DNA chieftain Branville "Look How Amazing I Am" McCartney, will have his place in the political history of The Bahamas.
He will be recorded as one of the most vainglorious individuals ever to run for political office. This is a significant feat, given the vanity parade that has marched before the electorate seeking glory, affection and attention.
At times, the self-admiring McCartney has made Perry Christie seem like the epitome of humility, another feat. At least Christie can argue that he actually became prime minister and has something to brag about.
McCartney served a brief, unremarkable and unmemorable stint as a junior minister in Hubert Ingraham's Cabinet during a single term in the House of Assembly before he resigned in pique because he could not get his way and his vaunting pride was wounded.
He acted as a spoiled, vain cry baby when Ingraham did not make him a substantive minister. "Mirror, mirror on the Cabinet wall, couldn't Ingraham see I was the greatest Cabinet material of all!"
Bran is still vexed with the FNM. He is still in cry-baby mode. Most of his political actions are fuelled by a lacerated and wounded ego that has not satisfied its unquenchable fervor to be prime minister.
McCartney leads a third party with no chance of winning office and little chance of winning a single seat at the next election. The party is having trouble fielding a full slate of candidates. Many who voted for the DNA in the last election will not do so again.
The best McCartney can do is to brag about being a spoiler. He behaves with a curious temperamental combination: part temper tantrums of a toddler and part adolescent arrogance and irresponsibility.
McCartney would have been more than happy to support the FNM if he got the 16 winnable seats he wanted. Breathtakingly, the coiffed political charlatan, who has no seats, wanted a lion's share of the best seats!

Satisfied
He engaged in lengthy talks with the FNM, and reportedly would have been satisfied to serve as FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis' deputy prime minister. He seemed to have little problem serving in a future government led by Minnis.
But because he couldn't get his way, he set out to undermine the FNM and Minnis and, concomitantly, to help ensure that the PLP and Christie are re-elected.
McCartney is the sort of elitist who likely believes that because of his privileged and familial background, he is superior to Minnis. And he seems to prefer that his equally entitled cousin, Christie, remains prime minister instead of someone from a less-advantaged background.
Dripping with his trademark smugness, McCartney arrogantly declared: "The DNA, we may not be, we may not have any seats, but we gat some numbers and we can determine who is the government, just like we did in the last election."
We now know his true color and game. The color really is green, the color of envy and inexperience. McCartney knows the DNA cannot win the government. His game is to play the spoiler and to harm the FNM.
Jabbing his finger, with his slick, manufactured look and pretense of seriousness, the vain man of national politics oozed: "If the DNA is not the government next time, we'll determine who the government is the next time, in a more significant way."
This admission came with his Cheshire cat-like grin, which enveloped his face like a mask, attempting, but failing, to hide his more sinister intention to manipulate public opinion and the election results in order to satisfy his wounded ego and unfulfilled ambition.
While Bahamians suffer on many fronts, the wealthy and self-satisfied McCartney, who clearly does not feel the pain of the overwhelming majority of Bahamians, is using politics as a game.
As a video on social media titled "The more a man talks, the more is revealed about his true character" aptly and urgently suggests: "Branville McCartney takes this for a game. This is for keeps. This is our life."
The video, which may have now been seen by thousands, notes of McCartney: "This man is a millionaire, his family ain't worryin' 'bout anything. He don't care if we suffer for 50 more years."

Abysmal
This is the belief of scores of Bahamians who are vexed that McCartney would not put his ego aside in order to ensure a united opposition against a PLP government that has lost popular support because of its abysmal performance in office.
McCartney has never been a serious politician. He is more a mixture of the grand narcissist, former U.S. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and U.S. President Donald Trump, who has the most gargantuan ego of any American politician in most of our lifetimes.
Like Palin and Trump, McCartney is mostly an entertainer. He has survived on bluff and bluster. He is a hollow politician with little to no substance, who trades in sound bites and cliches. His performance is a grand con.
His sad, self-admitted role is to attempt to manipulate who can win office, all the while trying to con DNA colleagues and potential voters into the belief that he is serious about the needs of the country, and that the DNA can win seats and, potentially, the government.
Branville McCartney is now the great conman of Bahamian politics. Like the mythological Narcissus, he has stared at his own reflection and fallen in love with a manufactured, stylized self, perfumed with a sense of grandiosity and entitlement. He is fixated on himself, including his own countenance, and on the need for public adulation.
McCartney may be able to con himself for a lifetime. But the great con before the Bahamian people is already unravelling, and will unravel even further as his selfish and smug games come to light - an irony given his party's logo.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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