What do Peyton Manning and Marco Rubio have in common?
They both like to recite rehearsed lines multiple times.
What is the difference between Peyton Manning and Marco Rubio?
In the case of Peyton Manning, repeating the same line isn’t what ended his career.
Ok, so maybe Rubio isn’t done yet. I really don’t know. After the Iowa Caucuses, I thought Rubio was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. I figured that Bush, Kasich, and Christie would all drop out soon and the establishment would all get behind Rubio. Rubio was the favorite according to the betting sites.
Then the Saturday night debate happened. Rubio stood and there and recited a line about Obama. Chris Christie then accused Rubio of reciting memorized lines. So what does Rubio do, but simply recite the same line over again.
After winning the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning said in back-to-back interviews that he wanted to kiss his wife and drink some Budweiser. It seemed like a rehearsed line, since he repeated it. But at least Manning is a football player.
Chris Christie severely damaged Rubio. It didn’t do a lot for Christie, as he will likely finish just behind Rubio in New Hampshire. But Christie did a huge favor for Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
Now Trump is back to being the favorite. He easily won in New Hampshire, as he was expected to do. John Kasich will take second, but it is hard to imagine Kasich doing anything significant after New Hampshire. Cruz will likely finish in third, with Bush just behind him.
Where will the establishment turn? Will they get behind Kasich? Will they return to Bush? Will they go back to “repeating Rubio”? Or maybe they will just accept Ted Cruz in order to beat out Donald Trump.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders will win New Hampshire as expected. But Sanders is winning by a wider margin than expected. Hillary Clinton is really feeling some heat. If she looks one way, she sees the FBI investigating her no-longer-secret emails. If she looks the other way, she sees Bernie Sanders. And if she gets by both of them, then she looks behind her at a looming recession.
Although Ron Paul is not part of this presidential race, it has still been somewhat unexpectedly pleasing. If there are two anti-establishment candidates in this race, they are Trump and Sanders. I don’t think they would bring any major changes to this country, but the establishment can’t stand them.
So while I have my many issues with Trump, and I have even more issues with Sanders, it is nice to see them causing an uproar. It is also nice to see a little rebellion in the citizenry, even if the candidates are not very good.
It probably won’t make much difference who wins the presidency, but at least the voters are showing discontent. If there is one area that a president can have some influence, it is in regards to foreign policy. And while Sanders and Trump are not non-interventionists, they are seemingly less pro war than the rest of the candidates. We don’t know what they will do if in office, but we know the other candidates are basically a guarantee for more war.
The answers to our societal problems do not lie in politics. But at least the voters are turning away from the conventional politics of the establishment.