I was walking into the post office here in Incline Village, Nevada when I came across three little old ladies sitting at a card table.
One asked ?Have you registered yet for the February 20 Nevada caucus??? I answered that I was an independent, as I didn?t trust anyone. That meant I couldn?t vote in either Nevada primary.
We got to talking.
They thought it was fascinating that my dad was the head of the Republican Party in Southern California during the 1950?s, that I worked in the White House under president Ronald Reagan, and had met 9 out of the last 11 US presidents (missed Johnson, who died young, and George W. Bush, who never came to California).
They mentioned that the Republican Women?s Association was having a debate party this coming Saturday night.
Would I like to come?
Throughout my life, I have never turned down a mission, no matter how dangerous or suicidal.
This would be a particularly risky venture, as Nevada is not only a pro gun state, it is an active gun using state. Every other pickup truck has a gun rack in the back window holding a high-powered rifle or a shotgun.
And who knows what the ladies are packing in their purses?
I said I?d love to come.
I then called my office in Florida and cautioned them that if they didn?t hear from me by Tuesday morning they should call the Incline Village police department and have Tahoe Search and Rescue look for my bullet riddled body.
Given the age of the members, it was an early event, starting at 6:00 PM at a local bar. I sat down at a table with four couples, all over seventy, nursing amber ales.
While the Republican debate went on in the background on a big screen TV through the haze (indoor smoking is still legal in Nevada, as is everything else), I started to solicit their views.
I asked what was the big deal about Hillary Clinton.
?Benghazi!? They shouted in unison.
But doesn?t the Republican Women?s Association have an interest in women?s? rights?
?Email server!? they responded in kind.
Not even equal pay for equal work?
?Benghazi!? they repeated, with more passion.
But what about global warming? Every Republican candidate is a card carry denier on an issue most Americans are concerned about.
?Email server!?
So given a choice between Hillary and Donald Trump, the primary frontrunner, who would they vote for?
One woman said she would vote for Trump because she liked a ?strong? candidate. The others said they wouldn?t vote at all.
I asked a number of other questions.
Here were the answers:
?Benghazi!?
?Email server!?
?Benghazi!?
?Email server!?
I couldn?t help but point out that whoever the Republican candidate was, they would lose if they ran their campaign on ?Benghazi!? or ?Email server!? The average American doesn?t have the slightest interest in any of these issues.
At this point, my hosts were glumly staring into their ales. I decided that I had worn out my welcome and made for the door while I still could.
Republican predictions of election outcomes are wildly inaccurate, because they only talk to each other, or others who agree with them, always an invitation for disaster.
This is why it came as a complete shock when they lost the popular vote in six out of the last seven presidential elections, soon to be seven out of eight.
The real problem is that Republicans spend two years proving to the base how conservative they are to win the primary, and only two months to move to the middle and win the national election. Not all the money in the world can pull off that swing.
The one out of six elections the Republicans won was in 2004, for George W. Bush?s second term, which is always a lay up. He only won by a narrow 3 million votes.
The Citizen?s United Supreme Court decision, which allowed unlimited anonymous campaign donations, put a turbocharger on this trend. It made available unlimited funds to even the weakest candidates. It thus forced frontrunners to become more shrill and radical to get the necessary media attention.
That created this year?s Republican Primary circus, which has offended and appalled their entire country, it not the world.
Therefore, I believe that Citizen?s United will ultimately lead to the destruction of the Republican Party, unless a future more liberal Supreme Court repeals it.
Adjust your long-term portfolio accordingly.
Oh, and before I left the bar, I paused at the door, just in case anyone was following me.
You never know.
