Every Candidate Has Flaws

Can we agree that all political candidates are flawed? Can we admit that there is no such thing as the perfect candidate except, maybe, the Manchurian Candidate? But we don’t really have a Manchurian Candidate in this election cycle. Instead we have a field of highly flawed individuals.

On the left, Hilliary is an out-and-out un-convicted criminal. That, I hope, is just a matter of time before it’s resolved. Bernie is plain clueless about how to pay for all the freebies.

Despite a decent background and good experience, I just cannot get behind a floppy waffle like John Kasich. He comes across as micron thin in character, and I don’t trust him.

‘TrusTed’ Cruz lies. Pure and simple, he plays fast and loose with the truth while declaring that he’s honest as the day. Besides that, he always comes across the screen as slimy – just the unctuous tone of voice puts my nerves on edge. When I saw him at the Town Hall in Wisconsin yesterday, he started talking about women’s issues and the tone of his voice changed. He lowered the volume, slowed it down – he was talking down to those women and they fell for it. It was a disgusting moment that turned my stomach.

Unfortunately, Trump has a bad tendency to speak too quickly – without preparation or a hint of forethought - and then he has to walk backward while covering the blush of humiliation. That hard and fast ‘do not shoot from the lip’ lesson is something that politicians learn pretty quickly and the fact that Trump is not a politician is, at times, painfully obvious. Take the comments on abortion yesterday during the MSNBC Town Hall.

There is no doubt, regardless of which side of the issue you're on, that was a gigantic flub by The Donald. Was it devastating? That remains to be seen, but it does show that he has got to spend more time thinking about possible responses to the hot button issues, developing clear and rational answers, and less time Tweeting. He has also got to get back ahead of things, get back on his message and keep it there.

If he had developed a solid position on the issue before yesterday, he wouldn't have been caught as he was. The worst thing he did was open his mouth and try to answer Chris Matthews's question. I really hate to say it, but the old saw ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt’ was proved true by my candidate yesterday.

This is not going to change my mind or my vote. In the final analysis, given that the law is what it is, I think this is a non-issue.

Still, instead of trying to answer, he could have said, 'you know, Chris. I really hadn't thought through that in great detail because right now, today, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s the law and it’s not a law that’s going to be changed. The people wouldn’t stand for it.'

That would have been honest, it would have given him room, and he wouldn't now be watching his poll numbers plummet in Wisconsin and other places. It's going to be an uphill battle to regain that ground because anything he does and says is 100% wrong per the media. Even if he helped a little old lady across eight lanes of traffic and rescued a sick puppy along the way, they'd find something to criticize.

There is one opportunity, just one, to salvage something of what happened during that Town Hall yesterday.

He has got to come out now, today, and say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t give the voters my best effort yesterday. When Chris asked me the question about abortion I was still thinking about the nuclear question. That was such strange exchange it threw me, but that doesn’t excuse what I said about abortion.

‘Obviously, Roe v. Wade is and will be the law of the land whether we agree with it or not. I should never have said a word in answer to that question. This is part of my learning about being a politician. Sometimes on the campaign trail, when I’m trying to make a good impression, I speak when I would do better to stay quiet.

‘I’m not a politician and that’s why I sometimes make mistakes. I’m a manager, an administrator. I run things, big things and I build great things. That’s why I’m in the race. I want to try to get the government under control, to make it more efficient and reorganize it so it works better for everyone. The policy matters are critical and that is why I’m surrounding myself with brilliant and experienced advisors who know these things.’

This kind of a statement answers the question from the other night on CNN when Anderson Cooper asked if Trump ever apologizes, and it shows both humility and humanity. For a moment it would take him off the pedestal and show the base his feet of clay.

A release like this wouldn’t salvage Wisconsin, but it might help going forward. People understand that he’s a human being. Knowing that even a presidential candidate can drop the façade long enough to admit that he’s wrong would be, in my view, endearing. It might even make the women a little less hostile.

Another thing that might help woo women is if he could convince Melania to help him by speaking to women’s groups. Maybe she is already, but I’m following the news closely because I am so anxious about this election, and I haven’t heard a breath about her being involved. Just meeting with small groups like Soroptimists and Rotary and Kiwanis would be fine – they don’t have to be talks in front of roaring crowds, but introduce Donald to the women. Help them to see him as she sees him – what she likes, his strong points and the little kindnesses. She could talk about what qualities he has that would make him a great president.

As for the nuclear issue, the idea of Japan and South Korea having nuclear weapons is actually a good idea. Why not?

After all, let’s say North Korea gets a working nuclear missile system. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a forward warning / forward intervention system in the form of nukes in Japan and South Korea? That might well prevent a nuclear warhead from reaching the United States – which is Kim’s stated goal.

So, no. That doesn’t bother me. It bothers me more to think that whack job in Pyong Yang is going to get a nuke or two and we don’t have our systems up-to-date and ready to go.

I don’t know that these things would resolve yesterday’s foot-in-mouth situation, but it might help. There’s no way to undo it but if he does nothing, hoping it just goes away, it won’t. It’s all over the networks already and we can count on it being an issue going forward by both his GOP opponents and by Hilliary. If he has answers in his pocket, honest and human, it could take the water off the boil.

Once he gets past the nomination, he can tackle the nonsense Hilliary throws at him one-on-one instead of five against one with the media taking sides.

I know he’s already tried to walk it back, but one thing I’ve noticed about Trump is that his brain works faster than his tongue. He often (almost always) speaks before he thinks and that leads to messes like this one.

And, as much as I admire the man, he often speaks in ‘clouds’ of words. There is a lot of fluff surrounding the central point, and that’s frustrating to me. I wish he would be more incisive and clear because the dust makes his points hard to find.

So there’s room for improvement in his presentation skills. That does not mean that I want any change in his plans or policy ideas. It’s just that I’d like him to be better prepared for those ‘gotcha’ moments the press is so darned good at.

In any case, this too shall pass. Next week it’ll be something else and then this will resurface in attack ads but, if he’s prepared with great, clear statements, I think he can weather them, particularly if he gets back to driving the conversation.

Have a wonderful day.

Best~
Philippa

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Sulking - An Unattractive & Wasteful Pastime

Okay, enough of that nonsense. Feeling sorry for yourself is all well and good, but it accomplishes damn all and is a waste of time. A natural occurrence, like a hurricane or simple monsoon, but in the end nothing changes except the amount of time one has left on this world, and that's reduced by however much time was spent in the wallow.

I'm back and determined not to just whimper because things I can't affect are changing. As I have said many times: Life is dynamic and changing. Static is death so change is good. It's a royal pain in the butt most of the time, but it's good because it keeps us fresh and gives us new opportunities.

I signed up for yet another writer's site last night, one run by Amazon and one that is highly recommended by other members at Authonomy. I didn't have a chance to spend too much time poking around on it because I was still in the midst of my Bond-a-thon.

Man! Daniel Craig is one good looking guy. Then again, so is Pierce Brosnan. I dunno... Blonde or brunette? Hmm. Hard to choose because both have their own appeal and both look damned fine in evening clothes.

Sexist piggy, aren't I? Well, as I say to anyone who cares: I ain't dead yet and until I am, I have the right to look.

I finally saw all of Casino Royale last night. I had seen it in bits and pieces - mostly the scenes at the casino during the poker game, and didn't realize the end had anything to do with the beginning or middle. That's the problem with catching things at odd places. I did see it all last night, and it is a really good movie - lots of action.

I'm hoping that, despite staying up until one o'clock this morning watching Quantum of Solace (which had a good premise, and was interesting for being the sequel to Casino Royale, but wasn't a very good movie) I won't fall face down on my keyboard at some point. It is only seven o'clock and I've been awake for the better part of an hour. We'll see.

With so many choices to choose from, I'm not sure what I want to work on today. Book Two of Elizabeth's Braid is nudging me, so maybe that. That's the problem with having so many books. Even though most of the ones I have on my computer are complete, in the sense of having a beginning, middle and end, they're really not complete. There are still little niggles and things to pick.

'Genevieve's Piano' has quite a lot of work based on the crits I got several months ago. I was a bit heavy-handed in places, so need to tone it down.

'Matters of Friendship' also needs work, although that one is pretty straightforward. I just need to move things around so that Allison, as reluctant as she is about things, moves in to Peter's house to help him and his family with Lara's illness. Again, it does make sense in the framework of the story, so trust me.

'In a Green & Shady Place' has been reworked - earpiece and all - but I'm not quite believing it. Gordon has asked Melanie to dinner and, to that point, it's fine. He picks her up from her hotel and announces that he's flying her to France, to his villa. There's a solid reason, so that works, but once they're there, it starts to get a bit shaky. I know what the problem is, but I'm not sure how to fix it without getting silly.

Sometimes writing a story is like that. There is one scene in a well-known, bestselling story I read several times and every single time I read it, I snickered in derision because it is so laughably stupid to anyone who knows about horses and riding.

In this scene (which I didn't write - it was written by a highly popular author in the 1980's), a man on a polo pony retrieves a woman's hat.

Small thing, right? Uh, no.

See, polo ponies are tall, like at least sixteen hands or about five and a half feet tall at the shoulder. Most are seventeen hands (four inches = one hand) from the ground to the withers (the hump where the horse's neck meets his back). Add to that the depth of a saddle - about three inches, including the blanket and padding, and the distance between a man's seat and his waist which would be the bendy part, another eight or ten inches, probably. He's straddling the horse, which affects his range of motion, coupled with his holding this damsel in distress in front of him on the saddle. It's purely laughable that he would be able to hold onto her and bend down far enough to reach her hat without both of them landing on the ground at the horse's hooves.

And that, for me, is where it's rubbing. I'm too stubborn to allow myself to rest in stupid because I can't figure out how to make it work. It's like a tiny flaw in a seam or something. I know it's there, but I can't quite see what it is or how to fix it. If I leave it, it's going to bug me. If I don't, it's going to make me crazy trying to fix it. I think it needs to rest, to go off on its own for a while until I have a clearer eye.

Then there's my Elizabeth's Braid series. Four books, all intricately tied together, with Robby calling my attention. That's book three which follows Melissa and Stephen, and precedes Geoffrey. Maybe that's the one on which I'll work this morning, before turning my attention to something else.

It's a bit like being at a dessert bar. Do I want the chocolate mousse? Or the truffles? Perhaps the brownies with a little whipped cream and cocoa powder. They're all really good in their own way, but how to choose?

Well, if that's the biggest struggle of my day, it won't be too hard. In the meantime, I hope your day is lovely!

Best~
Philippa

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