Finally, a Winner!

Barack Obama is going to be the candidate for the Dems and John McCain for the Reps. A liberal versus a moderate.

This is going to be a tough 5 months for all of us. We should have a contest to guess how many times we will see ads such as these:

• Democratic Ad showing John McCain with George Bush, either literally or figuratively. Bush III will be the theme, ad nauseum. (Probably accurate on the war, Iran, but not so true in many other areas.) War = huge deficit and McCain voted for and championed the war. This would fall into the No Tax, but Spend Anyway Catagory.
• Republican Ad indicating John McCain is very experienced and Barack Obama is not - evidenced by B.O.s willingness to talk to Iran, Cuba, etc.. True, but the question is, does that experience hurt or help us, since we have grave problems that are being ignored? The term Tax and Spend Liberal will arise once again.

I predict it will be close. The factors for the Dems are this: will the young new voters come out in November to support Barack Obama and will moderate White folks, when put to the test, really vote for a half-Black man? Prejudices are alive and well in this country. Will Hillary's supporters vote for Barack Obama or go with the moderate McCain. Very interesting!

The factors for the Reps are this: Can McCain distance himself from George Bush? It will be hard. If Iraq is stagnant or violence escalates-declines, then will the war factor rise? The economy will be huge and can McCain carry on an intelligent conversation about how to fix the mess? Will Conservatives sit this one out in order to punish the Republican Party for putting up a moderate candidate who has not supported the Religious Right over the years? (He has pandered a bit in this race however.)

The race is too close to call today, but I sure wish it would be sooner than 5 months to get the answer. The process is unreasonably long, but we will endure.