The Re-Treads

One of the risks of a two-year Presidential Election Cycle is that by the time you get to the actual year of the election, people are sick of the candidates.  But what if voters are tired of the candidates before they even get into the race?  There is a very real possibility of that here in 2015 as the same old candidates are talking about the White House.  Everybody knows Hillary Clinton is running again.  Everybody knows Jeb Bush will try to make it three members of the family to occupy the White House.  And now it looks like we are in for Mitt Romney 3.0.  All viable candidates--all being met with yawns from the general populace.

When you think about it, having the same old candidates over and over again is rather fitting for today's society--since there is a real dearth of originality.  Hip Hop music heavily samples 70's funk and 80's pop for its melodies.  Hawaii Five-O is one of the most popular shows on TV.  Movie fans flock to see a remake of Annie, or Fast and Furious 7--and they can't wait for Star Wars Episode 7.  The most popular news sites on the internet just re-post stories from other news outlets--they don't develop their own content.  It's like we are in this whirlpool (or toilet bowl) where the same things just keep coming back around again and again and again.

There could have been some real excitement and some candidates with real new ideas in this race--but they are already backing out.  On the Republican side, Paul Ryan is definitely sitting this one out--while on the Democratic side, Elizabeth Warren is doing all she can to quash efforts to basically draft her as the "Anti-Hillary".  That would have been a very entertaining race, as we would be forced to choose whether to move back toward the American ideal of self-sufficiency and self-determination or to go full speed ahead toward European Social Democracy.  Instead, we'll likely get the usual wishy-washy "moderate" that really stands for nothing.

Of course, maybe people don't want "original" in their politics anymore.  Barrack Obama was "original" and "fresh" when he got into the race against Hillary in 2008.  Everyone was so excited to have someone "different" to vote for--and boy didn't that feel good to bring about that kind of "change".  But look where that ended up--with a 37% approval rating and criticism of the White House coming from every direction.

And so we turn back to our "familiar" and "safe" candidates that come "pre-branded" and eliminate the need for us to actually think about who we want to vote for.