Mired in mud, war wages on

“Tsuanmi Tuesday” is coming up next week so, here’s my take on what I’m calling “the Malevolent Seven,” the men and woman who would be President. In the interest of making it arbitrary, thereby giving the false impression of impartiality, let’s do it in reverse alphabetical order.

Former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt “perfect hair” Romney (R) has still got the money and the machinery. How will he do on Tuesday? Hard to say, he’ll probably do great in the big states where he’s run ad after ad on TV. He’s taken a lot of flack for being a flip-flopper.

But as appealing as his Reaganesque hair is, I think his biggest drawback will be his biggest strengths. He’s smooth, he’s good looking, and he has a captivating style. Just what any candidate needs right? But he’s too smooth, too good looking, and too stylish. Voters are gonna think he’s a phoney-McFake-pants and avoid him the way you avoid plastic people who are too perfect to be real, which is sad because they might be nice people, but they try too hard.

I am frankly, frightened for Illinois Senator Barrack Obama (D). He genuinely wants to heal our country and be a bridge-repairing consensus builder who reaches across party lines, racial lines, and probably even socio-economic levels. Nobody wants that. Get real. People hate a goody-goody. We like being angry at each other, calling each other names, and blaming each other for our problems.

How could he actually think he could get anywhere with a message of hope and reconciliation? If Bill and Hillary don’t take care of him, the Republicans will find a way to “swift-boat” him. And if he makes it though both of those onslaughts, I’m afraid that the majority of Americans are only pretending to be ready to elect a woman or a Black man. We’re still way more tribal than we want to admit to ourselves.

When you really get down to it, Arizona Senator John McCain (R) is about as old-school Republican as you get, but Republicans don’t think so. See, he proposed the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill years ago. Yeah, at one time he actually wanted to clean up politics. He’s also come out and publicly said that he’s opposed to torture- which makes sense, seeing as he was once a victim of it.

Be that as it may, he’s said that he’s willing to keep our troops in Iraq for a hundred years if that’s what it takes to win. I guess he forgot that we already won, several years ago. We deposed Saddam Hussein, defeated the Iraqi army and removed the Bathist Party from power. Since then, we’ve pretty much been hanging out, building the world’s largest air base and the world’s largest embassy, and ticking people off.

Then there’s Arkansas Governor Rev. Mike Huckabee (R). Ya want so much to like him because he’s nice and likeable and best friends with Chuck Norris, but there’s just something about him that makes you wonder if he’s not playing that guitar with a few strings missing, no pick, and his amp unplugged.

I’m not talking about the violent criminal activity of his sons, or the fact that he thinks that Pakistan is in Latin America. Even those of us who are on the same page with him on his Evangelical Christian faith and values need to step back and think twice before rushing to amend the Constitution. Of course, he also want so get rid of the IRS- who isn’t for that? Except, funny thing about government services is that they need revenues to pay for them. Even the most radical libertarian likes having an army protect us and appreciates things like roads, bridges, the Center for Disease Control…

How did former New York City Mayor Rudy Guliani (R) do in the Florida primary? When I wrote this a week ago, I could not imagine that his candidacy was going to last too much longer. But who knows? I have a friend who actually thinks that both of the nominations won’t get decided until the conventions this summer.

I feel bad for former South Carolina Senator John Edwards (D), because no one’s really listened to him since the Iowa Caucus. Ah, but not only does he have even better hair than Mitt Romney, but he also has a lot of delegates. He may just end up being the Democratic “King-maker” (or Queen maker, as the case may be). Eventually at least two people are going to start paying attention to him.

Finally there’s New York Senator and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton (D). If a Republican gets elected in November, I won’t blame any third-party candidates, I’ll blame the dirty campaigning and lying that she and her husband Bill were doing back in January.