The State of the Presidential Race

Well, it's that time again. The Iowa caucus is soon upon us and people will have something to complain about, other than the BCS system for NCAA football's national championship. I am of course referring to the complaint every four years that we have lame candidates to choose from for the presidential election.

This year is more open than in the past. Hillary seems to have stumbled a bit on the way to her easy coronation, and the Republican's are in full chaos as each one accuses the other of being more liberal than the Democrats. It's like a horrible catfight to earn the right to live in the White House. How did it come down to this? I will go into more details in a future blog post, but for now it's important that you realize that these early primaries are about the two "m"s: money and momentum.

Right now, Hillary has much of the money in the Democrat primary, but Obama has much of the momentum. As many who have talked to me in the past know, I have always felt that Obama doesn't have much of a chance because the Clintons have retained control of almost all of the party machinery since Bill left the White House in January of 2001. That was by plan since the concept of Hillary taking over after Bill was the reason she ran for Senator from New York to begin with. (Notice how she didn't run for senator from their home state of Arkansas...she wanted to broaden her regional appeal for a national office)

But she has shown that she isn't the retail politician that Bill is and has stumbled whenever she has been forced out of the protective bubble that the media has let her get away with. While Obama has his problems as a national candidate(his ultra-liberal ideology would lead to a national spanking of McGovernesque proportions should he win the nomination) people are hungry for a change.

That is what has had the Democrats looking so ripe for retaking the White House; a national desire for change. Americans like to do that...when one party has control of things for a while, Americans like to hand it over to the other guys to see how they do. So far, the Democrats in Congress have made a dog's breakfast of their control since taking it over in November of 2006, but the Republicans have been in search of someone with a spine to challenge the Democrat leadership and find that their spine must be located wherever Saddam Hussein's WMD's are.

Meanwhile, the party of the elephant don't seem to be doing much better. Right now, polls show former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee leading the race for the Iowa caucus. Seriously? They think people will be thrilled to see someone named Huckabee up on the chryon for press conferences day after day? It seems the main requirement for the vote in the Republican party is to be able to name the top 10 finishers in the NASCAR season along with proof of baptism and two boxtops from Captain Crunch cereal.

The media thought Saint Rudy of 9/11 was a shoe-in but they didn't realize that Republicans don't just dislike Democrats who are serial cheaters, but don't care for Republicans who "do thou likewise." Mitt Romney tried to get traction by quoting John Adams in linking religion and the founding of this country but forgot that the religion-hating media in this country don't like to have their views challenged by citing insignificant documents like the Constitution.

What about Fred Thompson? Wasn't Mr. Law and Order ready for primetime? Fred never quite hit the campaign trail like so many of his followers thought he would. Seems Fred decided that he could say, "Let me know when the real campaigning starts...meanwhile, I'll be in my trailer." What a waste of a great TV voiceover.

Where does that leave us? It leaves most people deciding to tune it all out and wait for the fall programming (if the writers ever settle their strike) and spending October and November doing what we do every four years...complaining about our choices.

What will I do? Not much I can do...this will probably be decided long before Missouri has it's primary on February 5th since many of the small fry will be out of money by then. But we will keep talking about this race on this blog.

Stay tuned...