Weekly Weigh-in - Presidential Prognostications

Yes, not seeing any particular story I felt like commenting on this week, I decided it was time to get out the ol' trusty crystal ball and make some presidential predictions. I.e., this post will be a chance for me to later say, "I told you so," should things go the way I predict, but of course I will lard it with enough caveats and qualifications that no one can say I was wrong, if in fact, I turn out to be wrong.

So, let's get started, eh? First of all, I feel pretty confident now in asserting that former Senator and TV "star" (one has to use that term pretty loosely, after all, to apply it in this case) Fred Thompson's campaign seems more or less dead on arrival. Consider this news about a straw poll of so-called "values voters." Seems to me if Thompson's main idea was to position himself as a viable, conservative alternative to the Mormon and the pro-choice Rudy "9/11" Giuliani, he might as well throw in the towel if he's gonna get whomped by that hypocrite Huckabee. Looks to me like Republicans have by and large accepted the idea that Thompson is a lazy bugger too slothful to pull any wagon he's hitched to.

In effect that seems to leave Romney and Giuliani to duke it out for the Republican nomination. (Huckabee, in spite of his appeal to the far right, is, precisely because of that appeal, pretty much unelectable in the general election, and won't get the nod because of that...And as for McCain, well I thought the obits for him were already written. Why's he still running? He has too much suspiciously non-conservative baggage to separate him from the Mormon and the mayor for the far right, and he's passed his sell-by date relative to those two for all the other primary voters.) So again, it'll probably be Romney versus Giuliani, a prospect that ought to make Democrats fairly cheerful.

Here's why: Mormonism is just gonna be too freaky-deaky for a lot of Republican voters, especially as things go into the stretch run and they learn more about it. Of course, this is not to say that more typical Republican candidates religion-wise don't believe some pretty whacked out s*#t (see Huckabee's notion that our heaven is duck hell, to paraphrase Jon Stewart), but at least that's whacked out s*#t those voters are used to. It's their whacked out s*#t, after all. Mormonism, not so much. Couple this with the fact that Romney himself was pretty much pro-choice and pro-gay rights not so very long ago, and I don't think primary voters are likely to see his telegenic chin as enough of an asset.

Which leaves Giuliani. As noted here last week, "America's Mayor" kind of seems like an asshole, and hangs out with people who definitely are (assholes, that is), but that sort of personality has never really dissuaded Republican voters (look at Bush, look at Nixon), and I think that Giuliani's, ahem, accomplishments ("9/11, 9/11/ 9/11") will be enough to get him the nomination. Ah, but then there is that problem of him being a thrice-married, pro-choice, gay-loving, transvestite. This will not sit well with a lot of those "values voters" and many have already stated their distress at the prospect. Indeed, they have even talked of fielding a third-party candidate of some sort - someone who, presumably, would do for Giuliani what Nader did for Gore and what Perot did for the older Bush idiot - should "9/11" win the Republican nomination. And heck, what with, y'know, Bush and Iraq and all the other problems of the Republican party, that should probably be enough to make the next president a Democrat, whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be.

And who will it be? Well, all signs point to Hillary (uh, Clinton) at this point. I, for one, am far from thrilled at this. Naturally, I know enough by now not to be thrilled by any politician, but I do find some candidates less nauseating than others. I suppose I would prefer Obama to Clinton, if only because I think he is somewhat less cynical than she is and because I think having him as president would do more to symbolize some of the things that genuinely are good about America vis-a-vis, say, Russia or Iran. Oh, and he strikes me as utterly competent, or competent as they come, for the job, which would be a nice change of pace from the last seven years. (Of course, on that score, the best thing about the race may be that any of the serious candidates in either party would almost certainly be a significant improvement over Bush.) But, again, Hillary does seem to have that air of inevitability about her. Obama will have to do something quick - or she will have to screw up badly, which seems unlikely, robot that she is - if he wants to render erroneous the writing on the wall. As it is, I think she'll be the nominee.

But speaking of caveats, yeah, I think a lot people find Clinton off-putting and unpleasant in various ways, and as noted above, I kinda understand that. But, she really does seem to be doing pretty well with the whole campaigning thing, and, let's face it, most voters are fickle mushheads with short memories and even shorter attention spans. If any campaign going can perform the slight-of-hand and misdirection necessary to make a seemingly cold and unpleasant person seem sufficiently humanoid for the general populace, it looks like it's Clinton's. Accordingly, given all the aforementioned albatrosses for any of the potential Republican nominees, I don't think Clinton's personality will be enough of a liabilty to keep her from becoming the first female president. Which would make for a pretty remarkable political comeback from the yesteryears of Hillary-care.

So there you have it: I'm going out on a limb here (okay, not really) and predicting a Hillary-"9/11" grudge match which the former first lady will win again, quite possibly with the aid of a third-party, wingnut candidate running almost entirely on a platform of great affection for embryos and intense hatred of homosexuals. And sure, that ultimate outcome (another Clinton presidency) is probably the conventional wisdom prediction at this point, but I invite you to scrutinize some of the above details, which are less CW, about why I think it will end up that way, and see just how closely they match the eventual reality.

Oh, and the election's still a year away, a lot can change, etc., etc., so if I turn out to be wrong, well, I think I've also just covered that, too :^P.