As has been duly noted by both pundits and the press, the 2008 Presidential election cycle has begun earlier and become intense faster than any other election in the history of this country. With Bush a lame duck and Cheney steadfastly remaining out of the race, there is no clear successor. Indeed, the only person running who has resided in the White House before in any capacity is Hillary Clinton (now there's a scary thought).

The mantra of the masses at this point seems to be that starting a year early is too early to care. In November 2003, the 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidate was almost assuredly either Wesley Clark or Howard Dean.

Fortunately (or, for some perhaps, unfortunately) we're Americans, and we have some sort of duty to care about politics. This is an opportune time, because the races are heated enough that we're seeing actual clash between candidates of the same party on their positions, but the races are early enough that the candidates are not yet "refined" -- if you're lucky, the truth about what they really believe may actually slip out. How terrible!

Such a gaffe occurred for the aforementioned Senator Clinton during the most recent Democratic debate. Blake Dvorak, writing for Real Clear Politics on 11/3/07, discusses what many viewers saw that night: "...the veil dropped ever so slightly and threatened to unravel months of public-image building" for the Clinton campaign.

The misstep has to do with Clinton's Kerry-ish doubletalk on the issue of driver's licenses for illegal immigrants (she was for it and then when called out on it, claimed to be against it). Immediately following the debate, the Clinton camp cried foul, that moderator Tim Russert wasn't playing nice, the other candidates were overtly ganging-up on Clinton.

Boo-hoo. That comes with the territory of being the party frontrunner. If you can't handle it, you definitely can't handle being President, where both parties gang up on you, and you have no allies anywhere.

Of course Clinton didn't address the actual point of the criticism, which was that she changes positions more than Glenn Quagmire. Thankfully, though, other candidates are not letting go, and are trying to hold Mrs. Clinton accountable for her actions. The Edwards camp released a "Clinton-on-Clinton" style video of all of her positions on certain issues that night: The Politics of Parsing. That's certainly a must-see.

The only other Democratic candidate to care about at this point is Barack Hussein Obama. He currently finds himself in second place in the race, despite his political inexperience (having only served one term in the Senate he is able to claim only slightly less actual elected experience than the 1.333 term Senator from Arkansas by way of New York). His politics have always been much like John Edwards -- positive and uplifting. Unfortunately, politics is a dirty game and he's learning that rather quickly. The transition is always hard from positive politics to character attacks.

Character attacks are a part of presidential politics, as they should be. The character of the man (I stress that gendered noun) we elect to lead our nation should be important in making our decision. Sure, a person can have great sense in politics, foreign policy, economics, and societal culture, but if we can't believe a word out of their mouths or think they'll sacrifice their principles to gain a little power, how can we elect them? (I'm speaking generally of course; I realize most politicians fit those two categories.)

The rest of the Democratic field is a group of also-rans. As for the Republicans, I have no idea what to make of either Sam Brownback's endorsement of John McCain (don't vote McCain) or, more strangely, Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Guiliani (don't vote Guliani). There will be more of those two endorsement deals later, with added information about their signing bonuses and Nike commercial contracts.

The Republicans are faced with the possibility of splintering the party along lines of social issues. The leading candidate (Guliani) is liberal on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. There's debate as to who the #2 man is -- Mitt Romney (this country won't elect a Mormon president; end of discussion), Fred Thompson (man, his wife is hot), or John McCain (but no, seriously, don't vote McCain).

Right now I will say this: the next President is not among any of the aforementioned Republican candidates. I'm not saying one of those candidates doesn't get the nomination, I'm just saying they aren't going to be the next President.

You can quote me.

There will be vastly more discussion to come on the Election of 2008 and each of the individual candidates. Stay tuned.

Labels: Democrats, Election 2008, Republicans