Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, February 21, 2016
ISSUE #859
Trump and Clinton roll on

Another week, another election. Trump cruised through South Carolina and Clinton slipped by Sanders in Nevada. As I understand it, the Democrats and Republicans trade states, and repeat the process on Tuesday.

Jeb Bush dropped out, leaving only one of the original eight governors running for President, John Kasich. I doubt if anyone ever spent more per vote received than Jeb. Will Rogers might have had him in mind when he wrote, “Politics has got so expensive nowadays it takes lots of money to even get beat with.”

Pope Francis seemed to comment on our presidential race saying he favored someone who builds bridges instead of walls. Of course he was speaking in Mexico and he knew his audience. See, Mexico favors more bridges across the Rio Grande so their workers can go north and then send their paychecks south without either one getting wet.

The State Department released another batch of classified emails from Secretary Clinton’s personal server. Scott Pelly, on CBS, asked her if she always told the truth. She said, “I always tried to tell the truth.” As she said it, and tried to explain further, I could swear I heard a dog barking. Really loud.

The funeral for Justice Scalia was Saturday. President Obama decided not to attend because he wanted to spend all weekend going through binders of potential replacements. I can imagine Mitt Romney wanting to ask him, “Do you have any women in those binders?”

With a bunch of primaries in the next month, I’m sharing more wisdom from Will Rogers. These political quotes may remind you of current conditions even if they don’t help you reach a decision. (If you want to read a whole slew of ‘em at one sitting, go to WillRogersToday.com, click on Quotes, then click on Politics.)

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“Personally, I am in favor of money being spent on elections.  The more money the better.  If they can get contributions from rich men and distribute them around among the poor and needy I think it’s a good thing.  It puts money into circulation… Besides, the fellow may not get elected, and in that case the vote they sold did no harm and didn’t break the fellow that made the contributions.  So my slogan is: Bigger and higher?priced elections.”  Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to his President, May 20, 1926

“I would love to see Mr. (Henry) Ford in there, really. I don’t know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can’t run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That’s the biggest single business in the World.” WA #5, January 14, 1923

“A Republican moves slowly. They are what we call conservatives. A conservative is a man who has plenty of money and doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t always have plenty of money. A Democrat is a fellow who never had any, but doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have some.” WA 535, March 26, 1933

“Coolidge made less speeches and got more votes than any man that ever run. (William Jennings) Bryan was listened to and cheered by more people than any single human in politics, and he lost [3 times]. So there is a doubt just whether talking does you good or harm.” DT #673, Sept. 21, 1928

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