Top three Oct 1^st

The top three Republican candidates for the Presidency, according to various polls, are Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson. They are, every one of them, without any experience in governing anything in the public sector. In the private sector from which they come, they have no need for compromise; what they say goes, each is a martinet in his, or her, very own playhouse. It is said that they are popular because our politicians are so unpopular that non-politicians automatically have an edge…but there is more.

Fiorina comes across as hostile; Eugene Robinson, a columnist for the Washington Post says that she is angry about everything. The result is that she is very popular with other citizens who “are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore.” The definition of “it” here is irrelevant. Fiorina fulminates over her own perception of Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted tissue. She describes with apparent relish and passion a picture of an infant about to have its organs harvested. The picture is a fake; but Fiorina maintains that doesn’t matter because what she claims happens surely happens anyway, evidence be damned. This disregard for evidence is also evident in her description of her fiasco at Hewlett Packard. She says that H-Ps gross went up but doesn’t mention that was because she bought another failing computer company, Compaq, which added to H-Ps gross. When she was fired H-Ps stock price jumped nearly ten percent. She becomes livid when her performance at H-P is challenged.

Then we have Donald Trump; his promises remind one of a caricature of a used car salesman telling his client that “You will be so happy with this car. You can’t believe how happy you will be if you buy this car from me.” His most recent disregard of “how” is his promise that if he is elected he will return the Syrian refugees to Syria. We all know Trump’s other bits of showmanship, showmanship divorced from facts; he will deport 12 million undocumented immigrants; he will build a monumental wall on the Mexican border and Mexico will pay for it. Sure he will.

Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon is the last of this trio and he certainly has some curious beliefs. He is a Seventh Day Adventist and he believes the Earth was created in six days, that’s six twenty-four hour days, not six metaphorical days. He has a problem with carbon dating but there are other methods that can go back much farther than is possible with carbon dating; potassium–argon dating is useful in paleo archeological sites over 100 thousand years old. Carson may not be interested in that method. He also assures us that evolution is a myth augmented by Satan as part of his plan to diminish God.

There are at least two things these people have in common: The first, and most obvious, is that they are all Republican candidates for the Presidency. (How embarrassing for the Grand Old Party is that?) Second, their core beliefs are certainly not fact based. Trump is really going to deport 12 million undocumented aliens? To where? Carson is skilled at eye-hand coordination but his comprehension of science just isn’t there. Fiorina is trying desperately to get by on pure anger; that will always get some votes but nowhere near enough.