Dud

David French, the alternative to Trump

Bill Kristol is clueless.  He fires a Dud.   

Move on.   Nothing to see here.

A few days ago Bill Kristol told the anxious world to await a big announcement: someone was going to run for president and give respectable conservatives an alternative to Trump and Hillary Clinton.   Wait!  Coming Soon.

The announcement came yesterday:  David French.  He is a staff blogger and pundit for Bill Krostol's magazine, The Weekly Standard.

I posted a couple of days ago that this election moved from being a debate over policy into a reality Television Show, based on elimination.    Trump was on television for 45 minutes saying inflammatory things about the news media.   What is important is not that he was saying inflammatory things.   What is important was that he was on TV for 45 minutes nonstop.

  We are half way through the process but 80% of the way through the contestants.   Trump has knocked off Jeb, Lindsey, Carly, Lyin' Ted, Little Marco, and a dozen others, but still in the running are Bernie, Hillary, Gary Johnson (the new Libertarian), and the new surprise contestant, David French.   

Bill Kristol is clueless in the way that intelligent, educated people can be clueless.   Kristol is an idea-person.  He thinks about policy.  Notwithstanding the evidence of the defeat of idea-people by a showman, Kristol persists in thinking this this election is a contest of ideas rather than of image and personality.   If Kristol had understood the obvious he would have brought forward a celebrity in something-- a smart, articulate celebrity--one with pizazz and sparkle and name recognition and good looks.   Ideally the person knows something about the world, but in a pinch all that is necessary is the person be able to memorize a 30 minute stump speech and ten or so short paragraph talking points.   He or she could learn on the job.

David French does not look like a celebrity.   He looks like a partner in a CPA firm.  The fact that he knows stuff about the issues is not help his candidacy, it hurts.   Who might have been a plausible candidate for Kristol?  

   Chris Wallace, Fox News anchor.   Already a celebrity with news credibility.

   Brit Hume, Fox News commentator.  Already a celebrity with news credibility.

   Keifer Sutherland, star of 24 (except he is British born)

   Tom Selleck, actor who plays a cop on TV.  Celebrity with law and order credibility.

   Jay Leno, familiar face, but who is not known for having political ideas.

   Any good looking conservative billionaire, who would self-finance.

So it is back to the drawing board.   There are three candidates on the ballot in all 50 states, Trump, Hillary (soon), and the Libertarian Party Gary Johnson.    The never Trump or Hillary people either need to get behind Johnson and make him a celebrity with some serious money, or they need to find someone who is already a credible well known media savvy person right now.   They are out there.