Looking Ahead — Fang’s Political Prognostications 2008 (#1)

Just thinking out loud here…

It seems for a change the Dems have a stronger bench than the Republicans for the upcoming presidential competition. The GOP is counting on McCain or Guiliani at this point. As Iraq goes, so will McCain. Five years in a VC prison couldn’t break his spirit, but this year’s presidential contest got the job done in record time. Bleeeaaahh. But it’s Iraq that’ll sink his candidacy and that’s acey-ducey with me. And Guiliani has a pretty fucking sordid past to get through the primaries intact, especially the critical Southern states, and has too many douschebag moments on record before he was a genuine bad-ass on 9-11. This is a guy too wide-open to being swift-boated for the party’s Big Thinkers to gamble on. Republicans tend to be conservative in action as well as political philosophy.

If a serious Republican contender emerges and it’s not a governor, and probably from a southern state, I’ll eat my hat. But fuck those guys, they know the odds are stacked against them this next time out, thanks to W. Finally something we can be grateful to W for.

Getting back to the Dem hopefuls…

Biden: Love the guy and he could probably do the job, but his loquacious flippancy just as often as not shoots him in his own dick. That’s funny on Larry King, but it’s not something I’m looking for in a chief exec. Pass. He can mix things up better as a senator than president.

I’m convinced Barack and Hillary will fuck each other up in the next ten months, and depress the shit out of all of us true believers. I miss Howard Dean’s early candidacy. There was a “Pow” in the air when he spoke (“I want my country back! I want my country back!”) that I haven’t seen in any of the Obama/Clinton footage. She is, as has been previously noted, an automaton; and he’s ‘articulate’ enough but to me seems more calculated than inspired. Smart, smart, smart and I want that in a POTUS, but to me his star power seems a little empty. As a speaker, he’s no Bill Clinton. Maybe that’s an unreasonable bar to hold him to, but there you have it. Like him, want to love him. But Hillary’s people will have us believing he’s a vampire who feasts on human flesh by this time next year.

A special “blow me” to John Edwards. At the same Dem get-together (2002 or 2003, here on Christmas Island) that had the roof blown off by Dean’s speech, Edwards was roundly and rightly booed for being an over-the-top cheerleader for the Iraq War. I thought then, “This is just a misguided man, not a bad one. Wish he was Vice President and we weren’t even talking about invading Iraq for Christ’s sake.” But he was real belligerent about what even I knew was a bad idea and that turned me off. I admired the strength of his convictions, just not the substance. He’s saying all the right shit now, but when crunch time came, his judgment was fucked. Pass.

I like Richardson and Gore. Richardson if he can stay above the fray, and Gore if he can get in late enough to have let the front-runners destroy each others’ credibility by then. We elected him once, I’d be happy to do it again. All we’d need then is a populist Southern governor VP to carry a few southern states and we’re gold, baby.

Just as important as the candidate, though, is the strategy, and I have a winner if the Democrats would like to hear it: Run against W instead of whoever the Republican candidate is. The GOP did that in 2000 – they ran a toothsome Dumbleyou against that nasty old Bill Clinton. Remember candidate W’s oft-repeated petulant bleat, “I’ll bring honor and integrity back to the White House!” That wasn’t Gore he was talking about – no whiff of actual scandal ever attached itself to Ozone Man. No, they ran against a guy who wasn’t even running and came close enough to winning to force a court decision.

That’s a good strategy.

It’s a wicked good strategy, especially when the current two-termer has a wildly unpopular war on his hands. And it’s an awesome strategy for a Change election, which 2008 undoubtedly will be.

As far as the candidates, I worry Richardson’s folksiness might work against him – too much like W, less the inappropriate smirk, malapropisms and nervous giggle. Richardson’s a guy who could do the job, but could he be elected? The jury’s out. His national profile is nil, though that could work for him. Like Gore, Richardson has to sit this early bloodletting out as long as he possibly can to remain potentially viable. Till the money that really wins campaigns starts looking for someone undamaged to invest in.

Yeah, all this way out, Fang’s crystal ball says we should be watching Richardson and crossing our fingers for Gore. A Gore/Richardson ticket running against Iraq, cronyism and gross federal incompetence might be just the ticket…