Essays in Idleness

My Chief Texas Correspondent kindly pings me this link (here) on a backroom of the USA Republican Party. Several dozen of the leading “conservatives” in the party apparently met at a Virginia hotel, on the 7th of December, and after five ballots reached consensus on their preferred presidential nominee. Prayers were said in intervals between the ballots.

I believe this is called a “conclave.” Get a bunch of reasonably devout old Christian gentlemen, and lock them up until they come to a decision. Most admirable: to have a prayer group choose the President, rather than leaving it to some squalid, chaotic, pagan convention. I approve.

This arrangement has more or less worked for us Catholics, over the last twenty centuries or so. Nothing earthly is failsafe, of course, and I’ll admit our election process yielded less than desirable results in the years 189, 296, 352, 625, 896, 955, 1032, 1316, 1378, 1492, 1513, and then perhaps five hundred years later. (See Edward Feser on “papal fallibility,” here.) But that’s a failure rate of less than 5 percent, compared to well over 50 percent in popular presidential elections (USA or elsewhere).

Gentle reader may be curious to know who the winning candidate was. The conclave selected Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz, the junior senator from Texas.

(Yee-haw!)

Another idea, for our beloved southern neighbours. The winning candidate should choose a regnal name upon becoming President, such as “Abraham II” or “George IV” or “John V” or “James VII.” (We start by affirming the baptismal Christian names of the previous forty-three. Note that Mr Cleveland served non-consecutive terms, but is assigned only one regnal number, not “Grover I” and “Grover II”). And let’s hope our descendants will never see a Woodrow II, or a Barack II. (Perhaps such as these could be removed from the list, as “Antipresidents.”)

In my capacity as Lord Denizen of the High Doganate (closest living equivalent to the Holy Roman Emperor, I should think) I hereby approve the choice of this American conclave, and would also like to endorse my CTC’s recommendation for vice president. He named Cara Carleton “Carly” Fiorina (née Sneed), also of Texas, reasoning that she would “blunt Killary’s estrogen campaign.”

Fair enough, but to be clear, I do not think it should be necessary to have any popular run-off. Or that this would even be possible, after another of my constructive suggestions is taken up. This would be, to transfer the entire Democratic Party leadership to Guantanamo.