I tried watching the Democratic Debate on my iPad lying in bed but either the Wi-Fi signal or the CNN app kept cutting out and freezing up. Based on what I did hear, this was not necessarily a bad thing. I think I heard enough to say that no one inflicted any real damage on anyone else, including themselves. I'll be surprised if the polls budge much. Martin O'Malley, I suspect, did himself the most good because he went from being just a name to most people to being a human being — though not one who's likely to challenge the Big Two. Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, meanwhile, came off as guys who are polling at 1% for a reason.
I think Hillary Clinton still has a problem with seeming authentic and I think Bernie Sanders still has a problem with convincing much of America that the word "socialist," at least how he uses it, is not a synonym for "Communist." I also think we still aren't even in the same year when the election is going to take place.
I dunno about you but I find my interest in this whole election intermittent. It's so far off and I can't help but feel like this isn't even the pre-game show yet; that whatever it's really going to be about is not what it's about right now. I am also increasingly aware that my ballot ain't gonna matter much. The Democratic nominee, whoever it is, will have lost if California's 55 electoral votes hang in the balance.
I'd like to tune it out for a few months…until, say, a couple of primaries have thinned out the herd. But there's too much at stake and also everywhere I go, people are talking about it and asking about it. Even when I was in the Rehab Center for my knee last week, people were asking me what I thought of Donald Trump. (The unanimous opinion of those I talked with about him, was that he was fun to watch but should not be allowed nowhere near any levers of power. Given the advanced ages of those around me, that was a bit surprising.)
Thirteen more months of this. Sigh.