Money money, who got the money
Topic: Politics
In the old days, the long gone halcyon days of our youth, the big money Republicans and Democrats would have already chosen our candidates for us. Voting with their money they would have anointed their favorites and created the buzz for the acceptable candidates through the media and into our hearts. It would almost seem to be our own choices. Of course every single time the final candidates have been chosen for us we end up asking ourselves how in the heck did we drum up such a horrible slate of potential Presidents. Ah, the old days. But wait. Everything old is new again. The media has given us a glimpse at the real race, the race for money. Keeping with football analogies the first quarter numbers are out and President Hillary Clinton has raised the most money. Sure, a bit ahead of the actual swearing in but you know let's be realistic. The invisible tentacles of the creature known as the Democratic Party are stretched out and really, it's all over but the shouting. Having been given enough time to organize the Democrats have turned their machine on and it's grinding away to the inevitable end. President Hillary is like Secretariat, just cruising along.
Sure, the Messiah, as lampooned by some wit who dressed Obama up as Jesus, is holding his own in second place and ready to take the lead if Hillary stumbles between now and the nomination. Right now he is the media's Cinderella choice for the Democratic nomination. He's the Messiah, a perfect being that all the hopes and dreams of the fantasy crowd are being projected upon. And as long as he doesn't get too nasty against Hillary he will be the Vice Presidential nominee and eventually the President himself in the coming Democratic Era. Obama is suspiciously unwilling to put his cards on the table and release his fund raising totals yet. Notice that the media doesn't even whisper that anything is amiss with this or that it shows weakness or lack of organization as they would harp on if it wasn't their own darling. Obama right now would pick Wesley Clark as his running mate. He can't go for Joe Biden or Chris Dodd cause they are both Senators like himself. It would be a look for a Governor, white, from the South or the West.
Last time one of the Media darlings was John Edwards. He's still running and in third place by all accounts. He has been running for the nomination since the last election and his 14 million dollars is respectable but not where he had hoped to be at this time. The emergence of Obama has really been a horror show for Edwards and Hillary, the unexpected new face that sucks the magic away from the other two because lacking any history he also lacks the detractors and haters that are like barnacles on the hulls of the SS Hillary and the SS Edwards. He can hope the other two beat the crap out of each other and allow him to slip in between them. No VP slot for him, it's the big dance or bust.
And Bill Richardson knows he's running for a Vice Presidential slot, look for him to hope to get a fourth place or two, declare victory and then sticking to Hillary like a lamprey by endorsing her. If Obama gets the nod Richardson has no chance at all of the slot, Obama would look to a white male as a VP running mate.
The media of course hates Republicans. The way they acknowledge and cover the Republican candidates is ambivalent at best. The Romney money, the Republican institutional money has not surprisingly gone to Romney. Nothing to be astonished over. Business sees him as their best chance of having a friend in power, someone who has no ideological problems with swaying in the wind and doing what's best for business. He's against abortion, he's for abortion. He's more liberal than Ted Kennedy, he's Ronald Reagan. And of course, he's Mormon. A definite snake that wins the money title but votes, ha, let's see him get some primary votes. But as I think about it, he's the Vice Presidential nominee. He'll bring the institutional money and as we know, the Trilateral Commission secret government type folks look longer term the same way they looked to putting Bush the Elder in with Reagan.
McCain, the last darling of the media when they hoped he could bump off Bush the Idiot (Jeb has to be Bush the Younger) can't bump off Bush now so he's McCain the war candidate and McCain the 70 year old tired looking dude. He was the institutional Republican candidate but the Republican Party is broken now. We can thank the Bush Presidents for this state of affairs as together they have destroyed the Republican Party as a viable force at least in the short term. I can't see McCain lasting very long but the candidates now are very weak and it'll just take Rudy Giuliani blowing up to be the front runner again.
Rudy Giuliani right now is the Republican front runner on the basis of people remembering how he preformed as a leader and Mayor of New York through the 9-11 crisis. Imagine that, picking a candidate based on his performance, outrageous. As far as primary Republican voters and their beliefs, he's ten kinds of wrong. Wrong on abortion, wrong on social issues, three times married. Voters vote based on present needs and a strong executive is what is needed now and Rudy has a chance of getting through the process as the nominee based on that. Will the issue voters cut their own noses off and vote for some Brownback, Tancretto or Gingrich? Ah, who knows. That's why it's worth watching to see.
To show how weak and flawed the Republican field is, in third place is Fred Thompson who isn't even running. If Rudy stumbles, look for Thompson to pop into the field and take the nomination. It's Rudy's to lose but he's got a bigger mine field to cross. His support is wide but no deep and so while a lot can happen I think it's going to be Fred Thompson running with Romney. Speculation. How fun is that. But it's still a giant house of cards and one slip by one candidate and the whole thing changes all over again. How great is that.
Posted by gilbert davis
at 1:38 PM EDT