Good Morning, 99%'ers! Welcome to Mundane Wednesday. Well, this Wednesday is not so mundane after Bernie Sanders' stunning upset victory in Michigan. No one, I mean no one, saw this coming. Let's hope that momentum continues for Sanders and his message.

Otherwise, sometimes it gets a little muddy out there.

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." George Bernard Shaw.

We all know that Donald Trump has been wallowing in the mud since the very beginning of his Presidential race. Vulgarity and insults are the only things Trump seems to be selling. And a plurality of Republican voters are buying his con game thus making Trump the front runner. And now Marco Rubio has decided to jump into the mud too. That certainly was the case in the last week with Rubio actually questioning the size of Donald Trump's manhood.

"And you know what they say about guys with small hands," Rubio said with a smile, prompting stunned laughter from the crowd.

After a brief pause he added: "You can't trust 'em!" The crowd responded with applause.

Marco Rubio, who is the most establishment candidate of the GOP establishment, included that line as a part of a new strategy of personally attacking Donald Trump. And with Rubio's comment, the entire Presidential campaign is now clearly mired in the mud. The issues be damned.

The remarks came at an energetic rally at a university in Salem, Virginia, where the young crowd screamed and cheered at every attack line Rubio landed. It was a notable shift in tone from earlier in the day, when Rubio largely laid off the personal attacks on Trump in favor of a focus on his failed business deals and lack of policy proposals.

Trump carried that insult over into the most recent Republican debate after Rubio's comment above. And thus the GOP campaign has ventured even deeper into the mud than once thought possible and the pig Trump is loving it.

As this post in the New York Times noted.

I’m not being cheeky. I’m not being shocking. I’m noting something that we cannot lose track of, should not shrug our shoulders about and must not gloss over: Trump has succeeded at nothing as fully as he has at infusing the presidential race with a vulgarity that’s absolutely breathtaking.

He has done so well at dragging his rivals so far down into the sewer with him that portions of what we watched on Thursday night were a fetid farce. We actually witnessed an interchange — in the first 10 minutes, no less — about how well endowed (or not) he is.

It’s worth stopping for a second, letting that sink in and wondering what it says about our country and political process right now.

Of course, we all know the old saying about pigs and mud.

So what is it about the mud that so many want to dive into it or wallow in it? Well, consider this.

Speaking of mud, last week, I once again made a trip south to visit my mother in central Florida. On one of my previous Open Threads, I wrote about the pulp mill outside Perry, Florida that has been the source of massive pollution generated as a result of production of cellulose products used in baby wipes and tires. The pollutants are allowed to be discharged into the Fenholloway River under the authorization by the Florida legislature decades ago when the legislature declared the Fenholloway River to be an industrial river. And the Fenholloway is the dirtiest river in Florida.

Just a little further south of Perry, Florida is another unusual "attraction," the Iron Horse Mud Ranch located on 520 acres of swampland. I drive by this facility along US 27 as a part of my regular route south. Most times, the huge gates to the Mud Ranch are closed, but not this past weekend. The website for the Iron Horse Mud Ranch includes this statement by the founder of this facility.

This is how it all began, one day a Florida redneck was sitting around the house when he received a phone call from one of his Florida redneck friends asking him if he wanted to go for a ride. The friend took the Florida redneck to an awesome Mud Hole, where he had more fun than he ever imagined and from that day the Florida redneck was hooked.

Last weekend, I noticed that the big gates to the Iron Horse Mud Ranch were open and pickup trucks selling firewood were stationed at the entry. As I drove further south, I saw huge mud boggers heading to this facility. It turned out that this past weekend was what they called the Dysfunctional Family Reunion Weekend.

Mud bogging is not exactly cheap entertainment for its participants. It is mind boggling to see how much people have invested in these toys. It is not unusual to see a large truck hauling a trailer with two or even three jacked up mud trucks along with two or more smaller four wheelers. Said truck will often be followed by another large truck towing a fifth wheel or camper trailer or even a large self contained RV. The money spent on these toys and camping equipment is unbelievable, all for the pleasure of getting down and dirty in the mud. And the pigs have it for free.

The picture below is a typical mud bogging truck. It sits jacked way up in the air on giant tires. However, nearly every mud bogger I saw was so covered in mud that it was impossible to see what color, if any, was beneath that mud. I guess the amount of mud on the truck is a status symbol for mud boggers.

Why people want to spend this much money on mud bogging is something of a mystery to me but apparently it is very popular throughout the country, not just here in the redneck parts of Florida.

On my way back north on Sunday, after seeing so many mud boggers pass by me on their way back to south and central Florida, I decided to count the number of them I saw in the approximately one hundred miles I had to travel before I would pass the Iron Horse Mud Ranch on my way home. I was shocked that the number I saw on this one route alone was over 170, and that count did not include the campers or RV's that accompanied the mud boggers!

So there is more than one way to get into the mud. At least mud bogging is a far cleaner sport than the political mud slinging we are now seeing in the Presidential primaries. I think there will be a lot more of the political variety in the weeks to come, so buckle your seat belts.

Optional musical interlude, Mud on the Tires, courtesy of Brad Paisley.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6nxHNrIwJA]

Since this is an Open Thread, please feel free to comment on whatever is on your mind. And don't forget the Donate button located right above the Recent Comments list, if you are so inclined.