An Election Without Voters

This posting first appeared in Eagle Rising.


Everybody is talking about a doomsday scenario at the Republican convention in Cleveland (which is a doomsday scenario in and of itself) if Donald Trump doesn't wrap up 1,237 delegates in the primaries. There is talk of a smoke-filled room with somebody like Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney getting the nomination. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if both Trump and Ted Cruz are denied the nomination in spite of the fact that they have won all but two or three primaries, both men's supporters will bolt the election thus handing it to Hillary Clinton, right?

Yes, I agree. Plus Trump would probably try to run as a third party candidate

But picture that scenario coupled with this scenario:

Let's suppose that Clinton gets indicted in the next month or two.  Of course, unless she is shot to death by the FBI while resisting arrest, she will try to stay in the race, but that would be asking a lot from even a Clinton. So if she drops out, that would leave Bernie Sanders as the last man standing, right?

No. I doubt even the Dems would put up a 74-year-old  admitted socialist like Bernie. They would have to find something more appealing than that. You can't win an election with only university campuses voting for you.

At that point, we would have a smoke filled room in Philadelphia to rival the one in Cleveland. Can you say Joe Biden, or perhaps, Little White Dove herself, Elizabeth Warren? Imagine the nation's first 1/84 Cherokee Indian president or vice president. Of course, if that happens, Bernie might run as a third party candidate too. In short, this could be a mess on both sides.

Of course, this is wild speculation, but if you have the supporters of Cruz, Trump and Sanders all feeling their guy was cheated out of the respective nominations, we could be looking at a record low turnout. It could be like a jumbo jet flight from New York to Paris with ten passengers on board. Of course, in those cases, they cancel the flight.