2008 already?????

Well, it is a little early to begin thinking of the 2008 election but I guess everyone is so anxious to replace Bush (even the Republicans) that they're feverishly busy getting themselves organized.

The Democrats are especially busy because they have so many very good candidates in mind, while the poor Republicans are in a quandary because all they have is the former mayor of New York who is for women's rights of all things, or a fringe senator from Arizona who has never really been accepted in the party because he has always advocated fiscal discipline and reformation of the election process. There really are no good viable candidates in the party who would get the total party vote! But, the Republicans have two years to figure it out and I'm sure they'll come up with someone most of us have never heard of.

The interesting thing regarding the Republicans is the question of whether they'll be able to throw off the albatross of the religious right and present a true libertarian-like fiscal conservative or whether they'll present another anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-birth control, war monger who will assume that God is on our side - or at least should be!

It seems that a certain amount of Democratic self-thinning is being done since Senator Evan Bayh decided not to run last week. I suspect that several others will also decide not to overwhelm the system after they talk to their pollsters.

Now, I was all for Kerry in 2004 - and he had his chance but he isn't smooth enough for many voters. I don't see him running in ‘08 nor will Al Gore who really was involved in the early days of the Internet** and who I respect very much for his stand on global warming. I'm sure that Kerry and Gore will both be active and welcome on the political scene, but in the end, won't run. I would vote for either, but....

Unfortunately, Hillary has been named front runner and best funded for the past year or so. She has two more years to maintain that pace and the public tends to get tired of the same old thing - who wants an old woman? I think she'd make a very good first female president, but I'm worried that the timing is all off. It really isn't her fault either. She's been quiet - and so has Bill, but the media has been promoting her for several years now.

There are a bunch of good Democrats in the field who also unfortunately won't make the grade because of the sheer numbers. It is like being in a candy store - which one to pick - they're all so good!

John Edwards appears to want to throw his hat into the ring again and he has populist appeal - it will be interesting to see what his tactics might be this time beyond being the son of an immigrant textile worker and a spokesman for the other America - I doubt that it would work a second time around.

But there is this one choice morsel named Obama who has caught the fancy of his audiences and the media alike! Being half-black, the non-white racial groups in America should be attracted to him although he has not preached to them as a black. And those who are lukewarm on having a black president can shrug and say, "Well, at least he ain't a Jesse Jackson!"

And the media has already fielded the question of his ‘limited' experience. But he was a civil rights lawyer for five years, served in the Illinois senate for eight years and by the time 2008 rolls around he will have been a US Senator for four years. He certainly is no beginner! He's written two books and has done his homework. Lately, I understand he's been working on foreign policy.

Anyway, it should be an interesting shakeout of Democratic aspirants - and even more interesting who the Republicans might come up with!
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**But the real question is what, if anything, did Gore actually do to create the modern Internet? According to Vincent Cerf, a senior vice president with MCI Worldcom who's been called the Father of the Internet, "The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator."
The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore's High Performance Computing Act. The University of Pennsylvania's Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today."
Joseph E. Traub, a computer science professor at Columbia University, claims that Gore "was perhaps the first political leader to grasp the importance of networking the country. Could we perhaps see an end to cheap shots from politicians and pundits about inventing the Internet?"