Atlantic Council Senior Adviser Harlan Ullman writes for United Press International on the parallels between the 2016 presidential race and the 2015 PGA Championship:
Earlier this month, millions were fixated on two television spectaculars. One was political, the Republican Party’s maiden debate in the presidential sweepstakes with participants limited to only “natural born” U.S. citizens (Ted Cruz hopefully is listening.) The second was the PGA Championship, one of golf’s annual four major tournaments with international participants of world-class ability.
The GOP debate turned into a two-course delight in which attempts at showmanship dominated substance. The first course kicked off in quiet, pre prime time featuring seven candidates who lacked sufficient poll numbers to make it to the main event. The top ten, too, were relatively unknown except for Jeb Bush who was trying for the “hat trick” of becoming the third member of his family to occupy the Oval Office and Donald Trump, the current leader of the pack, awash in ubiquitous media coverage.