| Friday, December 28, 2007 |
| The best thing about this group of candidates... |
...is that only one of them can win.
--Will Rogers
The usual rule around here is: no politics. But with the primaries drawing ever closer, it's a hard topic to avoid. So in the spirit of year-end list-making, let's... rank the presidential candidates! My sole criterion: who is ready & qualified to step into the Oval Office? Warning: This list is guaranteed to infuriate Republicans & Democrats alike.
1. Joe Biden: He seemingly has no Joementum, despite the fact that he is arguably the best equipped to deal with the foreign policy issues that will be critical during the next four years. You want experience? How about three decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he now chairs? If only he were stirring up a bit more excitement in the party faithful than some of the candidates with far less substance.
Fun Fact: Elected to the Senate at the age of 29 (he reached the constitutionally mandated age of 30 before he was sworn in).
2. John McCain: We've had our differences over the years on a number of issues, but I keep coming back to Sen. McCain's essential integrity and moral authority. One of the few candidates in the race who seems like a genuine leader and is willing to take risky stances on, say, immigration hurt him with his party's base. Also, this is one man who will step up and insist that our returning soldiers get the care and support they deserve.
Fun Fact: Sen. McCain graduated fifth from the bottom of his Naval Academy class in 1958. Who graduated at the top? Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter.
3. Bill Richardson: Embarrassingly, when Joe & I were trying to name all the Democratic candidates, both of us forgot about Gov. Richardson, despite the fact that New Mexico is one of our favorite states! His extensive experience as a diplomat and Secretary of the Department of Energy make him a qualified candidate.
Fun Fact: Listed "diet milkshakes" as his favorite food in a recent AP survey, which is pretty sad coming from someone who lives in the state with some of the best food in the nation. Acceptable answers to the question could have included sopapillas, huevos rancheros, or the cinnamon buns at the Frontier.
4. Barack Obama: I'm putting him this high up on the list because from what I've read, he's surrounded himself with some extremely smart and capable people, and who knows, maybe he'll be able to inspire Americans in a Kennedyesque manner. But it'll require quite a leap of faith on the part of voters to put him in the White House.
Fun Fact: Only Grammy winner in the race (he got the trophy for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio edition of Dreams From My Father).
5. & 6. (tie) John Edwards & Mitt Romney: I know they're in different parties, but to me, they're two sides of the same perfectly coiffed head, so to speak. Sen. Edwards: I can't trust a savior of the working class who lives in a 28,000-square-foot house with an indoor basketball court & squash court; sorry, I just can't. Gov. Romney: I don't buy his late-stage conversion to the anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage side that just happens to dovetail with the politically important religious right. To quote the Washington Post's Richard Cohen: "...his craven crawl toward the White House shows a man of obvious talents and experience who illustrates how broken our system is. Why should anyone have to tailor his beliefs to get past ideological bottlenecks in the early primary states?"
Fun Edwards Fact: His house is 80% the size of a football field.
Fun Romney Fact: His sons keep a campaign blog.
7. & 8. (tie) Dennis Kucinich & Ron Paul: Lots of intriguing ideas from both of these men, but a President has to work with the Congress to pass legislation, and I am unconvinced that either of them are sufficiently skilled in the art of compromise to be effective Commanders-in-Chief.
Fun Kucinich Fact: Was third-string quarterback on his high school football team despite his 4-foot-9 stature and weight of 97 pounds.
Fun Paul Fact: Three of his five kids are physicians; he paid for their educations rather than have them take out federal student loans because the program was taxpayer-subsidized.
9. Hillary Clinton: Busy touting her "35 years of experience" on the campaign trail, which I suppose means that I have 10 years of experience as a software engineer, since I'm married to one. Nominating her would be tantamount to party suicide.
Fun Fact: According to her MySpace profile, her favorite reality TV show is "American Idol" and the last album she bought was Carly Simon's Into White.
10. Rudoph Giuliani: My least favorite Presidential candidate of the primary season, perhaps of my entire lifetime. From his fear-mongering rhetoric to his klatsch of nutty neocon advisors to the duplicity and scandal in his past, not to mention the fact that HIS OWN KIDS CAN'T STAND HIM, I remain convinced that electing the hot-headed, egotistical ex-NYC mayor would be a disaster for America.
Fun Fact: Got an annulment from the Catholic Church for his first marriage on the rather dubious grounds that he had just discovered, after 14 years of marriage, that he and his wife were second cousins.
The rest:
Mike Huckabee: Wouldn't it be slightly embarrassing to vote for a Presidential candidate whose initial claim to fame was penning a diet book? Bonus points for having appeared on "The Colbert Report" several times. Minus points for having a son who is the Michael Vick of former Arkansas First Family members.
Fun Fact: Owns two dogs, a black lab named Jet and a shih tzu named Sonic. Hope he keeps 'em away from his kid!
Christopher Dodd: The only thing I know about Christopher Dodd is that he supposedly moved his entire family to Iowa so he could campaign there full-time. Judging from his poll numbers, Iowa didn't catch Dodd Fever.
Fun Fact: Used to date Bianca Jagger.
Mike Gravel: His YouTube video is a brilliantly Dada-esque. How cool would it be if he ultimately revealed his entire campaign had been a piece of performance art?
Fun Fact: His sister is a nun.
Fred Thompson: Every time Joe & I go to the theater, we play a little game in which we count how many of the actors have a guest spot on "Law & Order" listed in their bios. Who knew the game would translate to the campaign trail?
Fun Fact: He's already got presidential experience, having played Ulysses S. Grant in HBO's film "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." |
posted by 125records @ 11:01 AM  |
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| 8 Comments: |
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"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man."
Yeah that Biden is rich......
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C'mon people, let's not have any more anonymous comments! I have the courage to come out with my political opinions, the least you can do is own up to yours if you're going to post them here. Or at least come up with a funny alias.
I'll grant you that anyone who refers to Obama as "articulate" deserves to be smacked, but am I going to discount Biden completely because he said that -- no. Others might.
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"Sen. Edwards: I can't trust a savior of the working class who lives in a 28,000-square-foot house with an indoor basketball court & squash court; sorry, I just can't."
Of course, applying such criteria, you couldn't have trusted FDR either. I don't think class is destiny, in either direction. Fact is, poor people are too busy trying to survive to, say, run for President and try to reform things. (Not to mention: ha-ha, a poor person able to run for President these days? I am such a funny absurdist guy.)
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Mike Gravel filed for personal bankruptcy in 2004 and reports a net worth of $0, so I guess he can be the designated poor person running for president.
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I like the non-partisan quality analysis.
My two favorites are McCain and Edwards, but I don't see either making the final cut, so I am going to have a tough time in November.
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yellojkt: I predict Edwards is going to surprise a lot of people by making a very strong showing in the early primaries, and McCain is doing well in New Hampshire polling, so you never know. Giuliani & Romney both seem to be trending downward. BTW, much of my political, er, "wisdom" comes from listening to the Political Junkie on NPR. Anyone who's interested in the inside baseball of campaigns & polling (as opposed to, y'know, issues) should check it out.
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I'm guessing that Edwards is going to upset both Clinton and Obama's apple carts. They were both candidates who peaked too soon (and I think some Democrats who once thought Hillary might be electable are now having second thoughts). Clinton is certainly smart and politically savvy, but I think people are starting to figure out that she doesn't really stand for anything, except possibly her own self-promotion. Obama probably has the strongest personality and perhaps the sturdiest convictions of the bunch. But, frankly, I think the Democrats will eventually throw their weight behind Edwards. I could never figure out why they didn't push him for the Presidency instead of Kerry four years ago: He has charisma and some intriguing ideas. I voted for Kerry, but I would have voted for just about any candidate that ran against Busheney. The Republicans are going to have a very tough time next year. McCain probably thinks his dedicated service to the party merits the nomination, but I doubt the Republicans want a repeat of the Bob Dole fiasco. Anybody who thinks Huckabee is a stand-up guy had better take a careful look at his past record; you think Clinton's got some sins to explain? Giuliani's free and easy morals and Romney's Mormon background make them very tough sells to the Bible-beaters. Let's face it: They're all rich and they're all going to do their best job of pretending they care about the "common folk" while still glad-handing the various special interest groups that are pushing them into power. Something tells me it's going to be a very strange contest. But I can't imagine any new administration being any more inept, uncaring, wasteful and haughty than what we're stuck with right now.
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No more anonymous commenting will be permitted on this blog -- I've changed the settings. You're all entitled to your opinions and I know that this blog is read by uber-conservatives and far-left liberals -- that's fine with me. But don't be a coward and hide behind anonymity.
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"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man."
Yeah that Biden is rich......