The Best and Worst of the Bad

It seems to have become sort of conventional wisdom among my fellow leftists that Donald Trump is the worst disaster as a presidential possibility since the founding of the Republic. It seems a little odd to even be talking about this, since the last thing I want to do is "defend" Donald Trump. But I disagree emphatically with this conventional wisdom.

Let's back up....There has also been a sort of unchallenged conventional wisdom among the mainstream media that the Republican Party had a "deep bench" of presidential candidates. Well, the 2016 campaign has shown how ridiculous this idea is. Intellectual lightweights like Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, et al, have all fallen by the wayside, and for good reason.

It's also silly to pretend--like some on the left--that all of these folks are equally bad. John Kasich is a conservative to be sure, but make no mistake about it: he would be a far superior president to the other two who remain, and most of those who have left the race.

Anyway, as I see it, here is my personal list--from most dangerous to least--of the long list of disastrous GOP candidates (my apologies to any that I forgot):

1. Ben Carson
2. Ted Cruz
3. Carly Fiorina
4. Bobby Jindahl
5. Mike Huckabee
6. Rick Santorum
7. Scott Walker
8. Donald Trump
9. Marco Rubio
10. Rick Perry
11. Lindsay Graham
12. George Pataki
13. John Kasich
14. Rand Paul
15. Chris Christy

It's really difficult bringing myself to actually rank this crowd, but there really is a big difference between those on the top of the list and those on the bottom, even if one could quibble about the exact spot each belongs. Some are definitely scarier than the others. As you can see, I only put The Donald in the middle of this list. That is even scarier!! Quite a "deep bench", huh?  This crowd is something to lose sleep over.