Republican Latest Top Four Poll Presidential Favorites: Ho Hum!

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:40 pm

Don’t get all worked up over the Iowa, February 1, Monday Precinct Caucuses. Rabid right-wingers have taken them over and for the most part, the resulting votes are meaningless, especially in the year of the extremist weirdo. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee were 2012 and 2008 winners. Bob Dole occupied the top spot twice. On the other hand, both Bushes captured the caucuses in their presidential runs.

Apparently Ted Cruz is making a move on Donald Trump, the political equivalent of a fast food “Birther” King. As for Cruz, our hawkish super patriot held a dual-citizenship for most of his life, renouncing the Canadian side a little over a year-and-a-half ago. Cruz disingenuously denied he was even aware he held such a designation until the Dallas Morning News “outed” that fact in May of 2014. Apparently this came as a shock to mom and pop as well, even though Cruz was born in Canada. “Are you listening Donald?”

Marco Rubio is right up there too, according to various polls. He gets all kinds of radical white-folk votes. Interestingly enough, Rubio, of Cuban descent, doesn’t get much love from what should be considered his natural base, Hispanic voters. Latinos could be a different story insofar as his wife Jeanette’s parents are Colombian immigrants. You might recognize Jeanette from her Miami Dolphin cheerleader’s swimsuit calendar back in the day. Maybe Rubio’s desire to stay home with his glamorous spouse, accounts for Marco missing fully one-third of key senate votes in 2015.

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The Ben Carson rubber ball of his roulette candidacy continues to find its mark, only to lose on the next spin of the wheel. Doc Carson is an interesting character. He’s certainly to be credited for his work in the field of pediatric neurosurgery. Carson has built on that reputation as the Johns Hopkins rock star of the genre’. It all started in the year 1987 when Dr. Ben Carson, became the first surgeon to separate twins conjoined at the head, otherwise known as vertical craniopagus surgery if you’re trying to impress some young lady at a singles bar. The breakthrough was headlined throughout the world.

Well, yes, but please accompany me on a little delving tour here. To read most right-wing accounts of the admittedly awesome operation, you’d think there was Carson, maybe a nurse or two, the mop-up-the-blood guy and the night watchman. In fact, Carson was one of dozens of vital medical cogs that made the separation possible. Crowded into that OR were 70 Johns Hopkins medical personnel, all contributing critical elements to the procedure, many requiring as much skill as Carson. NAME ONE! Doubtful, since the spotlight landed clearly and essentially solely on Ben Carson. While he may have shared the limelight, you’d be hard pressed to find many accounts of such sharing.

I’m not blaming Carson entirely for getting all the credit. The media sniffed a highly compelling tale of a young black doctor, who, through hard work, diligence and intellect, elevated himself to the highest plateaus of his profession. What most of my fellow journalists and pundits fail to do is any follow-up of the story. And for those few who travel that extra mile, it ain’t pretty.

The conjoined twins were seven-month-old males; Patrick and Benjamin Binder, at the time residents of Ulm, Germany. One is dead, the other profoundly neurologically impacted and unable to lead anything approaching the life most of us live. Here’s the story from the Washington Post. The Boston Globe reported that during his career, Carson participated in four such separations and consulted in another. Only one of the five outcomes resulted in the twins going on to lead normal lives.

Here’s a later story of another similar operation performed in 2004 by Carson and a team of doctors. The operation is described in detail by Johns Hopkins Internet magazine. Spoiler alert: one of the twins didn’t make it. Medical ethicist have had a field day with a number of Carson’s efforts. There are times when he appears to view these children as grand experiments, the outcome be damned. Click here to read.

So there’s the incredible and often questionable puffery of at least two candidates; one somewhat deserved, the other not so much. Factor in a telegenic Floridian, not fond of showing up at work and a “bomb ’em back to the stone age,” Cuban-Canadian-American and you’ve got the latest poll summit occupiers representing a weak slate of the best the Republicans can do.

Fear not, other than the possibility of the sinking of the good ship, “Rand Paul,” I can’t think of a single word, plan or idea (most of them horrific for the populace) that I will have not heard before.