Primary Preview

After an excessive year of pre-election campaigning by our presidential candidates, we are now down to the beginning of primary voting. The first six weeks of 2008 will be telling, and all will look very different as early as mid-February. Even though it is all happening way too soon and for too long, it will be good to start sorting out the current playbill. Hence some observations below about where a year of 2007 campaigning has brought us:

The Republican field is shallow and un-inspires its own base; it still sounds like “more of the same,” with many aspirants but no one winning the “Reagan mantle.” The Democratic field is strong on credentials with enthusiastic supports; in the end they will galvanize around their final candidate.

The major issues are: Iraq; the emerging economic downturn; illegal (and legal?) immigration; and health care. People’s determining factors: fear of terrorism; desire for change of direction; end to government paralysis and polarization; need for competence in government. The person who connects on these wins. And the candidates:

- Biden: has been very impressive in his foreign affairs expertise and overall
manner, but just hasn’t caught on as a viable president.
- Clinton: not “inevitable,” and has stumbled, but has shown she would be a
formidable candidate; still unclear if she can win over her negatives and
demonstrate “change” versus her obvious intelligence and competency.
- Dodd: an effective Connecticut senator, but never viable nationally as president.
- Edwards: dead-on right about the corporate give-aways of this decade; but may be
too strident for those Americans looking for reconciliation in government.
- Gravel: Too harsh to be heard, regardless of message; disappearing from view.
- Guliani: Biden described him best --- “a noun, a verb, and ‘9/11” is all he can
speak to; the politics of fear needs to end.
- Huckabee: wins the Republican right platform with the least scary version of their
cause, and fulfills my early prediction of being “the sleeper” candidate; but is
there any substance under the good-humored folksiness?
- Kucinich: Don Quixote still lives, with ideas that still need to be voiced; could
still be the Secretary of Peace that he espouses in another’s administration.
- McCain: has thankfully rediscovered his integrity, but probably too late.
- Obama: clearly the freshest voice, very natural, confident and genuine; has not
fully answered “the experience question,” if that is ultimately deemed truly
relevant.
- Paul: following a unique path and message , showing surprising resonance and
strength with a specific constituency.
- Richardson: a good governor, a future cabinet member; has never found a
presidential personality.
- Romney: Joe Klein (Time magazine writer) said it best: “Mitt Romney seems
incapable of finding an issue where integrity trumps expediency”; the plastic man
is following an all-image / no substance path, and we have had 7 years too much of
that already.
- Thompson (Fred): the man riding the Republican right white horse has been a
complete bust; the pickup truck never got out of the garage.

GONE: Brownback, Hunter, Tancredo, (Tommy) Thompson.

On January 3, 2008, it’s all still very much a toss-up.