What Does a Front-runner Look Like?

I really don’t know a concrete answer to that question, however, I do know what a front-runner does NOT look like.  He does not look like Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad at the Cedar Rapids debate last week.  He pulled a couple of stunts that looked like a drowning man grasping for a life-preserver.

First there was the party unity question in which he basically gave Bob Vander Plaats a free pass to hammer him on.  If you have ever endorsed a Democrat like Branstad has I would recommend  not going around touting that you have always supported the Republican party.  Never mind that this Democrat he endorsed from the sleeper state of Nebraska became an overnight sensation when he sold out to ObamaCare for some silver.  That is a skeleton that Terry Branstad thought would probably never fall out of the closet and if it did, it wouldn’t be connected to the biggest government takeover in history.

Bob Vander Plaats smashing him in the head with this endorsement had to sting, but if Branstad really is the front-runner then he should have just let it slide and not get in the mud.  By lashing out at Vander Plaats, he basically put a big “guilty” on his forehead and allowed Vander Plaats to walk away untouched as the one who really attempted to unite the party.

Next is the controversy on Vander Plaats’ Executive Order that would stay gay marriage until correct Constitutional action could be taken.  The Executive Order is something the Branstad people have shrugged off as illegal and stupid.  If this is the case, then why did he lower himself to an outburst about it while Vander Plaats was talking about it?  A front-runner who is faced with an issue that supposedly has no traction, like they claim about Vander Plaats’ Executive Order, leaves the response from his opponent go.  But instead Branstad interrupts Vander Plaats with an example from the Governor Vilsack days of an Executive Order that he was sued over.  This led Vander Plaats to respond and to get the last word in. 

There is some discussion that the two candidates were talking about two different Executive Orders from Vilsack but it really doesn’t matter because both of them were unconstitutional because they both attempted to make law.  Vander Plaats’ Executive Order does not make law but instead encourages the system of making law to legally proceed.  This heated exchange made it look like Branstad had a senile moment because he in no way clarified what he was talking about with the Vilsack example (he couldn’t clarify because it was an outburst during a time when he wasn’t supposed to be speaking) and Vander Plaats looked like a Governor in command of the situation.

After the debate Terry Branstad still carried on his attack on Bob Vander Plaats which is what the media picked up on out of the debate.  Perhaps after seeing and hearing that footage the public also saw a drowning man grasping for a life-preserver or maybe they just saw an era of days gone by slide down the tubes.

What a front-runner does NOT look like.