GOP Clown Car Gets Less Crowded (Dem Side Down to Two)

It was bound to happen. It's still too full. But the 2016 GOP Presidential Clown Car is finally shaking loose some of its more useless passengers. It's difficult to tell if the crazy level has dropped on average. I mean, Rand Paul is out of there, but he's always been half reasonable/half cuckoo. Mike Huckabee somehow got his fat behind out of that little trunk, but he wasn't ever so much crazy as oily and evil.  Rick Santorum was a frothy mix of very sincere (but awful) religious principles, and desperation. . .with maybe a little crazy in with the lube and unfortunate fecal matter.

But they're leaving behind the primary drivers, Donald J. Trump and Rafael "Ted" Cruz, who between them encompass at least a dozen overlapping negative qualities to different degrees, including batshit crazy. It's a VENN diagram I don't even want to contemplate. Still stuffed in the back seat are Ben "Dr. Stabby" Carson, Jim "Who?" Gilmore, Carly "Bring me those puppies!" Fiorina, (poor, sad) Jeb! Bush and John "Dishwater" Kasich. Marco Rubio is climbing furiously over the center console to try to get a front seat, and I'm guessing Chris Christie is on the roof rack, or tied to the fender or something. But it has to be a little more comfortable with three losers dumped out at the curb.

Likewise, the much smaller batch of Democrats can now focus a little better, being pared down to two after the departure of the dull but dreamy Martin O'Malley. Thursday night's debate, co-moderated by Rachel Maddow, will be the first one-on-one debate of the whole dang 2016 season. No kid's table, no extraneous candidates.

Buckle up kids, we're finally getting the whole thing in actual gear after sputtering around for over a year!

Rachel Maddow to Moderate New Hampshire Democratic Debate

Image from Frontiers Media

Well, good on you, Ms. Maddow! Though unfortunately, Chuck Todd will also be moderating. Of course, Todd's non-substantive style, lack of follow-up questions, and softball lobs are generally confined to Republican guests on Meet the Press anyway. But with Rachel on board, we're ready to see some real, issue-oriented, meaty questioning. She's been prepping for this for her whole life, practically, so this should be good.

[Excerpt]

MSNBC to host New Hampshire Democratic debate

 . . .The debate will take place at the University of New Hampshire in Durham at 9 p.m. Eastern and be moderated by Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow. All three Democratic presidential candidates, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley are expected to attend.. . .

Read more at: MSNBC

The SNL: Democratic Forum with Rachel Maddow vs. Reality

Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon as Maddow and Clinton

Saturday Night Live will mine any political event or happening for humor, irrespective of political party, this has been true since the beginning. But, quite honestly, the conservative side tends to provide more fodder for laughs, most of the time. And also, quite honestly, comedy more often comes from a liberal perspective. If you don't believe me, rattle off a list of conservative comedians, and see how many fingers you have left when you can't think of any more.

Because of this, I'm not used to SNL skewering the left as much as I am the right, particularly when they're taking pains to attract a right wing audience, as they surely were with Donald Trump's appearance. So, I'll plead guilty for having my armor up for this sketch, lampooning the Rachel Maddow "first in the South" Democratic forum from Friday night.

I watched the real forum, and found it to be very, very good. It gave Martin O'Malley his biggest chance to date, to introduce himself to America, and he did well. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders also did well, and Maddow herself was simply terrific, I thought. I marveled through the whole thing that it was the best event of its type I could recall since. . .well, ever. And I simply couldn't imagine a similar GOP event occurring, either form the perspective of the participants, or the host. [Story continues below]

The SNL version was put together amazingly quickly, and visually hit the mark. Cecily Strong does a great Maddow (and pronounces the name correctly), and all of the candidate impersonations were strong (particularly Larry David as Bernie Sanders). The problem was the humor, both in execution and in theme. Humor has to ring true to be funny. This was like the typical right-wing centered humor that starts with exaggeration (often of a skewed perspective in the first place), and then exaggerates it more. Clinton contorting herself to "appear" comfortable, for instance. I don't know, I thought it was all technically proficient, but not particularly funny. Except for some of the Bernie material, and that's because it rang true. And there you have it.

As for one of the not funny to me (but hilarious to conservatives) joke about MSNBC's ratings*, that doesn't ring true either, after the ratings came out.

[Excerpt]

2.3 Million Watch Democratic Forum on MSNBC

The joke on Saturday Night Live last night about the MSNBC Democratic Forum went like this: “In case you’re wondering what a forum is it’s a debate no one watches.” But not quite. According to Nielsen overnight ratings, MSNBC was No. 1 in the A25-54 demo averaging 417,000 viewers Friday night. 2.332 million total viewers watched the 2-hour Democratic Forum, giving MSNBC second place from 8-10 p.m. ET behind Fox News which averaged 2.435 million. . .

Read more at: TV Newser


*The ratings for all of cable news are typically very low, with MSNBC garnering roughly a third the ratings of FOX "News." So, when they crow about FOX's ratings, and say "nobody" watches MSNBC, ask them what three times zero is.

Martin O'Malley Enters 2016 Democratic Primary Race

Martin who? Yeah, me too. Though to be fair, in early 2007, it was Barack what now? So, who knows. Right now, I'd say that Hillary Clinton is probably not quaking in her stylish but sensible shoes.

[Excerpt]

O'Malley jumps into presidential race, offers progressive alternative to Clinton

Martin O'Malley launched his presidential campaign Saturday with an appeal to the party's progressive base that he hopes will upend the conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton is destined to clinch the Democratic nomination. . .

Read more (with video) at: CNN