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| On Bullets Dodged |
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| Thank you, Jesus, for ending these campaigns |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, January 30, 2008. For all the complaining about the length of this election season and the confusions of some state primaries not really meaning anything, and the prejudices and the paranoia of the public in full flower, it really has been an energizing and exciting month. It helps that the four remaining nominees of substance – Clinton, Obama, McCain, and Romney – are demonstrably competent to step into the Oval Office. Competent, smart, and savvy. I cannot stand Mitt Romney, but he does know business and he has worked with a wide range of people, and has been hugely successful. McCain I retain bitter affection for, having witnessed the sleazy accusations of his own party against him that suggest he worked with his North Vietnamese captors for better treatment, and that fellow prisoners think he sold out, and all of that. He has been remarkably open minded on some issues, closed on others, but I do not doubt that his administration would be in the hands of educated, competent, adults. I’m a Democrat, and I’m right happy with either Obama or Clinton. I favor Clinton, because I want boring old competence first, enthused vitality second. Heaven can wait. What I’m most impressed about so far is that the lazy media, both mainstream and alternative, have had their templates cracked as they paddled unknown waters. Sure winner of the GOP nomination according to everyone last year, Rudi Giuliani has, I heard, acquired a single delegate. As he dropped out of the race, having turned his support to John McCain, it was somewhat reassuring that my personal, deep, and ferocious nausea about him seems now to be shared by virtually everyone who actually listened to his increasingly surreal, delusional, and sublimely stupid speeches. America’s Mayor, saddled across the devastation of the WTC, appeared more and more like the mean spirited, self-glorifying, pedophile protecting crypto-Catholic thug that he was. The more people saw of Giuliani and his mobbed up friends and their molls, the clearer the sleaze and hypocrisy. Like George Bush, Rudi always tries to compare himself favorably with famous, actual heroes of the past, at once both tasteless and self defeating because the need to do so is an admission it’s bogus. Has anybody ever listened to Rudi or Dubya and thought Churchill or Reagan or Lincoln had come again? America had a good look at Giuliani, was thoroughly revolted, and he can never recover. Folksy idiot Mike Huckabee is next down the tubes. His win in Iowa was a reflection of the deep bigotry against Mormons by the compassionate, open minded, corn fed yahoos from the GOP heartland. There is nothing there but a foaming Theocrat In Waiting. As with Giuliani, this ridiculous system has worked. Huckabee and Giuliani are bullets well dodged. John Edwards dropped out today. His was never a terribly convincing campaign. It always felt like he was in the wrong movie, trying to play to an electorate that exists only in the half formed minds of the nation’s Olde Left. His concerns were absolutely all valid, and holding corporate America’s feet to the fire is a very good idea these days, given our Vice President is a blatant war profiteer as Halliburton’s largest stockholder. Edwards would make a most interesting Attorney General, the thought of which must terrify far too many CEO’s. His may not be the temperament to serve under another, though. I wish the American Left would get over its fascination with enthused, honest, political belly button lint like Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, John Anderson, etc. They even find passing love with the Ron Paul’s of the world, although I hope it’s only because they are trying to peel off the most pre-Cambrian GOP conservatives to their own party. But, that would be granting the American Left an attention span beyond them. Look. Whenever devotees call Presidential candidates by their first name in conversation or letter to the editor – not nick names like Dubya, but first names like George or Dennis – it’s a sign of genuine dementia if not mere social climbing. Kucinich married a stunning new age bombshell since his last run, and I’m convinced the most meaningful amount of his support came from those who liked looking at her. I certainly did, but the idea of a President Dennis Kucinich is rather pathetic if the same criteria might give us a President Fred Thompson, the bona fides of his trophy wife assuming much attention. A fair amount of energy and money is wasted on these types, and then - in bitterness because the Cosmos has not provided a candidate with compatible views on Iraq, the subprime rate, and ground squirrel population control – their backers refuse to support a compromised candidate. And we get Bush and the neo-cons. |
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