Skull/Bones 2008 III
From kos:
Imagine, if you will, that the three front-runners for the Democratic nomination were: 1) Joe Lieberman; 2) a fundamentalist Christian governor of Utah, and; 3) an anti-choice former mayor of Colorado Springs who isn’t just against gay marriage, but who actively and publicly dislikes gay people.Ouch. Â That wouldn’t be much fun. Â In fact, it might well sour the Dem base on the entire primary process. Â Fortunately, we have a much less offensive candidate pool. Â But Republicans looking at their real field of candidates must feel much the same as we would in the nightmare scenario above. Â Because each one of the top three candidates in the inaugural 2008 GOP Cattle Call has at least one trait that makes them anathema to large swaths of the Republican base.
Mitt Romney’s name has been mentioned by Republicans as someone who’s electoral value is proven by the fact that he won in Massachusetts, even that loathsome state. Which does present the “I suppose”, but what you must be or must do to get elected in Massachusetts — no matter how good a governor by Republican’s standards one is — is going to hold you away from Republican primary voters. Hence the reverberations from Romney’s posturing that he makes a better gay rights advocate than (again, loathsome) Teddy Kennedy. It is inevitable in the same manner that a Democratic governor from Utah would clash with the Democratic primary voter. Nonetheless, Romney has a better chance of getting through this clutter than Rudy Giuliani, and Romney may end up president where Giuliani never will.
Mitt Romney’s name has been mentioned by Republicans as someone who’s electoral value is proven by the fact that he won in Massachusetts, even that loathsome state. Which does present the “I suppose”, but what you must be or must do to get elected in Massachusetts — no matter how good a governor by Republican’s standards one is — is going to hold you away from Republican primary voters. Hence the reverberations from Romney’s . It is inevitable in the same manner that a Democratic governor from Utah would clash with the Democratic primary voter. Nonetheless, Romney has a better chance of getting through this clutter than Rudy Giuliani, and Romney may end up president where Giuliani never will.On the Democratic side, I note that kos has Barack Obama as #1, ahead of the for the past two years presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is a good thing — I think I like Obama better than Clinton, but I have a certain Obama problem, and the Obama Problem is something that infects American politics.
Obama’s chief political asset is that he has no long record to poke holes in so that someone may pin him down. He is a fresh face with no baggage. He can continue to be all things to all people, and all things to all interests. Considering his Monday Night Football opening, a football analogy seems appropriate. He is the back up quarterback the fans love and clamor the coach to switch over to, because the starting quarterback’s flaws are painfully evident while what we’ve seen of the back-up quarterback has been spectacular — never mind what we’ve seen of the back-up quarterback has been against second and third string defenses at the end of blow-out games and pre-season games and his spectacular college career.
A Senator may be elected president, but I believe it would have to be a senator who has had roughly the amount of Senate service as Obama.
I’m not so sure my preferred Democratic presidential candidate, out of the group that is running, isn’t Bill Richardson. The problem is he has a resume. He has served as a Congressman, US Ambassador to the UN, and US Secretary of Energy, and governor of New Mexico. Which is what I would want, and what I would think the American voter would want. But it isn’t what they want. His track record is open to interpretation, and a significant part of the elctorate is going to believe he’s responsible for North Korea having nukes. Similar things may be interpreted in his other jobs. Thus the baggage.
Â