And then there were 17....

So Jim Gilmore has entered the race for the GOP nomination for President. Holy crap! I never thought you could find someone with less chance of becoming the nominee than Bobby Jindal or Carly Fiorina, but apparently I was mistaken.

This man has even less name recognition than George Pataki. How is that even possible?

Mr Gilmore was the  68th Governor of Virginia from 1998 to 2002, so he will be pushing that "Executive Experience" button for all it's worth in his brief yet already doomed campaign.

Here is a pic of Governor Gilmore, in case he comes up to you in the street and asks you for your vote. He won't, but I think it is important to at least put up his picture before he is engulfed by political oblivion.

Take a quick look. He won't be running for long.

 

Covering the horse race

Soon we will be entering a very traditional part of the Presidential campaign season - the time when the media start to issue their mea culpas apologizing for only covering the horse race and the meaningless polls; and promising to do better "covering the candidates and the issues".

But not quite yet. They aren't quite ready yet to DO THEIR JOB.

Right now they are in full on "Trump is leading" mode, hanging on every word the jackass says, sucking in all the coverage like like a vast NJ Superfund site combined with a black hole and an utter ideas-free political void.

That's why CNN covered Trump saying stupid shit this week rather than Governor Kasich's announcement he was running. Ditto last week, where Trump sucked all the air out of Scott Walker's announcement.

So here is my friendly advice to the media..

1. Polls are utterly without value right now. Stop covering them. I don't want to hear the word "Quinipiac" again until December.

2. In a huge field, it is very easy for the biggest blowhard to seem important. But he really isn't, having as he does, no chance of being anyone's nominee. So stop coming off like he's all there is to see.

3. If you want to cover the candidates, COVER THE CANDIDATES. All of them. Equally. So the voters can see if there is actually any gold in the dross.

4. Every night do a bit, ON EVERY CANDIDATE. What is Bobby Jindal doing today? Governor Perry? Stick a cub reporter on Pataki. Show us Carly Fiorina parking her broomstick before she makes a speech.

5. Cover the candidates' policy announcements. In depth. So we can see if they have any ideas or if they don't. So we can see who is just bombast in a $3000 suit or a mouthpiece for Heritage Foundation.

6. At least make an effort to be informative. Pictures of Trump standing at the border tell us what? They tell us NOTHING.

7. And stop having political spinners like Ana Navarro and Van Jones on every day telling us how we are supposed to feel about shit we have just seen for ourselves. You have reporters and Political Editors for analysis, USE THEM.

And then there were 16

So the Big GOP clown car careened into Ohio today and as full to the brim as it is with wannabes, never-will-bes and nobodies, I think Chris Christie leaned against a door just a tad and it eased open by the thinnest crack allowing the boyish-faced John Kasich to run up and say "Room for one more"?

John Kasich is a good candidate because he's a Governor. This potentially gives him some leverage to bash Congress. You know the thing: "I'm a Washington outsider. I can get things done. I have Executive Experience".

But a man with NINE TERMS in Congress should be no-one's idea of an outsider.

And if he insists on playing the outsider card, his opponents need to call him out on it every single time he says it.

And the other negative? No-one knows who he is nationally.

He's like George Pataki but with better hair.

Finally the True Contest Can Start

With Scott Walker now formally announcing his candidacy for the GOP nomination we have the two candidates in the race that the Republican party really wanted to see all along.

Namely Scott and Jeb!

All the other people running are just providing the background noise for the campaign. And of course with only 10 being able to get on the stage for the first Fox led debate, at least seven will be out before they get out of their starting blocks.

So it comes down to a Tale of Two Governors. As it was always going to be.

Scott, with his proven purist conservative credentials - a man who has gotten shit done and survived a leftie-inspired recall election. He will surely prove to be a formidable opponent to Jeb! with tremendous appeal to the party base. But will his brand of scorched earth conservatism prove palatable to a wider electorate? It is hard for me to think so.

So Walker's tactic has to be to burn Jeb! on not being ideologically pure enough. And then once he has the nomination, to run away from all the positions he has espoused to that point, to "appeal to the middle". Because if he does not tone down the rhetoric, his chances of being President are just about zero.

And Jeb! has to the hoe the row of the completely opposite strategy.

Jeb! has to lurch to the right during the nomination process. He has to prove he is the "True Conservative" and hammer away at his record as Florida Governor. All while forgetting he ever heard the words "Common Core", "Immigration" or "Mexico". If he can push his most conservative achievements as Governor and not suffer any mishaps ( aka Rick Perry Moments ), then the nomination will be his. He has been The One from the beginning as far as the GOP is concerned.

So if Jeb! does manage to convince the party faithful his is conservative enough and he gets the nomination, then he just has to forget everything he said to that point and revert to being Florida Moderate Man: John Ellis Bush. Then the Presidency should at least hove into view for him.

The GOP race now is finally starting. Hillary is probably more fearful of Jeb! than Walker, simply because Walker's record is so unambiguously to the right of Jeb's and harder to muddy up in the roiling electoral waters to come.

My mantra of #NoBushesNoClintons remains. But only a fool would think it impossible that both Hillary and Jeb! cannot get their party nominations.

Scariness Abounds - The Clown Car Becomes a Double Decker

So two more candidates have thrown their hats into the ring for the GOP nomination for President. Neither has any chance of being the Republican Party nominee of course, but this week they added themselves to the every burgeoning field of egomaniacs who seemingly want the job.

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal aka "The Louisiana Boy Wonder"

This man has royally fucked over Louisiana as that state's Governor, and the first time he was given a national stage on which to speak, he completely failed to convince anyone as to his competence or his political stature.

That national opportunity came on February 24th 2009 when he was given the opportunity to deliver the official Republican response to President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress. He was simply inept, unconvincing and plain bad.

All his opponents need to do is play excerpts from that speech over and over again with the tag line "Wrong for Louisiana; Wrong for the Presidency".

And currently running at a heady 0.8% in the polls, this is a man whose chances are as likely as a snowstorm on Bourbon Street in August.

Chris Christie

Two words damn him from the outset - and they are "President Obama".

Forget all the scandals - that's just New Jersey politics at their finest.

To get the GOP nomination, you have to appeal to the Republican base. Those people will forgive all kinds of skeletons in your political closet, but what they won't forgive is paling around with Obama.

And after Superstorm Sandy, that is what Governor Christie seemed to be doing.

And the ads against him will say "Too close to Obama; Too removed from our values."

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As I said before, neither of these men has an earthly chance of being President. But what their candidacies do is make it quite likely that the GOP nominee will need initially to have two things going for him - a 15% ranking in the polls and Name Recognition.

This means with such a large number of people running, Donald Trump genuinely has a shot.

Please also note I did not say "two things going for him or her" because Carly Fiorina has more chance of leading the AFL-CIO than getting even a sniff at the GOP nomination.

But mark my words, with a field of candidates as large as this, a Large Buffoon has a chance. But as of my writing this blog Mr Trump seems to be saying enough outrageous things that he his self-destructing his Presidential bid before it even gets going. He's like the Space-X rocket of this nominating process.