perfidy

I am slowly, grudgingly, becoming interested in the 2008 presidential race. There are three reasons for this. First is $26 million dollars, and the second is The Hunt for Red October. The last is the fact that this will be the first completely wide open presidential election in god knows how long. No incumbents running. One hope, one fear, and history.

History first. This will be the first election with no incumbents with their hats in the ring since 1928, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. In that long ago election, President Coolidge declined to run, and Vice President Dawes was so roundly disliked that he was not even considered. In the intervening 80 years every election has involved either a sitting President or Vice President, and while that is no guarantee of victory, it does simplify the process – since no party is going to piss on the inherent advantages that a incumbent brings to an election.

This year, we’ll have double the fun, as both parties will go through the agonizing (for the electorate) and embarrassing (for the candidates) process of anointing a contender for the hot seat. So, this time around we’ll have double the number of concept candidacies, twice as many extremist loons who seemingly believe that they have a real shot, and two times as many blustering hollow shells who think that a nice hairdo is qualification enough for the highest office in our republic.

It should be a good show.

Next, fear. Recent news reports have handicapped the performance of the various presidential wannabes over the first quarter of fundraising. Prominent and smirking at the top of that list is Hillary Clinton. Unless Obama surprises everyone and turns in some huge numbers, Clinton is the clear leader in the Democratic money stakes. And that bothers me.

To be sure, the Democratic Party, and its members, have a perfect right to nominate whomever they choose. Individuals and companies have a perfect right to make donations to whomever they choose. But Jesus Swordswallowing Christ, why Hillary?

I simply do not understand the appeal of this woman to anyone, especially including Bill Clinton. Now, as a symbol, she has some plus points: a woman in politics, a former first lady, senator from a moderately serious state, an abused wife, etc. But as for her personal qualities, what she actually is, I can’t get it. She’s shrill, the cliché is her primary mode of discourse, she’s disingenuous, an obstructer of justice, her one major policy initiative was a failure for more reasons than I can comfortably list, and she’s married to Bill Clinton. As bad as I feel Hillary would be as President, the idea of that walking, glad-handling hormone as First Lady is starkly terrifying.

I sincerely hope, and am fervently praying, that the Democrats will nominate someone else. Even Kucinich would be an improvement.

Lastly, we have the GOP candidates. It would not be fair to compare, as Dennis Miller did of the 2004 Democratic candidates, the current lineup to that of the 68 Mets. But the only serious announced candidates are McCain, Romney, Guiliani. A mick, a mormon, a wop. And I don’t throw those slurs out randomly – they seem to actually reflect, to me at least, the characters of the candidates. McCain is famously hot tempered, and I’m sure there’s a bit of him that would like to get roaring drunk and beat the crap out of people. Mitt Romney acts like a Mormon: sober, responsible, good to his family, and just a leetle creepy. And Guiliani is slicker than Hell, and a bit of a womanizer, and one suspects that he might not be that good in a standup fight against the Germans.

While I have nothing against these front runners, I know enough about them that I’m not feeling particularly for them.

The other candidates, they don’t do much for me. Unless one of them pulls a rabbit out of his ass, none of them are going anywhere. (Where are you going? Nowhere.) I am a bit of a political junkie, and while I haven’t posted on politics in sometime, I do keep up. Up until I saw a list of GOP candidates, I had never heard of Ron Paul, I had to be reminded that Gilmore was once governor of my state, and Sam Brownback brought to mind several bad jokes that have nothing to do with Kansas. The rest are mostly faceless, characterless boobs. Not that I am singling them out for opprobrium – that is the nature of all but a few politicians.

Which leaves Fred Thompson. The Hunt for Red October. That was the first time I became aware of Fred Thompson, playing the role of Adm. Josh Painter in the movie version of Clancy’s best novel. "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it." Fred isn’t running yet, though Novak thinks he will, and the results of this interweb poll would seem to be encouraging.

I dig the guy. I think he’ll be the next Reagan. I hope he joins the race.

[wik] Thanks to the Maximum Leader for the link to the nifty interweb poll.