Past Is Prologue

As the celebrated novelist Gore Vidal once observed, we live in the United States of Amnesia.

Yesterday, Americans across the nation voted in the “Super Tuesday” Presidential Primaries.

Today, those same people will be inundated with arcane critical observations by corporate mainstream media pundits and commentators concerning the results of those primary elections as to who are the front runners and what all this bodes for the November General Election.

Why do Americans continually listen to these self-anointed electoral pundits (who speak in the name of “everyone”) when they have such a miserable track record on predicting the campaign viability of presidential candidates?

Presidential politics is like playing poker with a deck of 52 Jokers or Wild Cards. There are all sorts of unforeseen consequences regarding candidates’ physical and psychological health and well-being, scandals and corruption that can arise.

Past is prologue.

Look up the historical factual data for yourself on these past races.

In 1972 “everyone” early on predicted Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine was the cinch Democratic candidate until the melting snow on his face incident outside the NH Union Leader building in a snow storm where “everyone” reported he was crying;

In 1976, dark horse Trilateral Commission candidate Jimmy Carter astounded the pundits with his acceleration in the primaries due to massive coverage from the establishment media (while those in the know knew that the “fix” had been on from the beginning for Jimmy);

In 1980, “everyone” early on predicted GOP candidate John Connolly and Democrat Ted Kennedy were the sure things;

In 1984 Democratic candidate Gary “Where’s the Beef?” Hart was the sure thing;

In 1988 Democrat Gary Hart was again the sure thing until that “Monkey Business;”

In 1992 “everyone” was eyeing Democrat Jerry Brown;

In 1996 lackluster GOP Bob Dole challenged incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton (the “fix” was on for Dole to take a fall) and take down the 1994 Republican congressional insurgents elected by promoting the Contract on America opposed by the party elite;

In 2000 “everyone” was touting GOP maverick John McCain;

For most of 2003, insurgent antiwar Democrat Howard Dean had been the apparent front-runner for the 2004 nomination, performing strongly in most polls and leading the pack in fund-raising. Then over a span of a few days his candidacy was destroyed by the most intense mainstream media barrage in history, leaving John Kerry as the establishment’s anointed;

In 2008, “everyone” early on asserted Rudy Giuliani was the sure thing for the GOP, while Democrat front runner Hillary Clinton was upended by the unknown dark-horse Barack Obama; and

In 2012, Ron Paul, the GOP candidate with the largest grass-root base of enthusiastic supporters and the most phenomenal online campaign funding abilities in history in raising millions in his celebrated “money bombs,” was sabotaged in state after state and destroyed by the GOP elite who hated, feared, and loathed his insurgent candidacy, placing the lackluster corporatist Mitt Romney as the nominee.

And in 2016 “everyone” got the Trump candidacy wrong from almost the get-go, predicting the race would be between legacy candidates Jeb Bush for the GOP and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats.

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10:25 am on March 4, 2020