Beau Elliot
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They say that politics is a three-ring circus and if you don’t like this act, just wait for the next ring.

Of course, they also say if you don’t like the weather now, just wait 15 minutes. So you shrug and wait 15 minutes, and the weather remains the same. (Who are these “they,” and why are they so often wrong? More importantly, why do we continue to listen to them?

Meanwhile, back at the circus, a recent Vermont poliltical poll showed (well, as much as a poll can show, which sometimes seems like as much as the NSA can show) that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is tied for the lead.

In the Republican poll.

Yes, that Bernie Sanders, who, of course, is running for the Democratic nomination, ties with Ben Carson and Donald Trump (who else?) in the running for the GOP nomination at 12 percent. The rest of the Republican field eats Vermont dust, which tastes pretty good this time of year, I hear. It’s just not all that nourishing. So much isn’t. You ever noticed?

And yeah, I know, it’s a Vermont poll. And Sanders is from Vermont. (Well, technically, he was born in New York, I believe, but he’s been involved in Vermont politics for so long that he might as well be from Vermont.)

But still. When the Democratic/independent candidate ties for the lead in a Republican poll, you know it’s either a circus or watches are bending and sliding off tables à la Dali.

Cue the clown car.

Oh, wait. Trump already did.

Until last week, the Trumpster was the Wonder Boy of the political circus. But then there was the audience member who claimed President Obama was a Muslim not born in the country, and Trump gave his typical nonresponse response. Something about the national-security threat of an invasion of illegal immigrants from Mars or maybe one of Saturn’s moons. Sometimes, I get lost in the geography of Trump’s language.

Obama a Muslim? That’s so old, it’s almost 20th century. But then, a long time ago (Two years? Three years?), Trump was a birther, one of those who didn’t believe Obama was born in the United States and was also probably a Muslim.

And then, Trump lost the most recent GOP debate, to a woman whom he insulted, of all things. (Note to the Trumpster: You criticized a woman’s physical appearance? In public? Are you insane? Rhetorical question, perhaps.) Watching Trump sink down the steps of popularity is kind of like watching the news descending a staircase.

So now Carly Fiorina is the new Wonder Boy among Republicans. Er, Wonder Woman. She won the last Republican debate, according to many observers. She’s the new Joni Ernst, apparently. But maybe without the intellectual capacity.

But. Almost everything she utters is wrong. For instance, discussing the Planned Parenthood videos, “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”

Um, no. That never happened. Not even on the videos, which were so heavily edited that you might have thought the NFL rewrote them.

Or this, Fiorina said: “Two-thirds of the people in our prisons are there for nonviolent offenses, mostly drug-related.”

Um, no. Of the 1.5 million people imprisoned, state or federal, approximately 300,000 are there on drug charges. Not quite close to “mostly.”

The circus continues, the news descends. Although it’s so cubist, it’s hard to tell it’s a staircase. Or news.