Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/521442
8 JUNE 3-9, 2015 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Hail & Farewells • Call for Reservations • We Cater 217 Hay St. Historic Downtown 678-8885 5780 Ramsey St. Next to Methodist University 822-3590 Voted Fayetteville's Best Overall Restaurant Voted Fayetteville's Best Overall Restaurant Authentic Italian Cuisine Brick Fired NY Pizza 3010 Traemoor Village Dr. Hope Mills 491-4667 Wed. night 1/2 price bottle of wine • Tues. night $5 martinis Your Trusted Skilled Arborist on call! Skilled arborist with the equipment and experience to get your job done right! Veteran Owned and Operated Fully Licensed and Insured for your protection and trust. Call (910) 813-1092 www.brudertree.com (919) 813-1092 What is so rare as a Republican Presidential debate with 18 candidates standing on a steel reinforced stage? The crowd of would-be Republican Presidents would have looked like the Cape Fear Valley Medical Center Emergency Room at the Saturday night meeting of the Gun & Knife club. I would have paid a dollar to see such an event. But alas, such a marvelous spectacle is not to be. My hopes for a three ring Republican circus have been dashed. All 18 or so candidates will be divided sort of like Caesar's Gaul into two parts: The Chosen and the Left Behind. The network powers at Fox that be have decreed that for the first debate only the top 10 candidates in the polls will be allowed to participate. The second debate will be among the top 10 candidates with a JayVee debate among the Left Behind candidates. There is some controversy arising out of this plan, particularly from the Left Behind candidates. It reminds me of the great opening scene in Animal House wherein Flounder and Larry are going through fraternity rush. They start rush by going to the swanky Omega Fraternity where they obviously do not fit in. Mandy Pepperidge refers to them as "a wimp and a blimp." Think of Fox News as Omega issuing bids to Republican candidates who are going to be invited to pledge at the Presidential debates. Flounder and Larry are the Left Behind Republican candidates who are not going to be invited to join the debates. Roger Ailes, Overlord of Fox, is Greg Marmalard, the President of Omega. As soon as Larry and Flounder enter the Omega House, they are quickly ushered over to a side room where a Muslim, a blind student, a guy in a wheelchair, and an East Indian student are sitting awkwardly alone. Marmalard says, " I'd like you to meet Mohammet, Jugdish, Sidney, and Clayton. There are so many great guys here, don't feel like you have to meet everyone." That's what Roger Ailes is saying to the Republican candidates who don't make the cut for the top ten. Help yourself to the punch and cookies but stay out of camera range. There are too many Republicans to fit on Fox's stage. Roger channels Dean Wormer putting the Left Behinds on double secret probation by keeping them out of the debate. Roger is saying, "The time has come for someone to put his foot down and that foot is me." I can imagine the Fox debate executive mimicking Douglas Neidermeyer telling the Left Behinds they can't be at the debate: "Just tell me, losers, what political party would nominate a person like you?" Being excluded from the Presidential debates is the political equivalent of being tossed overboard from the life raft of public consideration for the Republican nomination. If the debates were being held now, it appears the Fox Chosen TV debate pledges would be Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mario Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and Rick Perry. Riding the bubble and about to fall into political obscurity would be Donald Trump, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina, John Kasick, Rick Santorum and whoever may also throw their hats into the ring between now and the first debate in August. As Greg Marmalard once said at Omega Rush, "Let the unacceptable candidates worry because after tonight ..." Yep, after being labeled as the Not Ready for Prime Time Republican Presidential candidates, the Left Behinds will be Melba toast. As unaccustomed as I am to feeling sympathy for Republican Presidential candidates, I can't help feeling the Left Behinds are being gypped. The Democrats have the opposite problem. Too few candidates. Hillary may have to debate herself regarding the varying positions she has taken on her emails, the Clinton Foundation contributors and Benghazi. Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley really belong at the children's table with the second string Republican Left Behinds. However as we all know, not only is it a long, long, way to Tipperary, but it's even longer to election day in November 2016. Who knows what colorful and ridiculous things may occur between now and November causing the first candidates now to later be last? Like Damon Runyon offered, "The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." I would bet on a Clinton-Bush election day battle. But as Nixon's White House Spokesman, Ron Ziegler once said, the political statements contained in this column are subject to being inoperative. Believe them at your own risk. The Republicans Meet Animal House by PITT DICKEY PITT DICKEY. Attorney, Con- tributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200.