Pundits, politicians and predictions

Many of the readers of this column don't particularly like it when I write about politics. In fact, a good friend of mine was lamenting to me just the other day about how we're inundated with presidential politics eleven full months before the election and how we're going to continue to be twenty-four, seven until the election in November.

Most people figured out some time ago that politicians, for the most part, are much more concerned with their own personal good than they are the public good and we see that every day at every level; they tell one group one thing and another group the opposite thing because their main objective is either getting elected or staying in the office they've already been elected to. This callous attempt to grab power turns the stomachs of most people and turns them off to our political and elective process.

The problem with "turning off" to the process is that people are going to be elected whether we participate or not and if we DON'T participate, we may not like who the other people choose. That's especially the case with presidential politics. Whoever wins the Presidency in November will hold the office for at least four years and, quite likely, eight years based on what we've done in the past. Presidential and Congressional politics affect all of us in so many different ways that it doesn't make sense for any of us to opt out of the political process, no matter how distasteful we find it.

We have a more wide-open campaign for president this year than we've had in decades. No incumbent president or vice-president is running and, consequently we've ended up with large fields in both the Democratic and Republican parties. A few of the marginal candidates have already dropped out and, as we proceed towards the Super Tuesday primaries just a couple of weeks from now, this small-town newspaper columnist and college instructor has decided to make a few predictions of my own in regards to who each party will select to be their standard-bearer and which one will eventually win in the general election in November. Then I promise I won't write anymore about politics for awhile.

On the Republican side, it appears that the former front-runner, Rudy Giuliani, made a potentially fatal error when he decided to skip most of the early primaries and caucuses and concentrate all his efforts on Florida.

In doing that, he has recorded dismal results in the contests so far, finishing anywhere from fourth to sixth and losing at least twice to Ron Paul, who I believe has better ideas than any of the other candidates from either party, but can't win the nomination.

Giuliani's idea was to win Florida which he believed would catapult him to several wins on Super Tuesday which would ultimately result in him securing the nomination of his party. We'll see how his strategy works out this Tuesday. He's neck and neck in a four man tug-of-war in Florida with Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and John McCain. Something that doesn't bode well for Giuliani is that he had a double-digit lead in the polls in his home state of New York just a couple of months ago and now McCain has a double-digit lead over him. It's interesting to me that anyone would vote for him anyway since his own children have said they won't.

Fred Thompson dropping out of the race this past week puts a lot more evangelical votes in the hands of Mike Huckabee but it most likely won't be enough for him to win. His campaign is strapped financially, plus he doesn't believe in evolution and does believe our Constitution should reflect God's will. These positions will endear him to evangelicals but won't to many other voters who believe in the Constitutional mandate of separating church and state. I look for him to be the next Republican candidate to drop out of the race.

Fair or not, in spite of Mitt Romney's success in the private sector and his "hanging in there" through the early primaries, I think his Mormon faith will be his ultimate downfall, even though he has the personal wealth to stay in the race all the way to the end if he chooses to do so.

That leaves John McCain and he gets the nod here because of his experience, his name recognition and his electability. His Achilles' heel might be his unbridled support of our continuing presence in Iraq, since more than 60 percent of the American people now believe we should withdraw.

Another problem for McCain is his reputation of being a "maverick" and that turns off many rank and file members of the Republican Party. To illustrate this disillusionment, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program this past Tuesday that a McCain presidency would mean the end of the Republican Party as we know it. I'm not sure that would necessarily be a bad thing.

On the Democratic side, it's already down to a two and one-half person race. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are neck-and-neck in the polls, even though Hillary had a double-digit lead just a couple of months ago. Obama has proven himself to be a worthy candidate, an excellent debater, and an agent of change, giving the voters an opportunity to choose a new future, instead of regressing to the Clinton politics of the '90s. On the negative side, Obama lacks experience, sometimes appears disconnected, isn't always inspiring, and too often gets dragged into punching and counter-punching with Hillary instead of staying on message.

John Edwards, a good and decent man, makes up the one half. He promises to continue the fight all the way to the convention even though he has been a distant third so far and there's nothing that indicates he can threaten the top two. That's a shame because I believe he has a sincere desire to serve his country rather than running for personal gain and, because of that, I think he would make the best president of the three, even though his recent $400 haircut attracted the wrong kind of attention to him.

But I think his chances of becoming the nominee for the Democratic Party are close to zero. After a hard-fought and bitter battle that carries all the way to the convention floor in Denver in August, I think the most unelectable of all the Democratic candidates gets the nomination and that would be Hillary Clinton.

So even though the Democrats perceived this upcoming presidential election as being a slam dunk for them, given the overwhelming 70 percent disapproval rate of the Bush Administration, they will screw it up by nominating as their candidate the woman Republicans love to hate which will energize them to turn out in significant numbers to vote AGAINST someone rather than voting FOR someone and, as a result, John McCain will be elected the next president of the United States.