http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/251334-gop-clown-car-is-what-democracy-should-look-like"Clown car" is the obligatory pejorative liberals and progressives use to describe the Republican primary. Back in May, Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post that "There are far too many candidates (so many that there are concerns they won't all fit on a debate stage), and to gain attention they are juggling, tooting horns and blowing slide whistles like so many painted performers emerging from a clown car." A couple weeks later, Bill Schneider wrote in a Reuters piece that "This is getting ridiculous. ... Soon Democrats will start talking about the 2016 Republican contenders as 'the clown car.'"
Since then, it has become the vogue trope for describing any aspect of the GOP primary, and like every vogue trope this side of the millennium, it's a hashtag too.
There's just one problem: The GOP primary looks just like democracy.
Democrats wrote off competition a touch too early and — as usual — mistook it for a bad thing. The truth is, competition creates better results, and the Republican primary is proving it.
Here's what I see on the left: An establishment, Washington elite with an Arkansas-sized campaign purse who can't manage to sink herself no matter how hard she tries running ahead of an I'm-not-a-Democrat Democrat who is so far left he thinks mainstream Democrats are too right-wing. Oh, and I heard there are some other guys running too.
Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) fans from all edges of the Internet are excited about the new Fox poll that just came out, because Sanders has managed to claw his way to within 19 points of Clinton. Meanwhile, in the most recent Rasmussen poll, only 17 points separated the first place Republican from the 17th-place Republican.
The crowded GOP field is creating an accountability rarely seen in modern politics. Right before the debate, former Gov. Jeb Bush (Fla.) was in second place in the Fox News poll. After his lackluster debate performance, he dropped 6 points.
The more I read the words "clown car," the more I can sense the jealousy. It practically drips from the liberal opinion pages and has Democrats looking under every possible rock for a viable candidate.
B. Christopher Agee, writing for Western Journalism, has a headline in which Vice President Gore is called a "Big-Name Secret Weapon." Mike Lupica wrote a piece in the New York Daily News titled "Time for Joe Biden to enter the race for President." The desperation is palpable, and it has nary a thing to do with Gore and Biden and everything to do with Hillary Clinton, her server problems and her campaign problems.
Meanwhile, the GOP field is transcending many of the systemic problems in American politics:
It's all about money. Bush and his Right to Rise super-PAC have raked in a blush-worthy $114.6 million (as of the most recent Federal Election Commission filings) and he's in fourth place. Meanwhile, the two guys out front, and their super-PACs, have raised a much more modest $16.5 million, combined.
The establishment candidate wins because his or her message has the farthest reach. Not when 24 million people are watching a primary debate in early August. Thank Donald Trump for that and for the fact that this primary election has transcended the political realm and made its way into pop culture. Late-night comedians are firing at it like it's a general election.
There's no real difference between one career politician and another. No problem! Right now, the three candidates who've never held an elected office before have managed to wrangle 42 percent of the vote, while the 14 career politicians are desperately clinging to only 48 percent.
As always, there will be those who laugh at me. There will be partisan hacks who'll say all 17 choices are terrible, and so on. But 21 percent of self-identified independents still haven't decided which primary they'll vote in yet. Which one will they choose? Maybe the one that isn't being successfully bought by the establishment candidate? Maybe the one that has enough diversity of thought to have more than six debates?
The two primaries going on right now highlight the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats: competition. The winner who emerges from the Republican primary will have earned something. If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic primary, she'll have been given something.
For the first time in a long time, the optimism is all on the right.
