Calling Donald Trump a blowhard and an idiot is an insult to hard blowing idiots everywhere. In a similar vein, I’m sure Bernie Sanders is a very nice man and probably comes highly recommended from whatever planet he immigrated from. Both of these gentlemen (well, one of two, I guess) are causing a tremendous amount of hand-wringing among my friends because both are leading in the polls here in South Carolina and in several other places in the nation.

I’m here to tell y’all to pump your brakes and settle down.

Here’s the reality of the situation — Donald and Bernie have as much chance of being on the final Presidential ballot in November as I have of buying the land I grew up on OR if you are unfamiliar with my birthplace, a snowball has in Hell.

I don’t care that they are leading in the polls. I don’t care that they’ve won earlier primaries. I don’t care that “The Donald” can buy votes left and right with his kind of money. You heard it here first — neither one will be on the ballot come this fall. They can win every primary from here on out and they STILL won’t be on the ballot. Neither will Ted “The Canadian” Cruz and all for the same reason.

Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders are all COMPLETELY INCAPABLE of winning a general election. They are caricatures of politicians who have enjoyed a modicum of success by exciting very narrow segments of the electorate. They would get slaughtered and I mean SLAUGHTERED in a general election because what no one seems to remember is this country is split in half. Mitt Romney wishes he’d never said it, but he was right. The race is about 5% or so of the country. The other 95% made up their minds long ago.

So why am I so certain these jacklegs won’t be on the ballot? Easy. The Republican and Democratic establishments will never LET them on the ballot. Bernie could win every primary from here on out — Hillary is going to be the Democratic nominee. Same for Trump and Cruz, no matter how great they and their respective narrow bases think they are, the Republican establishment will NEVER let them on the final ballot. The Republican candidate is going to be Marco Rubio or possibly Jeb Bush, but that is a fading chance.

But what about the conventions?

The conventions are exactly what will keep them off the ballot. In Bernie Sander’s case, he can win all 50 states worth of delegates, but the Democratic establishment has a secret weapon they’ve never had to use yet. It’s called “the Superdelegates.” These are delegates unattached to any state who cast their votes independent of any primary results. Also, no matter how many or how few Superdelegates exist, their votes will always outnumber the total of the state delegates — IF NECESSARY. They will need to invoke the superdelegate protocol if Bernie actually looks like he’s going to get nominated. The simple political math is the man can’t win an election so the powers that be in the Democratic party are NEVER going to let him run and get shellacked.

Over among the elephants, they have a similar protocol in place. I don’t know exactly what it is, but they don’t call them Superdelegates. Still, if the GOP gets to the convention and either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump looks to have the nomination locked up, some obscure rule by the party elite will activate and Rubio or maybe Bush — both establishment darlings — will end up on the ticket.

It really is that simple. The party elites are not going to field a candidate for POTUS who doesn’t have a fighting chance of winning a general election. If Trump or Cruz ran on the GOP ticket, RINOs and moderate Republicans would cross the electoral aisle and vote democratic or not vote at all and the establishment is not going to sit by and let that happen.

One day, a clown like Trump may actually get on the ballot, but it’s not coming in November. One day, an eternal college undergraduate like Bernie may get to run for President, but not this year. The folks running the show aren’t going to let them. The only way that is ever going to change is if our current two party system gets overhauled and too many powerful people have WAY too much money involved to allow something like that to happen.

PS: if Donald thinks he’s going to take his ball and run as a third party, all he is doing is making it a cakewalk for Hillary and he knows it.

I hate politics, but I love y’all. Keep away from the politicians and it’ll be a lot easier to keep your feet clean.