{"id":15134,"date":"2016-06-09T12:48:20","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T12:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15134"},"modified":"2016-06-09T12:49:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T12:49:38","slug":"politician-tradition-may-be-in-jeopardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15134","title":{"rendered":"Political tradition may be in jeopardy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>The American political system produces\u00a0many memorable traditions.<\/p>\n<p>One of them involves an event in which the candidates for president of the United States gather in New York to honor a memorial fund established in memory of the late New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith.<\/p>\n<p>The candidates poke fun at each other, and at themselves.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"President Obama&#039;s Complete Remarks From The Al Smith Dinner (2012)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wMGePVYV-cs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Election 2012 | Romney Laughs It Up at Al Smith Dinner | The New York Times\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tvATXkQffj0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>These two clips are from the 2012 event featuring President Obama, the Democratic nominee, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president.<\/p>\n<p>It is absolutely hilarious! As is the 2008 event with U.S. Sens. Obama and John McCain.<\/p>\n<p>My question today is this: Is this tradition in jeopardy in light of the obvious disdain that the current presumptive nominees &#8212; Republican Donald J. Trump and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton &#8212; have for each other?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m trying to imagine Trump shrugging off &#8220;good-natured&#8221; barbs being thrown at him by Clinton. I&#8217;m also having difficulty imagining Trump being able to muster up the kind of delivery it takes to sling a zinger at Clinton, who then would laugh out loud.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve noted already what NBC News political director Chuck Todd has observed, that neither Clinton or Trump offered words of congratulations to each other the other night after they secured their respective parties&#8217; nominations.<\/p>\n<p>That omission speaks to what looks to a lot of us as a precursor to the kind of campaign no one wants to see.<\/p>\n<p>One of the beauties of our political system &#8212; and the people who participate in it &#8212; is that they&#8217;ve always found time to put the daggers back in the scabbard long enough to speak with good humor to some common good.<\/p>\n<p>Is that tradition in jeopardy this year?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American political system produces\u00a0many memorable traditions. One of them involves an event in which the candidates for president of the United States gather in New York to honor a memorial fund established in memory of the late New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith. The candidates poke fun at each other, and at themselves. These &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15134\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Political tradition may be in jeopardy<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[540,986,1424,2139,2546,3101,3236],"class_list":["post-15134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-chuck-todd","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-john-mccain","tag-mitt-romney","tag-nbc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15136,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15134\/revisions\/15136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}