I began this writing gig as a hobbyist. Political commentary, opinion, analysis . . . call it what you will . . . and at first it was nothing more than a means of expressing my frustrations with a world I had no control over. I harbored no delusions or expectations that my opinions could/would change or fix that world, but I felt it was my only viable contribution to ”saving the world" in those years when I was bouncing around the world on a plane or tour bus on my way to the next band gig.
In the last 20-ish years — after becoming more attuned to the differences between “the world I want, versus the world in which I actually live” — I developed this notion that I could stake out a niche as being a “pragmatic” something or other. The Pragmatic Libertarian/Conservative/Constitutionalist, (or, Contortionist, as some have claimed). Then, that world I had no control over drop-kicked me in the groin and shut down because of a slightly worse-than-normal flu bug — putting me out of work for a year and a half — as well as derailing the most satisfying musical venture I’d ever been a part of.
In that grand historical moment, being denied the right to earn a living from my lifelong vocation, I decided to turn both barrels on that out-of-control world. Why not? I now had nothing but time — sitting on my front porch, armed with my laptop, cigars, and far too many adult beverages, (during the lockdown months) — and went after the government’s response to the #CommieVirus with every remaining functional brain cell at my disposal.
We’ve heard, of late, much use of the phrase “weaponization of government agencies.” When the GOP took reign over the House of Representatives this past January, the jacketless wrestler from Ohio — Jim Jordan — started a new Judiciary subcommittee called “Weaponization something or other.” Even before that, I had been talking about how the government had “weaponized me against them” when they took away my livelihood. For the first time in my almost three decades of hobbyist political commentary, I began doing the work of an investigative reporter, tearing into the collective COVID narratives of state and federal governments, CDC/NIH/WHO, Big Tech/BigPharma, and the mainstream media at large.
Those investigations, (and all that available time), eventually put me on the road, traveling to 28 different states during the lockdowns. One such trip — not related to the Wuhan Flu — put me in D.C. on the evening of January 5, 2021, with a backpack full of camera gear and a man-on-the-street microphone, anticipating a bunch of average American interviews giving me their impression of what most were expecting to be the “release of The Kraken” the next morning, at The Ellipse.
Of course, “The Kraken” never showed up at The Ellipse. Instead, “The Insurrection” came to Capitol Hill, and my fate — a late-life reinvention, as it were — was permanently sealed. As such, the last three and a half years’ worth of investigations have taken me through the epidemiological math of virology, election corruption, child trafficking, and of course all things related to the lead-up, aftermath, failures, cover-ups, and judicial weaponization resulting from the events of January 6, 2021.
My apologies, but that was a lot of words to simply set up yesterday’s immersion back into my first love of political junk food. That was a full day of GOP presidential primary candidates appearing in a glorified, extended town hall meeting In Iowa. Blaze Media presented and hosted The Family Leadership Summit, featuring Tucker Carlson in his first public appearance since Fox News kicked him to the curb. As such, I shut out the rest of the world, tabled current projects, and tuned in for what amounted to nine or ten straight hours of pure politics.
In brief . . . it was a wonderful brain break for me. And, in terms of coverage and on-air performances, (not including the candidates . . . yet), Blaze Media and their team served up not just a flawless online stream, (no small feat), but their commentators and analysts were sharp, informed, eloquent, and above all . . . not partisanly patronizing of the Republican candidates. They called balls and strikes accurately, and when necessary, they declared national disasters for two of the candidates’ appearances.
Tucker? He did nothing but secure his position as the heir apparent to Rush Limbaugh’s golden microphone, and the most influential voice on the right side of our nation’s political divide since Rush’s untimely passing.
As to the six candidates themselves, I was tweeting out a running scorecard of each of their performances while under direct examination by Tucker, each subjecting themselves to 25 minutes of questioning. Not a debate format. Each presidential wannabe was allowed 25 minutes to make their cases for why they should be allowed to lead our country post-Biden. The fireworks began early.
I’m not going to detail each candidate’s words, strengths, failures, or career suicidal moments. Those are all readily available online, in both video and long-form commentary. I intended to grade each performance based on three simple categories:
-Likability and connection with the audience
-Political content of their stated positions
-Believability of their answers
Tucker had stated early on that he had one opening question prepared for each candidate and would follow up from that starting point based on their first answers. So, off we go . . .
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina was first up. A very likable guy. He played hard to the very conservative Christian audience but often came across as more of a televangelist than a presidential candidate. He stumbled on the border, immigration, and especially Ukraine. I gave Scott a “C.”
Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson then took the stage to commit the most bizarre and self-destructive act of political seppuku I’ve ever seen in my life. He Arkancided himself on national TV, without the assistance of a Clinton operative. Seriously . . . just pull up the video and watch. Hutchinson earned a well-deserved “F-.“
I wasn’t expecting much from former VP Mike Pence, to begin with. I got much worse. Pence literally had nowhere to go but up, if he just smiled and graciously answered each question honestly. Instead, he scowled at the questions, was combative, and was booed by the audience at one point. I initially gave him a “D,” but after reviewing the video during the ensuing two-hour break, I revised his score down to a solid “F.”
After the long lunch break, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was up. I’ll just share with you what I tweeted: “Tucker put away his guns with Haley. He went way too easy on her. Did he think he couldn’t go hard at a woman? Why didn’t he hit her with a Ukraine question?” That was my only disappointment in Tucker on the day. I think if he’d taken her straight to foreign policy issues, she might have imploded as well, but based on the questions, responses, and her purely political likability, I had to score her with an honest performance-based “B.” (Not a score I’d give based upon my overall knowledge of her RINO, establishment positions.)
Vivek Ramaswamy took to the stage exactly as I expected . . . having heard him many times before. He was sharp, smart, eloquent, likable, and nearly flawless on the issues. Again, I didn’t grade him based on my preconceptions or my own misgivings about him. As such, he earned an unequivocal “A” on my scorecard.
Finally, the only guy with something — or a lot — to lose yesterday, was Florida Governor Ron Desantis. He did nothing to harm himself, but if I had added an additional fourth category in my assessment — “Did the candidate exceed expectations? — I might have been forced to downgrade him to a “B.” But, based on my self-imposed boundaries, DeSantis too earned a solid “A.”
Okay . . . I’ll mop up with an overview of Twitter followers’ assessments of my given scores.
Generally speaking, if anyone disagreed with me on a given score, it was by no more than a single grade. I gave Haley a “B.” Some said it was a “C.” I scored Pence an “F.” Some thought it should have been an “F- - - -.” (Fair enough.)
But the overwhelming opposition came from my score given to DeSantis. Many responded with indignant opposition to that “A,” saying he should have been scored with every other grade, from a “B” all the way to an “F-,“ usually with blistering negative commentary on RDS’s performance and “unlikability.”
The most interesting thing to note about the negative reactions to my DeSantis score? Almost without exception, the commenters' Twitter profile description somewhere contained the word “MAGA,” or some such variation. And if I looked even more closely, these contributors to the debate are all now circling wagons around the idea of a “Trump/Ramaswamy ’24” ticket.
And THAT, folks . . . is the shorthand version of a very long, but might I add . . . a rather satisfying day for me to let go of the coming battles I’m about to face in D.C., and just be a pure popcorn political junkie for a day.
Be sure and at least watch the Pence and Hutchinson interview playbacks. You won’t be disappointed. Assuming you like watching videos of trainwrecks and kamikaze pilots.
