The three major political parties have their candidates now for the general election. The ad war is starting in earnest. The most qualified of the three candidates is a two term Republican governor of New Mexico whose running mate is the former Republican governor of Massachusetts. They'll be the Libertarian ticket.
This year that Libertarian ticket, representing the party that thinks government should leave everyone alone, has staked out the bold position that the government can and should force Christians to violate their conscience through forced actions compelled by the state. Their presidential nominee has had to publicly promise not to smoke marijuana in the White House and admits he swore off smoking pot weeks ago. Now he will just use edible forms of the drug.
The Democratic Party has its presumptive nominee. Hillary Clinton, having won California this past week, moved quickly to get the president's endorsement and shut down Bernie Sanders.
The Democrats' nominee is under an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She kept a private email server in her home when doing so violated a host of government rules. Despite her protests to the contrary, classified information did find its way onto the server.
Not only did Clinton violate those rules, it appears more and more likely that Clinton used her position as Secretary of State to benefit the Clinton Foundation. Let us just say it was maybe not coincidental that lots of businesses and foreign governments with business before the Secretary of State made lots of donations to the Clinton family's foundation.
While running for president in 2008, Mrs. Clinton attacked Barack Obama as unprepared for office, including unprepared to take a three a.m. phone call. Then, when serving as Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton herself did not take the three a.m. phone call and our ambassador to Libya got murdered in the process. Publicly, Mrs. Clinton's response was to blame a YouTube video instead of recognizing a terrorist attack.
In endorsing Mrs. Clinton this past week, President Obama declared her the most qualified person to ever seek the office. It was recognition of President Obama's lack of qualifications for the office, and perhaps also an acknowledgment of his own ignorance of American history. Mrs. Clinton got to where she is in life by marrying a man who would become president. She then used his fame to build her own.
This and a female reproductive system are apparently greater qualifications for office than leading a revolutionary war against Great Britain (Washington), serving as Governor of Virginia and writing the Declaration of Independence (Jefferson), or writing the American constitution and most of the Federalist Papers (Madison).
The Republicans have their nominee as well. Donald Trump believes a judge from Indiana cannot give him a fair trial because Trump wants to build a wall on our southern border. He also believes a Muslim judge could not give him a fair trial.
Trump, in an interview with radio host Howard Stern, has extolled the hotness of his daughter, bragged about knowing Paris Hilton since she was twelve years old, and then admitted he and his current wife, while dating, watched Paris Hilton's sex tape together. He is accused of defrauding single mothers and underpaying blue-collar laborers while sucking up to dictators like Muammar Gaddafi.
The Republicans' gold-plated fraud will not release his tax returns lest people realize that he is not all that he seems. If that is not exciting enough, the Republican nominee has reversed himself on the minimum wage and now supports raising it. He has doubled down on praise for Planned Parenthood while wanting a massive government run health care system more expansive than Obamacare itself. He is also a friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, a political donor to the Clintons and a large donor to their foundation.
The voters of the various political parties have decided to put their worst and least liked candidates forward for the Presidency. Short of the second coming or a recognition that 2016 should not be a suicide pact, the next four years are going to be miserable. Thanks voters.