TruthDig: Kasia Anderson: Former U.S. Representative Barney Frank Gives His Take on Campaign 2016

TruthDig: Kasia Anderson: Former U.S. Representative Barney Frank Gives His Take on Campaign 2016 

Campaign 2016, will be another opportunity for Americans to sober up and make a big decision by sending the escaped mental patients back home to their institutions, or retaking control of the prison and putting the administration back in charge of the prison, or whatever analogy you want to use, or stick with the status-quo. Where you have people who don’t believe in government even as much as new Speaker Paul Ryan might be an optimistic pragmatist, who don’t believe in government. Letting the Tea Party run the House of Representatives, is like putting an alcoholic in charge of a bar. The alcoholic would never make any money, because he never has anything left to sell, because he always drinks everything. Or putting a serial rapist who hasn’t been convicted yet in charge of a rape counseling group. Or a sexual harassment class. It makes no sense, because you end up pointing your gun at your own two feet instead of your enemy.

I think in a normal election year with normal American voters, the Democrats should win back the House. Having said that I might as well hope for the elimination of world poverty. We don’t have a normal electorate right now and instead have a country that pissed off at everyone who is not them and who is doing better than them. Instead of looking at why government doesn’t work and why government can’t meet its basic needs and responsibilities for the country. Because you have one party who now controls both chambers of Congress and not just the House, who don’t believe in government. Who hate President Barack Obama so much, that they rather try to make him look worst than they do. Assuming that is even possible when President Obama is in the fifties and the Republican Congress is like at ten-percent. Depending on if everyone you ask in your poll is both sane and sober.

That is just the House elections. The Senate, should go Democratic just because it’s a presidential election year. Where we’ll have huge Democratic turnouts with African and Latin-Americans perhaps turning out in record numbers with new voters coming out. With so many new women and not just Caucasian women voting for Hillary Clinton. The most likely Democratic nominee for president. And then throw in that 24-34 Senate seats that will be up for reelection in 2016 will be Republican. Democrats other than Nevada, don’t have any real vulnerable members up and vulnerable open seats other than Nevada. Also a lot of those Republican seats that are up like Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, are all states that voted Democrat for president in 2008 and 2012 and voted Democrat in huge numbers. So Senate Democrats, won’t need a sane sober electorate to win back the Senate. They just need to get their own voters out and for the Democratic presidential nominee to do fairly well.

As far as the presidential election. Hillary Clinton against who? After perhaps Iowa and New Hampshire and Vermont, where does Bernie Sanders have any shot at beating Hillary? Martin O’Malley, my preferred candidate, is still in single-digits and not raising any money. And then go to the Republicans who go by the campaign slogan, “vote for us if you hate government!” In other words vote for people who don’t believe in government to govern. Unless you’re an Anarchist, why would you take that seriously. And that is before I get into Donald Trump and Ben Carson. If the Republican campaign was mostly about Marco Rubio, who should be the future of the GOP and John Kasich, who by far is the most qualified Republican presidential candidate, if not candidate period for president, I might be worried. Because not leading a non-suicidal Republican Party, Senator Rubio and Governor Kasich, could both give Hillary a long run for her money.

Predicting presidential elections twelve months in advance, is probably about as smart as going bike-riding without a seat, or with only one tire. How far you think you would get? But doing stuff that is fun is not always smart. Just ask people who get drunk every weekend, if not more often and ask them how they feel the next morning and how much work do they lose from doing that. But its fun and they feel its worth it. I think we already have a pretty good idea what the 2016 presidential election will look like. And unless the Republican Party is cleared sane between now and in the next twelve months and nominate someone like Marco Rubio, or John Kasich, they have nobody who can beat Hillary next year. Unless she starts shooting her own two feet off to see how it feels to be a Republican right now. 2016, leans Democratic at the presidential level and for Senate. And we’ll see what if anything changes within the next year.