Lee asked if I could post for him this evening, well he didn't ask it was more like ....never mind, I won't do the same riff back on Lee.
I find that the 2008 Elections are coming a lot sooner then ever. It appears that many states are going to have earlier primaries and the right candidate can have the nomination sewn up by February.
It is a wide open field as their is no heir apparent to George Bush. An heir would be DOA anyway as this President has driven any popularity he had into the ground and has in my opinion damaged the republican party heavily. Whether this leads to an all democratic Congress and White House remains to be seen.
Also as I will most likely vote Libertarian again as neither party holds any candidate willing to reduce government. The elections are almost like watching Survivor. In fact that might be a great way to elect a president, where they all live on an island and are given tasks to do and then we call in for who we want off the island.
The democrats are trotting out the media dream candidates of Obama, Clinton and Edwards. I know there are more out there, but it appears that these are the only 3 who can raise enough money to have a shot at it.
The republicans have McCain and Giuliani and almost no one else with any name recognition, but the promise of Gingrich and Fred Thompson entering the race could make it fun. Still I feel sorry for any republican running this year as I think George W. has slammed that party to the ground and it will be hard to erase the stigma of being a republican. Fred Thompson would be interesting and I would certainly like to hear what he has to say, but he would have to run for me to even pay attention.
I personally see John Edwards as the dark horse candidate who could go all the way. Clinton and Obama could cancel each other out and Edwards could squeak in. He has a good rags to riches story, strong family story, with enough tragedy to keep the public sympathetic. Also he is a good looking white guy and we have yet to break that trend in the US.
Still almost every candidate talks about how the government can do this for us or that for us and I'm tired of them being in my life and would dearly love to see a candidate who promises us less government.
I'll give you a couple more candidates to note. On the Democratic side, there's Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, former ambassador and extremely well versed foreign policy guy. Possibly the antidote to Bush, if he can get any traction. He's also Hispanic, so that would get him both some media attention and a substantial base to work with.
ReplyDeleteOn the GOP side there's Mitt Romney, the former governor of MA. Highly successful businessman before that and savior of the Salt Lake City Olympics. He has two big problems, though. One is that he's a recent convert to such right wing tenants as being pro-life. More significantly, though, he's a Mormon. There's a huge segment of the GOP primary voters who will never vote for a Mormon.
On the other hand there's Mike Huckabee, either current or former governor of AR. His claim to fame is mostly that he lost about 200 lbs, which seems like a funny basis for a POTUS run, but what the hell. He's pretty much a reliable conservative, but doesn't really have anything to hook the voters on except that he's not Guiliani or McCain, who are both suspicious to the party base.
It will be interesting to see what the Iowa voters do. They'll really set the stage and winnow out some of these guys. Whoever wins in the long run will have a hell of a lot of work to do to try to repair the deficit situation, continue the effort in Afghanistan, pare down the Iraq war and, most importantly, try to get the US back to a position where it can actually effectively work with other nations. Of course, just not being Bush will be a step in the right direction for the latter.
Thomm - All the canidates you mention are interesting (except for Huckabee), but I don't think any of them have a chance with the way the primary races are set up. With so many primaries going for the same day and early you need big buck to start. None of this win a few early ones and then build steam anymore.
ReplyDeleteBottom line - I agree - who ever gets elected has a lot of plus points for just not being Bush. A really horrible President, even George Sr. is wishing Jeb would have been the one in the White House.
Yeah, we definitely got the least of the Bush progeny. You wouldn't think a president could make one wistful for Nixon, but Bush does.
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