Some Thoughts About the Presidential Campaign Season So Far

It looks to me as if the presidential campaign season is reaching a resolution, at least as far as the two major parties' nominees are concerned.  Although he likes to cite raw numbers for total primary votes and number of states he has won, Democratic contender Bernie Sanders is still behind Hillary Clinton in both of these categories...as well as in the number of pledged delegates.  The system of proportional assignment of delegates in primaries, according to current Democratic Party rules, will make it well-nigh impossible for Sanders to surpass Clinton in pledged delegates: this was the one scenario by which the Vermont senator could appeal to those super-delegates supporting Clinton to switch their allegiance to him.  Hillary is also making statements to the effect that Sanders should drop out of the race, but she has to be careful in order to avoid the "hypocrisy" accusation: in 2008 she fought Barack Obama from behind to the bitter end, even trying to gain an unfair advantage over the eventual nominee and president by trying to get extra delegates from the Florida primary, which Obama and John Edwards had avoided after the Party ruled that Florida had illegally scheduled its vote too early...

As for the Republicans, Donald Trump is clearly on the path to a majority of delegates and the nomination.  Ted Cruz, who has made Indiana a crucial battleground state for himself, has recently displayed desperation, both in his meaningless "deal" with rival candidate John Kasich for each to focus on states they're stronger in, and in his selection of Carly Fiorina as his vice-presidential running mate...bringing back to mind Ronald Reagan's desperate ploy of picking a liberal GOP congressman as his running mate in 1976 to "balance" the ticket and gain an advantage over eventual nominee, President Gerald Ford.  Cruz is still talking as if he will win Indiana, although the latest poll has Trump expanding his lead over Cruz in that state to 15 percentage points.  Fiorina, predictably, reacted to that news by trashing the poll and the pollsters: even more desperation...

There are two notions coming out in this presidential race that I would like to puncture.  One is that candidates like Sanders and Cruz, who claim more ideological purity than their opponents, are because of that rigidity somehow more noble than the others.  I couldn't disagree more.  It's easy for these two to sit in the U.S. Senate and make a lot of fine-sounding speeches enunciating their respective doctrines...it's entirely another matter to work with people who have a different outlook on things in order to achieve results that work in the real world.  The other fallacious notion I see in the campaign this year (and have in past elections) is that many people at-large seem to think that the president is like a king (or queen) and as such, can simply decree their agenda into law...I think many people who voted for Obama the first time back in 2008 were disappointed in him because of this mistaken idea.  The truth is that, regardless who gets elected this year, it's going to take a lot of work and compromise to get anything done...nobody gets to wave a magic wand and automatically put all of their policies into effect...