Down the stretch they come, snot flying, silks flapping, riders flailing, in a last-gasp effort to win the eternal race, a contest begun months ago, dreamed of for years, now at the eighth pole and soon to be done. Some races are slaves to logic, servants to predictability and some are mysteries in which unseen factors rise up to befuddle the best of handicappers, and this trial is one of those.
In this race, this critical test of cleverness and endurance, the blue-bloods inexplicably remained in the barn and the favorites, careless and overconfident, were left at the starting gate. When the racing fans looked up, there on the lead was a 99-1 shot, the odds that low only because the tote board cannot tolerate larger figures. This happens sometimes in horseracing. An unlikely contender given little chance immediately bursts to the front, hoping to steal away from the pack while the favorites remain preoccupied with one another. There will always be time to catch up with Old Stewball, after all. Except, on occasion, when Old Stewball forgets to stop.
Now, with the sixteenth pole looming directly ahead, we have a four-horse race for the Republican Presidential Nomination. The remaining contenders are Adolph the Wallbuilder, Attila the Cuban, Pee-wee Herman and some other guy. The field is so abysmal that one New York newspaper averred that it could not endorse anybody. Where is Harold Stassen when you really need him?
In racing elsewhere, The Democratic Handicap is involved in a controversial battle over appropriate weights, nothing new in turf circles. Racing secretaries have a running struggle with trainers over the proper poundage to allocate contenders, with the likely favorites carrying the most weight and the longshots the least. In the case of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, however, the favorite has been assigned 8 pounds in superdelegate weight while Bernie gets an eye-popping 362. Apparently, the fix is on. But maybe not. In politics, unlike horseracing, the weights can change as the race goes on. One day’s impost can be another day’s advantage. And speaking of vacillating weights:
The Dream Team—Donald And Oprah?
Okay, maybe not. But anything is possible in The Year Of The Monkey. Donald Trump has dabbled in presidential polititcs for years, notably considering runs in 1988 and 2012. He was also mentioned as a candidate for New York City mayor in 1989 and for governor in 2006 and 2014. Perhaps his most sustained effort before the current campaign, however, involved his establishment of an exploratory committee for a possible run as a Reform Party candidate for president in 2000. At the time, he suggested that Oprah Winfrey would be his vice-president. Say it ain’t so, Oprah! We know the TV show has disappeared and things are a little slow at the magazine, but, hey, there’s always work down at the car-wash.
Mr. Roboto
The Republicans may not be having much fun with this election, but Eddie Vale sure is. Eddie and his disciples have taken to dressing up in robot suits and colanders and following Marco Rubio around. Among others, there’s the glittering jump-suited Rubio Robot and the Rubio Talking Point 3000. They keep showing up at Rubio events, offering advice like, “Don’t let Christie get in your head!” while waving their metal strainer bowls. Showing little sense of humor, Rubio supporters in New Hampshire roughed up two of the robots, attempting to pull their heads off. Eddie and his partner Aaron Black reacted by repeatedly yelling “DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!” The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colander People) promises to have representatives at the next Rubio event to protect the robots.
The Greatest Show On Earth
Is it time yet to declare the 2016 GOP primaries the All-Time Boffo Smash Election? I mean, it has everything from penis jokes to candidates arguing at the kiddie table. It has fake robots clanking around the voting centers, Time Magazine photographers being decked by bouncers, candidates pleading to be verbally assaulted in order to get more air time. There were even Dueling Events when Donald Trump, seeking to avoid a second encounter with FOX reporter Megyn Kelly, held his own affair, a quickly-arranged charity number for “wounded warriors,” a term which might be applied to superlosers Rick Santorum and Mike Huckaby, both of whom showed up in the middle of the thing to “show support.” During his little commentary, Santorum, not wanting to stand behind a podium emblazoned with Trump paraphernalia, sort of whiffled around from side to side as he spoke into the microphone. As P.T. Barnum might say:
“COME ONE, COME ALL! WE GOT SWORD SWALLOWERS! WE GOT JUGGLERS! CLOWNS TO THE LEFT OF US, JOKERS TO THE RIGHT! And we’re stuck in the middle with you.
Loose Horse!
Sometimes, horses show up where they don’t belong, like running pell-mell in the face of one-way traffic during morning training hours. Old Sea Brisket has a momentary lapse, rears up, dislodges his rider and heads for the hills, occasionally in the wrong direction, placing everyone else in the vicinity in peril. There’s not much that will spoil your day any worse than being bowled over by a 1000-pound animal running 30 miles-per-hour, unless the assailant is the Megabus. Fortunately, at the race track, they are prepared for these little episodes. Loud alarms blare a warning, outriders charge into action and the culprit is promptly rounded up. Too bad they don’t take these safety measures in everyday life because sometimes people show up where they don’t belong, either.
A few months ago, Michael Bloomberg, ex-mayor of New York City, began hemming and hawing about the quality of candidate running for the U.S. presidency. Michael does this every few years because, well, retirement is a drudge and snorkeling around in the money bin gets boring after a few laps. And there’s his co-billionaire pal Donald Trump having a fine old time, photos in the papers every day, getting on all the best TV shows, scaring the bejeezus out of Republicans. Why should Trump have all the fun?
Bloomberg, like most kazillionaires, is a little fussy, though. He doesn’t want all that mess involved in primaries, political conventions and the like. Whenever he thinks about running, he prefers to proceed as an Independent, a choice which guarantees failure no matter how much money you spend. So after clanking around the bowels of the castle for a couple of months, he invariably withdraws and goes back to the yacht basin. This time his reason for secession was a desire to keep Trump from winning the presidency by splitting the Democratic vote. Earth to Bloomberg: you weren’t getting enough Democratic votes to make a difference. Next time you want to get in the game, put on a uniform like everybody else.
A Blast From The Past
Just when you thought it was safe to dismiss Mitt Romney from your memory banks, The Mittster returns with grave warnings for the fate of mankind, all of this offered in an altuistic spirit with no thought of eventual recompense. Indeed. Romney called the Republican front-runner “a phony, a fraud” who is “playing the American public for suckers.” And succeeding, we might add. H.L. Mencken famously said “No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public” and nobody has disproved him yet.
Romney, of course, has finally subscribed to the Flying Pie premise that the Republican Party’s presidential candidate will be decided at the GOP’s July convention rather than in the primaries, not that he’s running, of course. It’s just that, you know, if you all get stuck and can’t find anybody else, he’ll be over in the corner showing some leg.
Maybe we should have Republican presidential playoffs for the championship, like the NCAA or the NFL. All the candidates would be paired off in quarterfinals, which would allow for a solid eight contenders, then asked to perform important tasks like kissing ugly babies, greasing the palms of big financial contributors and cussing out an imaginary (or real, for that matter) Vladimir Putin on the Red Phone. There would be important questions about History and especially Geography so that lacking scholars like Ben Carson might be discovered before they could bomb Connecticut. Each game would get more difficult, testing the intelligence and stamina of the various contestants. The two finalists would meet in a political Super Bowl, televised around the world, and Al Franken could tell jokes at halftime. Broadcast rights could be sold to the highest bidder, thus negating the need for vested-interest contributions from the giant Political Action Committees. It’s a perfect solution whose time has come. HELLO OUT THERE! Anyone listening?
Look! Up In The Sky….!
It’s not a plane, nor a bird, but it might be Superwoman. At a time when the Kentucky Derby hullaballoo is rising daily and favorites Mohaymen and Nyquist are getting ready for their gigantic Florida Derby clash on April 2, the best three-year-old in the country might well be the filly Songbird, who has boat-raced the best ladies the West Coast has to offer with six wins in as many tries. With the exception of her maiden win, all the other races were graded stakes, including the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, which made her last year’s two-year-old champion filly.
According to her connections, Songbird will compete against fillies in the Kentucky Oaks, the day before the Derby, and that’s final. We believe them. Although the current plan is to stick to the distaff competitions, things might change after Louisville. The original owners of Rachel Alexandra had no plans for the Preakness, but after the Oaks she was sold, then ran in and won that race. Songbird is an exceptional individual with a pedigree that gives her a chance at any distance and a running style to challenge the best of company, including colts. If the filly was to be entered in the Kentucky Derby after an expected victory in the Santa Anita Oaks on April 9, she would be no worse than third in the win betting and a possible favorite. Get ready, folks. It’s almost time to rock and roll.
That’s all, folks
