The wealthy, unqualified rise to the top

The Arkansister: A column by Jessica DeLoach Sabin

By now, I’m at least 99 percent desensitized to the never-ending loop of financial appeals candidates make. In some ways, I resent the fact that our country seems to live in a perpetual campaign cycle, while Congress’ performance is so dismal and our states struggle to meet their most basic needs. But this is our lot in life for now.

Just last week, Mike Huckabee sent an email to his supporters stating that his campaign’s fundraising was “dramatically behind” in order to raise some last-minute monies before the FEC filing deadline at the end of September. If I’m receiving an email from you telling me that anything is dramatically wrong with your campaign, then I’m probably going to spend some time considering what might be wrong with you.

Huckabee — who once stated on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that we should “prohibit nothing, disclose everything, and disclose it on the spot and let the voters make up their mind” — may eventually find himself on the list of those who couldn’t afford to stay in our nation’s most important political race. Surely, he knew back when uttering those words that his wish was too little and too late.

Both Scott Walker, R-Wisconsin, and Rick Perry, R-Texas, have already exited the still-crowded GOP primary for president due to failure to launch. Why are any of the people featured in the “B-team” debates even bothering to stay? Miracles notwithstanding, Carly Fiorina will be the only person to make it off that list. In many ways, she has Donald Trump to thank for that because he continued to attack her, she fired back, and thus she won some significant short-term gain from Americans who were just happy to see someone stick it to the most arrogant man to ever seek the presidency.

Fiorina’s 15 minutes of political fame began to end as soon as the media started to highlight just how fact-averse she really is.

If you toss out everyone who is struggling with fundraising, what you’re left with are a few candidates with actual staying power and a few who are currently only up due to the decline of others. A perfect example is Ted Cruz, who has recently seen a rise in fundraising and support due to his recent statements over defunding Planned Parenthood and tapping into Rand Paul’s libertarian base.

That leaves us with Trump, who has enough personal wealth to stay in this race until the bitter end; Carson, whose star power is confounding in light of his lack of real policy solutions; and Marco Rubio, who was recently attacked by mentor Jeb Bush, who compared his recent remarks in Iowa to that of an early Obama. In a recent CNN interview, one of Bush’s donors stated, “It’s as if we keep investing in a company, and as a shareholder, we’re not seeing any sales.”

The longer this congested primary persists due to these candidates’ inability to lead with vision and the ability to offer realistic policy recommendations, the longer we will continue to be subjected to battles of who can make the most outlandish statements.

The GOP is making a sad and gross misstep, as its nominee may very well be an inexperienced, visionless figurehead left to square off a political powerhouse whose finger is a bit closer to the pulse of the American people.

Jessica DeLoach Sabin appears on Political Plays on KARK on Friday mornings.

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