The Candidates

For the benefit of almost nobody, here is the BestView on the leading candidates for the presidency. I wish I was sufficiently gifted with the written word to convey my lack of enthusiasm for this election.

1. Hillary is maybe the one dem which might not be as bad as one fears, but that is only because she is one who is rightly feared so widely. There is just no way to stomach her on the TV every day. I am praying, but would it help if I begged?

2. Obama is a liberal and would be a liberal if elected, but of all the dems, he would probably be the preferred one. A dangerous blank slate on foreign matters.

3. Edwards would be a disaster. This ambitious phony makes Hillary look moderate and must be defeated. Again I beg.

4. Giuliani is almost a prototypical New York politician. He is basically a liberal and ethically challenged.

5. Romney is a little too shifty for my taste. Again, here is a northeast liberal who will flop back on some of his flips if elected, I think. Better than Giuliani, but mainly because of higher morals and character.

6. McCain is maddening if you consider his absolutely absurd positions on taxes, campaign finance, and tendency to crawl in bed with liberals in the Senate. I would hold nose to vote for him if nominated. It is also reported that he is basically a jerk.

7. Huckabee might be as liberal as Hillary. There is no way to evaluate him on foreign policy since he probably hasn't even thought about the subject yet. I am also inclined to think if someone is smart, honest, religious, etc, one need not mention it....repeatedly.

8. Ron Paul is the most interesting candidate of them all. He is absolutely solid on some of his domestic philosophy, but none of what he believes would ever come to be....such as scrapping the income tax without offsetting it except by budget cuts. No Department of Education, Energy, Housing, etc. ? O.K. with me, but not gonna happen. His foreign policy is even more radical. This will supposedly be a "change election", but not that great a change.

All the pundits say this is going to be a dem year and that is the most favorable factor for the republicans. If the experts are all correct, however, an Obama/McCain contest is about as good as it is likely to get. The veep pick of both will be crucial. Obama needs someone like McCain on the ticket with him (say Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia) and McCain needs a running mate who is clearly qualified to be President and also appealing to the conservative base (say another Georgian who was once Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich).