perhaps you’ll make plans?” Mmmm, also unlikely unless I paint a wall and watch it dry. “Well, maybe you don’t have cable?” Nope, unlike other millennials I don’t really believe cable is a budget-buster, and it’s a huge time-saver over figuring out which torrent sites won’t give my computer a virus. Plus CNN is supposedly live-streaming the debate on their website. “All right, I give up, what the hell?”
“What the hell” is exactly right, as I’m tired of trying to figure out “what the hell are Bernie or John Kasich still doing in this race?” This primary race has now reached the Stalingrad portion, the insurgents can’t overtake the favorites but they’ll be damned if they quit fighting. What was once an exciting race consisting of 22 challengers has now devolved into a long, slow, bone-crunching brawl where even Trump’s wildest provocations (Saudi Arabia should have a nuclear weapon) barely raise an eyebrow from most spectators.
Cruz and Kasich know that they can’t beat Trump, but at least they are planning for a brokered convention in a wild, hail-mary strategy that is unlikely to see either of them picked if the GOP is allowed to pick somebody they actually like. But Bernie’s “strategy” is perhaps even more hopeless: He knows he can’t win straight up in popular vote or pledged delegates but—unlike Trump—Hillary is actually liked by her party. The odds of him flipping Super-Delegates over to his side or winning in a contested convention are between “None” and “None.” If somebody offered you a million dollars if he won vs. your one dollar if he lost, you would have to think about how badly you needed that dollar and if there wasn’t a more satisfying way to set it on fire.
I’m tired of this never-ending primary season that lasts 18 months so we can pick two general election candidates that only face off for four. This cycle, the earliest Republican candidates qualified over a year ago just so they could tussle with Hillary directly between July and early November. I’m now ready for that stage of the campaign, and shunning one last, hopeless debate before Bernie is forced to give up this race (that he lost a month ago on March 15th) seems like a great start.