Watered down beer

   I personally love a strong tasting beer.  To me, if I am going to shovel out $8 or more for an 8 pack of beer, I want something that has some taste to it.  My brothers-in-law are just the opposite of me and both are fans of Bud Light which to me is tantamount to water dyed to look like beer.   One thing nice about a strong beer is that if it's too strong, you can always water it down a little on your own whereas a weak beer you have no way to make it stronger.

   The same goes for politics.  You can always water down your brand but it's virtually impossible to make it stronger.   That is what is essentially happening to the GOP this year with the addition of Trump in the race.   He has brought with him a large assortment of "independents" to the GOP to vote for him.   While the GOP has been trying to expand their tent in recent years, this expansion has weakened the brand considerably like adding water to your beer.

   I have never understood people who choose to not to choose sides.  To me they are nothing but a bunch of cowards who don't know their own mind or values.  Whenever I hear a person proudly pronounce to the world "Oh.  I'm an independent!",  I would want to say to them,  "You mean you don't care about your country at all??".  At least with Libertarians, you've made a choice for a third party, but independents isn't a party at all.  It has no values, no core, no platform and no candidates.   Personally I thing the GOP should require ALL primaries to be closed-primaries.  After all, do you really want a bunch of fence-sitting-cowards to be allowed to choose your parties candidate? 

   Oh I can hear the independents who might be reading this now saying, "Who's he to call me a coward!  I just don't agree with everything the GOP stands for and so I choose to be an independent".  Well, do some research on all the parties available to you: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Socialist, Communist.  At least ONE of them must appeal to you at least 60,70% or more.  I don't even agree with everything the Libertarians stand for but I do agree with about 80%. 

   I think the reason the term independent appeals to so many is 2 reasons.  One, they don't have to commit.  Like the guy who would rather live with his girl-friend and get the sex for free, independents don't want to commit to anything.  They feel that somehow they can avoid any confrontation by staying out of the fight altogether.   The second reason is they can never lose (of course they never win either).   No matter who gets into the White House in November their person didn't lose, because they didn't have a horse in the race to begin with.  They therefore save their pride and their little egos (what little they have) from being crushed. 

    So now the GOP will have to live with watered-down-beer this election.   They will have to probably march into November behind a spray-tanned con-man with no values and no plans other than to "Make America Great Again!".   The media is already queuing up their endless in-depth investigations into Trumps fake university, fake investments, over-exaggerated wealth, past marriages, past sins against women and other minorities.  They will pummel Trump like a pinata at a birthday party for a class of  8 year-old boys with ADD and hyped up on soda and candy.   

    The question for the GOP is this.  Is it worth it?   Maybe their only option is to broker a better candidate and hope all the "independents" that came in for Trump will stay home on November and not vote for Hillary.   I can't say if that will happen or not.  It's a big gamble