Keeping up with the candidates

The Donald and the Kim: America's first couple

Actually, no.

There isn't much reason to be interested in the presidential race more than a year before the election.

The media, and I mean TV and to a much lesser extent radio, are hyping up the presidential race to absurd heights because they are the prime beneficiaries of the billions spent on attack ads and other advertising.

More than 90 percent of Americans, me included, couldn't be enticed to watch the debates so far.

Yet, all you hear about on the news is the drama, the back-biting, the name-calling.

Hey, if it works for the Kardashians, why not the candidates.

But, the poll leaders now will surely be last, when the electorate pays attention next year.

To the casual observer, it seems completely ridiculous that candidates like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz are the leading lights among Republicans.

Then again, it's perfectly understandable that incompetence is applauded by the Republican base because that is exactly what those who hate government prefer in their leaders.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives can't get out of its own way to offer any legislation worthy of becoming law.

Republicans campaign on the premise that government is incompetent and then get elected to prove that premise.

And, when things start to falter, the fall-back position, the one that always works for its base of supporters, is to castigate the mainstream media.

Of course, I don't know why they would blame Fox News, the No. 1 cable news show or the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal, the largest daily newspaper in the nation.  But, they do.

Actually, when they say "mainstream," they mean what the vast majority of rational people believe.

Fox News and the WSJ editorial page present a counter-reality that their devotees deem to be reality.

Well, they represent reality the way the Kardashians represent reality TV.

It's all fluff and bluff, signifying little.

At the end of the day, or at the end of a Kardashian episode, (I did watch about 30 seconds while flipping through channels) there is nothing to remember and nothing to take seriously.

Which is perfect for the social media era.