The Field of Competition in 08 Elections

When it comes right down to it there are a lot of choices in the up and coming election but there are only a handful of smart ones. The republican side has it's 1 or 2 potential candidates and the Democrats have their 2. The question is who is going to come out the victor and who will be spoiled?

The problem for everyone other than Obama is that they are all telling us how bad the world is and how much danger we face and how only they are qualified to protect us. This is a kind of K-Mart version of Bush’s entire administration and Hillary sells it with as much fervor as does Rudy G.

Whomever the Republicans nominate is doomed, not just by the tsunami that Obama is surfing so well but by association with Mr. Bush. John McCain, who embraced the president after having his reputation trashed by him, has the scent of a warmonger on his lapels when he suggests he would have approved the Iraq invasion even without WMD. McCain, who would be the oldest president to ever take the oath of office, can hardly represent the generational tide that will flood the voting booths.

While we may be uncertain of exactly what he is, we do know precisely what he is not and that is one of the other candidates. We know them all in varying degrees. Hillary Clinton’s ambition has been on overt display since her days in Arkansas and the move to New York for the senate run was as calculated as her adopting a southern accent when speaking to African-American voters. We suspect we know what she will be like because we have already seen the male version of her administration.

Mitt Romney looks and sounds like every Republican in the modern era. He has money, product-laden hair, good suits, and the ability to change his positions on issues to attract people he had previously alienated. Unfortunately, the evangelical Christian wing of his party privately and publicly disdains Romney’s Mormon religion and they aren’t about to send out their vanguard of spiritual warriors to get him elected.

There’s Rudy, of course, but his “noun, verb, 911″ tactic was miscalculated and instead of elevating his bona fides it has only served to remind us of that which we do not want to confront. His grasp of facts and the truth has not exactly been tenacious, either. Fred Thompson, it turns out, is a better actor on television than on the campaign trail and ambivalence is not powerfully inspiring to the electorate.

What’s left? Mike Huckabee is having his moment but it is not likely to be sustaining. He is far too much the goober from Arkansas, who once stood and stared seriously into a camera and congratulated Canada on saving its national igloo. He seems to have used his influence in Little Rock as a kind of ATM machine for his family and has made the kind of mistakes as a governor that will make him easy to disassemble in the general election. The evangelicals are attracted to Huckabee but the party apparatchiks are not. He’s in trouble.