Donald Trump's Republican presidential bid fails to intimidate The New York Crank

This is not the New York Crank or Donald

Trump. It's just another joker who could

join the clown car at the Republican circus.

New York City: In an attempt to intimidate the New York Crank in his bid for the Republican presidential candidacy, Donald Trump has declared his own candidacy, but The  Crank said that he is not intimidated.

Trump announced during his campaign launch not only that he is running, but that he intends to wall off the entire border with Mexico and "I will make Mexico pay for it."

A spokesman for The New York Crank commented that, "Mr. Trump's declaration about the wall is completely consistent with the Republican philosophy of spending money profligately and then making somebody poorer than you pay for it. On behalf of all our like-minded Republican friends, we applaud Mr. Trump for his grandiose ideas and overinflated ego."

The spokesman went on to insist that Trump is attempting to scare The New York Crank into quitting his own race so that Trump can capture The Crank's votes, and also that the specter of players like The Crank will force Trump out of the running entirely

"The Crank frightened? That is balderdash," said The Crank's spokesman. "It's nonsense. It's bushwah. It's baloney. It's bullpoop. All Trump is doing is demonstrating The Crank's point that there are so many Republican clowns — or is 'Republican clowns' a redundancy? — there are so many Republican clowns seeking the nomination that a poor old guy with a formerly Democratic background like The New York Crank has no worse of a chance of becoming President than Donald Trump with all his billions."

Later, The Crank himself emerged from an all-night meeting with his advisors and said, "We are in this to the bitter end. You do not intimidate me, Mr. Trump. Nor am I even slightly concerned that you currently have enough loose change rattling around in your pants to outspend me. When you have barely enough people supporting you to win a sewer board election in Goes, Ohio, you're just another joke."

New York Crank announces he is running for the Republican presidential nomination

A recent artist's drawing of The New York Crank. Signed and numbered copies will

be given to the first fifty members of the One Percent who contribute $50 million or

more to the Crank's campaign. However, all cash contributions from grateful PACs

 will be accepted and appreciated, plus you get a free night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

NEW YORK: The New York Crank, a curmudgeonly old fogey who for a long time has cleverly passed himself off as some kind of a liberal-left, internationally progressive, socially-permissive, economically-Keynsian, democratic-socialist-leaning, redundancy-loving Democrat has announced that he will run for nomination as the Republican candidate for President of the United States.

“I am finally coming out and declaring what I really am,” he said in his announcement speech. “I am a Tea Party Wing Republican. And I would welcome a generous campaign contribution from the Koch Brothers. But I’m not greedy like some Republican candidates I could name. Half a billion dollars would be plenty for me.”

The Crank promised that if nominated and then elected as President, he would put the interests of his largest campaign donors “miles ahead” of the perceived interests of the masses of voters.

“You have to remember,” said the Crank, “that although few people realize it yet, the interests of the nation are the interests of the largest campaign donors. The people who are making and keeping the most money are the same ones who are raising the average income and average net worth of the American people. It’s  simple Ayn Randian economics, or as I like to all it, RSM — Real Simple Math.”

Asked to justify his point of view he explained, “If you have one person making a dollar a week, and one person making a million dollars a week, their average income is half a million bucks and fifty cents a week. Now I ask you, what hard-working Joe The Plumber-type patriotic American wouldn’t want to have an average income as high as that? And who’s going to tell me that high average incomes aren’t good for America? It's elementary dribble-out, spritz around economics. And also, I think, the Law of Averages.”

Asked why he had chosen this moment to announce his candidacy, the Crank said he felt he had to do so at this time because, “There are already more Republican candidates than you can count on the fingers of both hands. I didn’t want to wait until Republican voters run out of toes, too.”

The Crank said he was willing and eager to participate in televised Republican debates, but admitted that the chances of getting an invitation to do so are slim. One possible reason for that, he explained, is that, “I will not become a victim of Big Government paperwork and bureaucracy and petition-signing and all that legalistic Big Government crap. I will simply ask people during the primaries to demand the right to write in my name. New…York…Crank. What part of that can’t you spell? Oh wait, I have Tea Party supporters.”

Who’s the new Republican presidential candidate waiting in the wings?

The see-saw is doing its thing. Newt is up. Newt is down. Newt is down and Romney is up. Romney is up and Newt is down. Is the see-saw making you sea-sick yet?

The odds are good that it’s nauseating some Republicans, too. My condolences to them. Or maybe not, since what they seem to want to do most is dismantle the economy and the safety net that keeps most older Americans (and many of the younger ones) from freezing to death on the streets. And to lower taxes on the rich even if the rest of us have to pay for it with smaller soup rations on the bread line.

Still, one senses that the Republicans finally sense that they’re not going to beat Obama. Not with Gingrich. Not with Romney. And not with the passel of other candidates who either threw themselves in front of the bus, got thrown there by Republican primary voters, or who simply got sucked under the bus by the vacuum in rational thinking that surrounded them. (Think Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann, for example.)

This morning the New York Times ran an article saying that former Florida governor Jeb Bush is withholding his endorsement from Romney. Cranky old cynics like me immediately start wondering if Jeb is planning for a draft Jeb rally after Newt and Willard (aka Mitt) badmouth each other into a stall at the Republican convention.

Chris Christie, who also says he’s not a candidate, is also possibly a candidate.

Mitch Daniels, the Indiana senator who gave the world’s most boring speech to “rebut” President Obama? Possible candidate.

But I’m going to go with a long shot bet here, and nominate New York’s impresario of self-dealing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Never mind that the billionaire “Mayor Mike” who can spend triple digit millions on a local political campaign the way you and I might drop $3.50 for a latte at Starbucks sabotaged the two-term mayoral limit and is now serving his third term.

Never mind that he keeps standing by his police commissioner, Michael Kelly, a character who looks like Popeye in a business suit. There have been outrageous excuses to shoo away Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zucotti Park. There’s the commissioner’s son, who now stands accused of rape and whose case has to be investigated by people outside the NYPD. There have been numerous instances police misbehavior such as this one, which resulted in … err, ah, umm … an “investigation” which has been creeping along at what some might consider a snail’s pace, despite the fact that police miscreants were caught on video pepper spraying their victims. What's to investigate for three months?

Never mind the outrageous Kathy Black scandal, in which the mayor appointed a crony with zero – that’s zero – educational experience to run one of the world’s largest public school systems. Fortunately, she self-destructed by mocking angry parents at a public meeting.

None of this matters. The mayor can only be mayor so long – even if he had to pay what most of us would consider a fortune to blow up the law that limited his term. What Bloomberg wants, Bloomberg buys. And I wouldn’t be amazed to see him try to buy the Republican presidential nomination.

The Iowa Straw Poll, murky political muck, and the magical “Mushiness Index”

So, uh, according to all the news, George Romney won the Iowa straw poll by eight – count ‘em folks, eight! – votes.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are yapping at his heels. Newt Gingrich is grumbling (justifiably) that Romney is a liar who, if you’ll pardon my own awful metaphor, is stabbing him in the back with clubs. Or clubbing him over the head with stilettos. Something like that. And Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry seem about to crawl back into the murky caves from which they emerged and call it a day. Oh wait a second. After crawling into his gave to rethink his candidacy, Perry crawled out again, to lose again another day.

What’s it all mean?

It don’t mean a thing – and not only because all those candidates ain't got that swing.

To explain the mucky murk:

the old “Mushiness Index”

Back in the 1980s, there used to be a polling and market research company called Yankelovich, Skelly and White. It had since disappeared, although it first metastasized into two separate rival companies that are still doing business, one called Yankelovich; the other called DYG, which claimed to have the real Yankelovich as a co-founder. But I’m getting off track here.

A now-deceased woman at Yankelovich, Skelly and White named Florence Skelly invented something called the “Mushiness Index.” This purported to measure not the things or people that individuals like you and me are for, but how intensely we are (or aren’t) for them.

For example? Ask me if I prefer ice cream or chocolate cake and I’ll tell you ice cream. But my preference is really rather “mushy.” At any time I might change my mind, and go for the chocolate cake if I’m in the mood. Or next Wednesday, mindful of my diet, I might say to hell with both the ice cream and the cake and go for jello. Although I've picked a dessert at your request, my preference is anything but firm.

I have a deep, abiding suspicion, that every last candidate in the Iowa Republican Straw Polls, including the one who just shot her own candidacy in the head, has a following that is largely mushy to the point of being downright squishy. Sort of like stepping into eight inches of mud with shoes that only go two inches up your ankles.

Yes, the voters went for Romney over Santorum by something like a mushy 1.0008 to 1 – on Tuesday of this week, at any rate. Next week things might go just the opposite way. Or, as we’ve seen, the votes might instead go to Ron Paul, or Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry if he doesn't change his mind about running again, or John Huntsman or, for that matter, the man in the moon. Or the troll under the bridge.

Are Democrats "mushy" too?

All this would be good news for the Democrats, if not for the fact that I suspect we Democrats, at least some of us, are furiously mushy ourselves.

President Obama made the mistake of playing diplomat to a bunch of Republican barbarians, preferring “consensus,” or some damn thing like it, to victory. As a result, Republicans walked all over his face. Obama compromised away the public option, leaving forced purchase of commercial health insurance as the key means of covering Americans for health expenses, rather than chancingf “Medicare for all.” Or at least for all who wanted it. The Republicans loved – trust me, loved – the opportunity that this compromise gave them to generate political hysteria. Obama next compromised away environmental safeguards when he opened the gulf to offshore drilling – just in time for the BP disaster.

It goes on. Budget compromises. Limiting how much he really should have demanded to kick start the economy. Laying Social Security and Medicare on the table for negotiations that never happened anyway. And other gross insults to the base who once supported the president.

As we’ve seen, the one time Obama stood firm – on the two month payroll tax-relief and unemployment insurance extension for the middle class – the Republicans folded as quickly as you'd fold a poker hand containing a pair of jokers.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama learned too late. That’s assuming he learned anything

These days I’m getting bombarded by increasingly desperate-sounding e-mails threatening “deadlines” to cough up three bucks for Obama. Sorry pal, I ain’t coughing. Not even a paltry three bucks. And neither are thousands of other once-devoted Democrats, judging from the frantic tone of the e-mails.

Yes, there is a moral 

The moral is, don’t betray your own base, or they’ll give you as much support as a lump of jello will give a highway bridge.

Does that mean I want any Republican to win? Nope. But neither do I want to go out of my way to support Obama any more, after he betrayed my Democratic ideals and some of the policies he ran on.

So call me mushy, but as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Obama, you’re on your own.  Speaking of which, I’ll have the Boston cream pie. Nope, come to think of it, maybe the banana fudge ice cream. Well, if you don’t have any more banana fudge, do you have any rice pudding? No? 

Well then, is Hillary still around?

A Democrat's prayer (and also a comedian's)

Oh please Lord, let Sarah Palin win the Republican nomination for President. Yes, nominate Sarah, who once revealed to Katie Couric that she doesn’t know the name of a single newspaper, probably because she has never read one. Assuming she knows how to read.

If it can’t be Sarah Palin, Lord, let it be Michelle Bachman, whose ignorance of history makes her a laughing stock.

If it can’t be Michelle Bachman, Lord, let it be the plastic Republican who is named after a baseball glove and who once strapped his dog to the roof of his car and roared down the highway, and who was for Obamacare before he was against it.

If it can’t be Mitt Romney Lord, let it be Paul Ryan, whose plot to kill Medicare has the majority of Americans seething with outrage.

Y’see, I believe that America for some strange reason is coming to its senses. And when the process is complete, the Republicans are finished. I was about to say “the crazy Republicans,” but is there any other kind?