No Resolution

When I was in high school and college, lo these many years ago, the big flashpoint political issues that I can recall talking about were:

• Abortion
• Affirmative action
• The Cold War
• Balancing environmental protection with economic growth
• Illegal immigration
• Gay rights
• Responding to unstable conditions in the middle east
• Patriotism (mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance; flag-burning)
• Runaway Federal deficit spending
• Extramarital affairs of politicians
• Crime

Things haven't changed a whole lot in twenty-five years, have they? The Cold War has gone away but we're looking at "containment" and appropriate responses to nuclear-armed Iran and North Korea. Russia is also still, in some senses, a strategic rival kept in check by superior military power. So our "Cold War" concerns have transformed from a bipolar world to a multipolar one.

We're still worried about the extramarital affairs of politicians (John Edwards), and gay rights (marriage, these days), and demonstrations of patriotism (remember all the hand-wringing about Obama not wearing a flag pin on his lapel?). And unstable conditions in the Middle East?

In fact, about the only thing that seems to no longer be an issue, or at least not a huge one, is crime.

So my question is, what's happened? Why have we done nothing to move towards resolution or consensus on these issues? Have our leaders let us down? Have we let ourselves down, shouting at one another instead of listening?

Let us try to at least listen to one another in the future and understand the legitimate, good-intentioned concerns of those with whom we disagree.

I am pro-choice. But I recognize that pro-lifers have a legitimate concern about when human life begins and that our laws ought not to sanction killing innocent human beings. That does not mean I agree with them that an embryo that has only been fertilized for six weeks is a human being worthy of that protection -- but it does mean I can see how a fetus six weeks away from a scheduled childbirth could easily be considered one. In return, I ask that a pro-lifer understands that my concerns about personal bodily autonomy and control of one's decision to have sex and reproduce (or not), the government not interfering in private medical decisions between a patient and her doctor, and caution about allowing religious doctrine to control public policy are also not frivolous.

I am generally against affirmative action. But I recognize that historically, various groups of people who do not look like me have had the doors of opportunity slammed in their faces, and that history leaves a legacy which makes it difficult for those same sorts of people today to get the same kinds of opportunities that I may take for granted. And I understand that their social and historical experiences are different than my own and present valid and valuable perspectives on things. So I can see how "diversity" is important even if I do not believe that affirmative action is the right way to get it. In return, I ask that affirmative action proponents understand that fair processes involve opportunities and not results, and that the results of legitimate processes may not always conform to demographics.

I am in favor of same-sex marriage. But I recognize that people have great caution about changing a long-established social tradition. In return, I ask opponents of same-sex marriage to recognize that gay people want to have the same access to social normalcy as straight people do, and to set aside their personal dislike for gays at least enough to recognize their fundamental equality with us straight folks.

I think we should have opened immigration, with easy access to guest worker programs and a standardized and relaistic path to naturalization. But I understand that those who would restrict access to the legal right to be present in and work in the United States do not do so for evil motives like racism (well, not all of them), but rather from a concern about the economic health of our country. In return, I ask that they understand that economic immigrants are a fact of life who deserve to be dealt with in intelligent, humane ways.

See, this is not so very hard. Why does the ability to at least understand the concerns of a different point of view seem to have escaped so many people? Why do we have to keep on arguing about the same stuff, over and over again for more than half of my life?

Big Campaign News

Yes, it’s true: John Edwards will endorse Barack Obama tonight. So for my delegate tracker, I’ve moved Edwards’ delegates to Obama. But sorry, Obamafans: HRC isn’t dropping out yet. She promises, though, to work her heart out for “whoever the nominee is.” Even if that turns out to be someone other than her. Because she has the best interests of the Democratic party at heart:

Plagiarism And Confabulation

It's getting so you can't believe what anyone says anymore. No one writes their own material, and even when they do, it's nothing but fiction.

A best-seller in Europe has been a story of a woman who describes the Nazis taking her parents away from her when she was a little girl, and then walking nearly 2,000 miles to find them after being literally adopted by a pack of wolves. Turns out -- she made the whole thing up. She's not even Jewish.

A Bush White House aide lifted whole sections of someone else's work to write an op-ed for a newspaper. He got resigned for that today.

Deval Patrick (the Governor of Massachusetts) doesn't think that Barack Obama took more than "two words" of one of his own speeches, but apparently he and Obama share material all the time and don't tell anyone.

Hillary Clinton, she who cast the "plagiarism" stone at Obama, is not above criticism herself:

It's getting so you can't believe what anyone says about anything anymore; how are we supposed to make a decision about anything when no one says anything of their own and on those rare instances when they do it's just plain not true?

A Little Early

I'm thinking that maybe I've written the Clinton campaign's obituary a bit early. She's got double-digit leads in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, although Obama seems to be winning everywhere else. And given that there will be somewhere between 800 to 1,000 superdelegates, it's quite likely that the primaries will not actually determine anything. Most of the superdelegates are not committing to either Obama or Clinton, it seems -- and looking at the various counts from yesterday, Obama's lead, while significant politically, is not so great numerically. So it seems likelier to me upon more sober reflection that they will be within tens of pledged delegates of each other upon completion of the South Dakota primary.

So given that there are more unallocated delegates than either candidate has pledged or committed to either of them, and they've been breaking about 60/40 in each state for the winner, it's pretty clear that this won't really be decided until Denver, and while Obama will have the argument that he is both more popular (got more votes) and polling better against John McCain, Clinton will have the argument that she has more machinery available and more people owe her favors. I'm now limiting my prediction to a brokered convention, and I can't get a good read on who wins, or how many ballots it takes for the Democrats to figure this out. Maybe John Edwards and his 26 delegates really will be kingmakers.

John Edwards Endorsement Announcement

With the Democratic race narrowing, the endorsement of John Edwards might just prove decisive. So of course we've all been waiting to see if this tips the balance.

South Carolina and Nevada

A bigger night for Republicans than Democrats. The Democrats' primary in South Carolina is next week.

The early results appear to have John McCain winning South Carolina despite a strong showing among the evangelical voters there for Mike Huckabee. It also looks like, by clear majorities, Mitt Romney won Nevada. Ron Paul seems to have come in second place in Nevada, which adds some credibility to his faltering campaign. Duncan Hunter is dropping out and has not, yet, endorsed anyone. Fred Thompson came in third in South Carolina but I don't think that will be enough to keep him viable. But I also can't think of a good reason why he should drop out of the race until at least February 6.

For the Democrats, it seems odd to me that Hillary Clinton is being called the winner despite Barack Obama getting one more delegate than her out of the state. John Edwards got only single-digit support in Nevada and no delegates. I think Edwards is out of steam, but I can't think of what incentive he would have to drop out at this point -- he does not want to be anyone's running mate and has made that very clear.

I've updated the delegate counter to conform with CNN's projections, which includes pledged superdelegates and similar kinds of delegate support, despite the fact that not all the delegates come directly from elections or caucuses. The overall picture is one of uncertainty -- both parties would like to coalesce around a candidate, but both are unable to really decide whether or not to do that yet.

New Feature and Iowa Results

I'm going to keep track of the estimated delegates gathered by each candidate. It will appear in the right-hand sidebar. Looking at the delegate count, Obama's victory does not seem as decisive as press reports would have you believe. And while I called a narrow Romney victory in Iowa, it turns out that Huckabee had a fairly impressive (9%) margin of victory there. This suggests that in other evangelical-heavy states, like South Carolina, he will also do well.

Note that these delegate projections are just that -- projections. The actual pledging of delegates from Iowa does not happen until several months from now. The Wyoming county conventions which will take place on Friday will produce similar "soft" delegate commitments; binding delegate selection there does not take place for several more days. "Hard" pledged delegates will come out of New Hampshire on Tuesday. (I keep on thinking the NH primary was moved to a day other than Tuesday, for some reason, but that's just not right.)

So the delegate results from Iowa (don't forget, all of this electioneering is aimed at getting delegates to the national conventions to vote for the various candidates) will be more or less like this:

Democrats			Republicans
Obama	16		Huckabee	17
Clinton	15		Romney	12
Edwards	14		McCain	3
			Thompson	3
			Paul	2

But that's not the whole picture at the moment. Other "hard" pledging of delegates or readily-identifiable delegate commitments -- Bill Clinton, for example, is automatically a "superdelegate" to the Democratic National Convention (as are just under a quarter of the voting delegates overall). Gee, who do you think he'll vote for? So too are many of the candidates themselves automatically delegates by virtue of their holding elected office and we have to assume that they'll vote for themselves. This is more of a factor for the Democrats than the Republicans, and it explains why so many delegates are already pledged to Hillary Clinton. But there are some non-Iowa delegates out there who have already committed to some other candidates, so this affects them both.

I note that a few minor players -- Joe Biden and Chris Dodd -- are dropping out after Iowa. They've not yet released their delegates to anyone so far as I know. Everyone, myself included is anticipating Fred Thompson to drop out soon, too. He may hang in there until after New Hampshire, though. I'm still predicting a significant McCain win in the Granite State. Rudy Giuliani will have to wait for Florida before having a chance of showing significant wins -- not that he has a choice.

I'm particularly tickled to see Mitt Romney having spent... what? Seven million dollars in Iowa? To come in second place? I'm kind of sad to think that some of the reason for that is overt religious prejudice, because I don't think anyone's religion should be held against them unless it teaches bizarre moral imperatives. But at the same time, the man is a huge fake and this puts his campaign in some trouble. He needs to win New Hampshire now. And let me check... Ah yes. McCain is leading Romney there by an average of five points.

So stay tuned, junkies, this is going to get real interesting in a week.

Best Hit Ad In The Race So Far

Does Hillary Clinton waffle on issues? John Edwards sure thinks so, and there's some pretty good evidence to that effect:

A Decision I Would Not Have Made

I can't say whether continuing his campaign for President is the right decision for John Edwards or not. That's a call that only he and his family can make, given his wife's very unfortunate medical condition.

Certainly they are well off and she will not want for good medical care, but her cancer is metastasized and that's not a good thing at all, whether you are well off and running for President, or financially challenged in obscurity. No one would want that sort of thing to happen in their lives, although of course thousands of people confront this very issue every day. Certainly it lends some urgency to Edwards' health care platform. But at a human level, obviously, Democrats and Republicans alike are wishing Elizabeth Edwards and their entire family the best in the face of bad news and trying circumstances.

For me, it would be an easy call -- I would want to be with my wife as much as possible, no matter what, and it would be a no-brainer, no-second-thoughts kind of decision. But when I mentioned this to The Wife last night, she said that if I were in that position, she would want me to pursue my dream and wouldn't want to feel responsible for holding me back.

I wonder if John and Elizabeth Edwards didn't have a similar sort of conversation, only for real, and the results were kind of the same. I can't imagine how it could be otherwise in a loving relationship. It would be a hard decision for a couple to make, that's for sure; obviously, they've decided that Senator Edwards should continue his campaign, and as the linked article says, they want people to evaluate the Senator on his merits, not on sympathy for Elizabeth's condition.

Like I said, I can't say whether this is the right decision or not; my family is not the Edwards family and they had to figure out what would be the right call for them. And maybe it's an easy decision for me to make, or at least to say I would make, because I do not have a burning desire to be President. But if it were me, I would have put the campaign into a low-key mode to be with my wife as much as I could.

Funny Name, Serious Numbers

I keep telling you Loyal Readers, Rudy can win.

Fresh results from Quinnipiac University’s Polling Institute indicating that Giuliani would beat Clinton in two of three key swing states confirm this: Rudy takes Florida by 5 points, Pennsylvania by 11 points, with a convincing 51% of the vote, and loses Ohio by only 1 point. He does even better against Barack Obama and absolutely crushes John Edwards. John McCain ties Clinton in Florida, loses Ohio by 3, and wins Pennsylvania by 6. Mitt Romney does… um… not so good, not winning a single matchup against any of the Democratic contenders.

That’s probably why Intrade’s political futures market looks like this today:

Candidate	Nomination	Election
Hillary Clinton	44.3	25.0
Rudy Giuliani	40.1	22.6
Barack Obama	29.9	19.9
John McCain	24.0	16.9
Al Gore	12.0	11.4
Mitt Romney	18.9	8.8
John Edwards	8.7	7.0

These are the asking prices for $100 contracts – pay $40.10 for a Giuliani nomination contract, and if he winds up getting the nomination, you’ll be paid $100. As you can see, the collective wisdom of the market of people betting real money on these propositions favors Clinton and Giuliani to be their respective parties’ nominees (by comfortable margins, natch) and only gives Clinton a slight-to-moderate edge over Giuliani in the general election.

And odd indeed that there continues to be an active market for Al Gore – is this the result of an active community of true Gore believers still unwilling to let go of the 2000 election, or is there really something to a Gore candidacy – despite the lack of any indication that he’s interested in trying for the job again? If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the Greater Fool Theory in action.

Sure, like Glenn Reynolds says, it’s early yet. But what this should tell you is that Rudy can win. It’s a close call for McCain and a long shot for Romney. Rudy’s the best bet the GOP has going. If George W. Bush was supposed to be the nominee in 2000 based on nothing more than his ultimate electability, then the easy call for Republicans is indeed for Rudy Giuliani.

One Place Rudy Can Improve

Let's face it. Rudy needs a better website. Other candidates’ exploratory committees and campaigns have good-looking websites with lots of content.

John McCain’s website looks very sharp, it has good video feeds and is packed with information. It’s easily the best website of the big six campaigns. Mitt Romney’s website is also content-rich and seems to be updated hourly; it also looks more patriotic and less scary than McCain’s black-and-white motif. Hillary Rodham Clintons’ website looks more traditional in its presentation, but again there is plenty of content and it’s friendly to the eye. Barack Obama’s website looks like a well-designed myspace site, and is perhaps a bit over-friendly in its design (large, smoothed icons, etc.) which may be the point. I guess John Edwards is back in the mix of things now, thanks to being the victim of a name-calling over the weekend. His website loads slow – a cardinal sin for web marketers – but is very content-rich; I would suggest to Edwards’ campaign staff that all the video they’ve got requires a faster server than what’s being used now.

But Rudy’s website looks like it was hastily-thrown together at the last minute by someone who neither knows nor cares about such things. A good website probably won’t gain you any converts to your cause who have already committed to someone else. But it will gain you credibility with undecideds. It makes it look like you take the campaign seriously and you want to attract votes and tell people about yourself. Rudy’s website falls short of the competition’s. Surely there is more than one good picture of the man to use on the site, and surely there are pieces of news to announce other than the addition of this or that politico to the team (although that is important, it is also not something of much interest to the general public).

Get Out, Ann. Right Now.

I would prefer to treat Ann Coulter's role in the contemporary Republican party the way I would treat a sunburn on my ass -- ignore it and hope it goes away. But sometimes you need to speak out on things. Things like this.



This bit of sunburn I can't ignore. No responsible Republican should. The number of things wrong with Coulter's statement are legion.

Get out, Ann. Get out of my party. Get out of my movement. There ought to be no place for you or bigots like you or this kind of statement at the annual premier political event of the conservative movement.

For those Republicans (or conservatives, if you prefer) at the conference who applauded and laughed: shame on you. Shame on you for approving of that. Even if you are not ashamed of being bigots, you should be ashamed to be such fools as to to hand our adversaries so much ammunition.

To Mitt Romney: you want to be President? Then you have no choice but to retract your introductory remarks of Coulter and condemn her instead, and do it fast. Do it today. Certainly do it before you leave CPAC tomorrow. The Democrats will not forget this and they will use it against you in the general election.

To the rest of the world: please forgive the rest of us. We're not like that. That's not what we're all about. We're about limited government, lower taxes, balanced budgets, having the government treat everyone the same, a strong defense, and the fair administration of justice. Ann Coulter is a diseased wart in the armpit of the body politic and she needs to be rejected by the marketplace.

UPDATE (March 4, 2007): Every Democrat in the universe was quick to pounce on the remark, and John Edwards is using the event to raise "Coulter Cash" for his campaign. All three major Republican candidates (Giuliani, McCain, and Romney) have condemned the remark, demonstrating that they are grownups. Coulter cannot make the same claim; she apparently sent an e-mail to the New York Times that said "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean." Something is clearly very wrong with this person and she needs to go away. Here's how it happens: Quit buying her books!

Elephants Getting In Line

The Giuliani campaign website made two significant announcements yesterday while I was at judge school downtown. First, a “Massachusetts Leadership Team” was announced with a bunch of prominent-seeming Republicans including a majority of the Republicans in the Massachusetts State Senate. This is a huge early swipe at Mitt Romney, since it reflects that he doesn’t even have the solid backing of fellow Republicans in his own state. Romney, seemingly anticipating both this defection from the Massachusetts GOP as well as an inability to carry the state in the general election, seems to have moved towards adopting Michigan as his “home” state despite his Massachusetts credentials.

Second, Rudy apparently earned a sterling endorsement from National Review, or at least one of the of Weekly Journal of Americans Who Wish They Could Vote Tory’s frequent correspondents. It’s not clear to me whether this is an NR endorsement or not. Nor am I entirely sure if NR remains the flagship publication of the conservative “movement,” or whether it has been supplanted in that role by the Weekly Standard or maybe even the American Spectator. It sure looks like NR is behind the endorsement.

It sure looks like the pitch of Giuliani to conservatives has been going very well, and even principled conservatives who may disagree with Giuliani on social issues are coming to intellectually accept that he’s their best shot at keeping the White House in GOP hands. This may well turn the Republican primary into a protracted and subtle dance of what kinds of concessions the Giuliani Administration will be willing to make to social conservatives. (I wonder if this was part of the plans in the playbook that went missing and got leaked; probably not, though.)

That this is happening now, twenty months before the general election, is a very good sign, because it demonstrates that the GOP is getting its house in order early. That is more than the Democrats can say – Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama seem to be gaining momentum, and their early jockeying for position between themselves has so far seemed ineffectual. John Edwards is looking like an also-ran at this point, which must be a great disappointment to him. But hey, it’s still early.

Given the strong initial showing that Giuliani is making, I’ll be surprised if Newt Gingrich gets involved at this point as a candidate. Maybe it ends with Newt as Rudy's running mate? That would certainly please social conservatives, and it lets Newt do what he did best, which is to serve as an attack dog. This might be more appealing than Elizabeth Dole as Rudy’s running mate. That’s just an idea thrown out for discussion, not a prediction or an endorsement. The point is, Gingrich would be well-advised to not get in the ring now, and it looks like Rudy pushed a reasonably impressive play yesterday to marginalize Romney. That leaves only two dogs in the fight of any magnitude, and Rudy seems to be betting that he can take McCain in the early primaries.

This is because McCain is distrusted by social conservatives. He may or may not be a good legislator, and I say that the fact that he makes deals at all with Democrats suggests that he at least has the skill set of a good legislator. Republicans’ evaluation of him in this respect should depend on the manner of the use of those skills; whether his history is of reaching acceptable compromises with Democrats or whether he has repeatedly given the farm away to the other side when it was unnecessary to do so. But, having the skill set of a good legislator, or even that of a good soldier, does not mean that he has the skill set of a good President. He’s led his fellow captive soldiers through an unimaginable ordeal, and he’s led his legislative staff through difficult political waters. But he has never governed anything; his political career consists of three terms in the House and three terms in the Senate.

Speaking of which, why haven’t any Democratic Governors caught fire like Obama yet? Bill Richardson has a damned impressive resume. Presidents are historically picked from the executive class of politicians, not the legislative class, as I demonstrated last September. So far, all the Democratic candidates have only legislative experience, unless you want to claim that being First Lady was executive experience for Hillary (which in her case might not be a weak case to make).

So think about it – the ticket could be Giuliani-Gingrich now, with the subtle promises of favoring social conservatives for judicial appointments that we began to hear this week (the subject of some comments I made a few days ago). Is that enough to get “values voters” and their dollars, volunteers, and church-centered social networks on board?

And is this how Presidential campaigns are going to be from now on – very early jockeying for position, even before any primaries are held, resulting in an effective anointment during the primary season? That seems to be what happened to John Kerry in 2004, and George W. Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996, and even Bill Clinton in 1992 (although he lost the New Hampshire primary to Paul Tsongas, he swept everything after that). The last really strongly-contested primary season was 1988 for the Democrats.

February 7

Further to a comment made earlier by my good buddy Salsola, it looks more likely that California will change the date of its Presidential primary from June to February. This would dramatically shift the dynamics of the Presidential nomination process.

As it stands now, the first delegates up for grabs will be in Iowa, then Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Nevada's early place in the process is relatively new. After that, traditionally, comes "Super Tuesday," an amalgamation of about ten states, mostly but not exclusively in the South, and then a series of primaries. California's has traditionally been last, or close to it, in the process, meaning that for recent memory, each party's nominee has clinched the nomination prior to California's primary, meaning that California is effectively without a direct vote in the nomination process. Instead, California's role has been to be the political ATM -- candidates come here to raise money and spend it to attract votes elsewhere.

Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal would change that. Indeed, California's primary would be more important than "Super Tuesday," both because it comes earlier in the process and because it combines the money with the votes. It would also tilt both parties' primaries to the left. For that reason, moderate or centrist Republicans would benefit, at the expense of harder-right choices. At the same time, more progressive Democrats would benefit at the expense of the DLC crowd. If the format for the primary is "winner-take-all" (meaning that all of California's delegates would be pledged to the plurality selection) this effect would be magnified.

If this happens, it is a big boost to Guiliani, the most moderate of the significant candidates. John McCain cannot, I would think, take California because of his pro-life stance. Mitt Romney would also have difficulty based on his courtship of religious voters.

On the Democratic side, it looks to me like it breaks in favor of Hillary Rodham Clinton at the expense of John Edwards and Barack Obama. Both Edwards and Obama have been at pains to paint themselves as centrists, but Clinton still labors under the reputation of being an unabashed liberal. She actually has tried to defeat that reputation during her tenure in the Senate and would like to portray herself as a moderate. I don't think she's been very successful.

So, this would set up a Guiliani versus Clinton matchup. Right now, Guiliani would seemingly win such a contest handily (354 electoral votes to 184), but it's a long way between now and November of 2008.

One by One, The Gladiators Enter The Arena

John Edwards announced a few weeks ago, and became the first candidate anticipated to have a big impact on the race to formally declare. About 45 minutes ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton, another one of the big players, formally declared her candidacy. The third Democrat making big noise, Barack Obama, has so far only formed an exploratory committee. So far, no formal announcements from any Republicans; Guiliani, McCain, and Romney are all in the exploratory committee phase.

This seems about right to me -- Edwards and Clinton have fundraising machinery left over from previous national campaigns (Clinton's will be borrowed from her husband to some degree) but of the other candidates, only McCain has even attempted a national campaign, and he didn't get very far, and it was six years ago. The point of having an "exploratory committee" is to let people know that you're interested in the job and to try and build a network of support. So the other four candidates have some building to do, while Edwards and Clinton can have a higher degree of confidence at an early stage that there will be money to fuel their campaigns.

CNN has a graphic that shows something like a dozen contenders in each party right now. I've had back luck with linking to CNN's popup boxes before, but I'll gamely try again. My suspicion, though, is that there's a little reaching going on there. Many of the mentioned "candidates," like Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Condoleezza Rice, would only be medium-sized fish if they did start angling for their parties' nominations, which they have not yet done (and in Rice's case, she has openly disclaimed any interest in the job). The rest are, no disrespect intended, little fish. Bill Richardson and Wesley Clark might be able to grow in stature somewhat, but I'm just not going to put any money down on a Tom Tancredo or a Jim Gilmore, or on the other side a Tom Vilsack or a Dennis Kucinich.

Iowa's caucuses, the first actual measure of any kind of voter support (and hardly a meaningful measurement at that) will not be held for another fifty-one weeks, until January 14, 2008. Between now and then, the only quantifiable measure we will have of support will be fundraising and press attention. I've expressed my preference.

Speaking of Presidential Hopefuls...

Sure he doesn't want you to look at the picture in this week's People magazine. He's really embarassed by the fact that every newspaper, political website, and television station in the country is showing it. After all, most politicians value their privacy and just want to enjoy the beach in peace, right?

I'm reminded of the last Presidential primaries. Back in 2004, The Wife liked John Edwards for President because he was "the cute one." Sure, Edwards was cuter than, say, John Kerry or Howard Dean (whose campaign ended not because of how he looked but rather how he sounded).

Fact is, it doesn't take too much to be a good-looking politician; most of our politicos are of "average" attractiveness at best. Barack Obama is above-average in the looks department, no question, and a lot younger than many of his colleagues in the Senate. That might just be a handicap -- a youthful-looking, attractive politician can be thought of as a lightweight and not taken seriously like a less attractive adversary who nevertheless seems "statesmanlike."

So quit drooling all over the guy and let Senator Obama do his job, folks. Which apparently consists, at least in part, of bodysurfing in Hawaii near paparazzi. I'm sure the home crowds in De Kalb County are quite satisfied with that.

Encouragement

A friend sent me this site, of which I was not previously aware. There is some good news here, but more along the lines of encouragement than anything else. This far out from the election, surveys of this nature are more about name recognition than actual candidate preference. But the ability to index specific candidates against one another is quite useful. It's particularly useful to weed out the kinds of people who have a profile from those who don't and the kinds of people who are thought of as Presidential material and those who are not.

For the Democrats, the choices seem to be John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Al Gore, with Mark Warner as an also-ran. For the Republicans, the choices are Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, with also-rans including Mitt Romney, Condoleezza Rice, and Newt Gingrich. More or less absent from the list of viable candidates include Wesley Clark, George Allen, Bill Richardson, Bill Frist, and Tom Vilsack. McCain and Giuliani both look to be head and shoulders above the rest of the field.

It's easy to put too much weight on stuff like this -- simple name recognition is enough to top out polls like this. As the actual election starts to come closer in time, the public will learn more about the various candidates and the numbers will start to change. But all the same, it's a heads-up for the upcoming campaign.

Presidential Professions

A day after I considered the widespread (and possibly premature) political obituaries about George Allen's Presidential ambitions, the Wall Street Journal has suggested someone who might step into the shoes of Senator Allen -- Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Not a perfect fit for the religious Republicans, perhaps, but close enough.

Romney has the advantage of being a governor, and thus a member of the executive class. Consider for a moment the backgrounds of the Presidents who have been elected since the start of the twentieth century:

26. Theodore Roosevelt -- Vice-President of U.S.A., Assistant Secretary of Navy, military service, Police Commission of New York City
27. William Howard Taft -- Governor-General of the Philippines, Secretary of War
28. T. Woodrow Wilson -- Governor of New Jersey, President of Princeton University
29. Warren G. Harding -- U.S. Senator
30. J. Calvin Coolidge -- Vice-President of U.S.A., Governor of Massachusetts
31. Herbert C. Hoover -- Secretary of Commerce
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt -- Governor of New York
33. Harry S. Truman -- U.S. Senator, briefly Vice-President of U.S.A.
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower -- General, U.S. Army
35. John F. Kennedy -- U.S. Senator
36. Lyndon Johnson -- Vice-President of U.S.A., U.S. Senator
37. Richard Nixon -- Vice-President of U.S.A.
38. Gerald Ford -- Vice-President of U.S.A.
39. Jimmy Carter -- Governor of Georgia
40. Ronald Reagan -- Governor of California
41. George W. Bush -- Vice-President of U.S.A., Director of CIA
42. Bill Clinton -- Governor of Arkansas
43. George W. Bush -- Governor of Texas

Of these eighteen men, only four (Harding, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson) had significant amounts of legislative experience in their backgrounds. The other fourteen presented backgrounds of executive experience. The most common item on that list is service as the governor of a state (7) followed closely by service as Vice-President of the United States. The last time a President whose background was legislative was elected President was 1964 -- and Johnson was the incumbent President and had served for two years as Vice-President. To find a man elected President from within the ranks of the legislature, you need to go all the way back to the dark horse candidacy of Warren G. Harding in 1920.

We Americans like to elect executives to be our chief executive, simple as that. It's a trend that transcends partisanship. So forget people like John McCain, George Allen, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. Start thinking about people like Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, the aforementioned Mitt Romney, and Rudy Guiliani.

(And once again, Condi doesn't want to be President!)