Playing to win

Two weeks ago, I was ready to bet that the GOP would have a brokered convention. And the Democrats would have a candidate all locked up before its convention.

Now, it looks like it's just the other way around. McCain's got the GOP pretty much locked up now while Clinton and Obama are running neck-and-neck toward a convention showdown which could be, uh, contentious.

Wadda I think about all this? On the GOP side, about all I can do is chuckle. McCain ain't bad as far as Republicans go. Which is just the problem facing the GOP. He is far from conservative enough to satisfy the neocons, fundamentalist snake handling tongue talking evangelicals and related wackos. In fact, he's pretty centrist. That said, I don't think he's electable. Conservative Republicans are likely to not support or vote for him because he isn't the march-in-lockstep litmus test conservative they're praying for. Democrats won't support him because he's, well, not a Democrat. Given that narrowed base, he'd better start digging up a lot of Illinois voters. (Thank God FlipFlop Romney and FlatEarth Huckabee are fading into the background. What losers!)

On the Democratic side, I'm a bit ambivalent.

Clinton's been painted with a rather harsh and unfair brush. She's strong. She's smart. She's ambitious. She's knowledgeable of foreign and domestic issues. She has plans and ideas about how to bail us out of this Bush Quagmire. However ... even though all the aforementioned qualities would be praised if they were applied to a male candidate, when applied to a female candidate, ... somehow, strength isn't a good thing.

Yeah, she may be a little shrill at times, maybe even a little overbearing. But she'd be a good president. Because she knows what it takes to be a good president.

I could vote for her.

I'm also ambivalent about Obama. I like him a LOT; it's just that he's being painted (perhaps by his own advisers?) as the new Kennedy, bringing a new Camelot to the country. That simply isn't fair and isn't accurate. I think Obama could provide us with a more fresh, more positive and more forward-looking presidency. Just don't try to paste the Kennedy mantle on him. Let Obama be Obama. Don't try to project something else on him. He could be a great president. But he's not Kennedy.

I could vote for him.

(By the way, I lived through Kennedy's presidency; he's far from the rainbows and balloons liberal that hazy memories tend to paint him as. Look it up).

The final analysis (at least for today; things could change any minute): Things are looking good for the Democrats. McCain isn't gonna have the total support of his own party, which is a minority and falling fast thanks to the W-imbecile in the White House.

Both Clinton and Obama are electable. Both will have the support of pretty much the entire Democratic party.

Things are looking blue all over.

And so it goes.