There is Just Enough Snow Here to Be Annoying

Thought I'd mention that. School is starting 2 hours late today. I'm just hoping I can get my car off our hill.

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As you know, I've been theoretically supporting John Edwards in the campaign for president. The times, they are a'changin'.

John Edwards has been finishing a strong third in most contests. "Finishing strong", for our purposes, is defined as having enough votes to actually pick up some delegates. Now, he says he's in it to win it, but the facts are, unless he pulls out some wins on Super Tuesday, that's probably not going to happen. He doesn't have any money, he doesn't have any significant endorsements and the longer this goes, the less inclined people are going to be to vote for him, myself included. For why? Because when I go to my caucus on Feb. 9, I want to be supporting someone who is viable. Edwards' "viability" is now of another sort. With a nice collection of delegates, he's going to be in the position of power broker.

When I was a kid, the national conventions were exciting. It was about brokering and negotiation. People counted delegates and when someone stood up and said, "The proud state of Whosiwhatsit, home of This, That and The Other Thing" proudly casts its 20 delegates for the next President of the United States, Blah di Blahblah!" Then there was cheering and the tally box at the bottom of the screen would change. The point is, we didn't know, going into the convention, who the candidate would be and it would all be very exciting.

It hasn't been like that in a very long time. The system has changed and nowadays we usually have a candidate after 2 or 3 primaries. This hasn't been a good system as it doesn't allow for the proper vetting of a truly viable candidate (hi, John Kerry). The wonk in me is absolutely Love. Ing. the fact that on both the Dem and Republican sides this race is wide open. I'm loving it because it suggests that the conventions aren't going to be coronations of 2 fait accompli individuals. They are going to be proper conventions again and both of the candidates are going to people who really had to work for it.

This is particularly exciting to me because I'm going to be there. Well, I hope I will be. The Neighbor and I have a plan. We're going to volunteer to be delegates to the state convention. 4 years ago our precinct voted and did the math to see how many delegates would be assigned to each candidate and then our precinct chairperson said, "Who wants to be a delegate?" and everyone looked around and scraped their toes and whistled over their shoulders until a few people said, "I guess I will be". None of that this time. If they ask for delegates The Neighb and I are shooting up our wittle hands. Then, depending on how well we negotiate the vagaries of state party politics, we're going to try and be delegates to the national convention. (We have absolutely no idea how all this actually works but we think it would be super fun to go to Denver in August).

I'm getting ahead of myself. I do that. The point is, we've got a wide open race right now and it's exciting. One of the most exciting things about it is that this necessarily forces the candidates to focus on the issues. What a concept! And all the nastiness we've seen from the Clinton camp is going to stop. Ted and Caroline Kennedy's endorsements of Obama will help see to that. Apparently Ted, who is a close friend of the Clintons, has been telling them privately to knock off the mudslinging. His endorsement of Obama is his way of saying, "I so meant it, you knuckleheads". Not to mention, he's a sort of bridge for Obama to the more traditional Dem party base...a base Obama hasn't been able to rally yet. This is going to help him tremendously.

But if the mudslinging has hurt Clinton, a change in tone is only going to help her. The message has been loud and clear: "Stop tearing down the other guy and tell us what we want to know about you and your position on (fill in the blank here)". I think Clinton is smart enough to do that. I hope she is.

I've been worried all along about the divisiveness a Clinton campaign would necessarily bring. I never considered that she'd be the one to start it. As a strategy I suppose it makes sense. The Clintons have only ever been embattled. Maybe her and Bill's attacks on Obama were a way of signalling that she's not going to be a patsy and if the GOP want to rumble, she'll be ready. But if that was the plan, it backfired. Not to mention, I think there's a general sense that a candidate who focuses on dirt is generally one with a paucity of ideas. (Hi, GWB). Hillary Clinton has plenty of ideas, good ones. And if she wants to be President, then she needs to get her act together. I think the negative reaction to what happened last week is yet another signal that the people, and even the party insiders, are ready for a change. We'll see if Clinton has what it takes to rise about "business as usual" and position herself as an agent of change. It might be too late.

This takes me back to where I started. As it stands, John Edwards isn't going to be the candidate but he'll have enough delegates to make one of the other candidates very happy. (Strictly speaking, his delegates aren't bound to support whoever he endorses, but most of them probably will). The net result of this scenario will likely be a very nice cabinet post in the new administration. Which would be a perfectly fine use of his talents. But I don't want to be a token supporter. Which is why I'll be caucusing for the next President of the United States, Barack Obama.

In another note, Shrub's last State of the Union speech is tonight. Halle-freakin-lujah. Look for lots of talk about stimulus packages and some smoke and mirrors about how our economy is actually stronger than we think it is, how well *cough* we're doing in Iraq and maybe a little sumpthin sumpthin about what a threat *cough cough* Iran is to our interests. Yawn. Myself, I'm going to be interested to see how many times the cameras shoot to Obama. I suspect he will be wearing a blue tie.