The Race is Over

I haven’t posted much on the presidential horse-race because it has, quite frankly, become boring to me. I still intend to vote for Ron Paul in the Texas GOP primary, but I’m under no illusions he will win the nomination. Nor would I really want him to be president. What I want to do is send a message to the party establishment that I’m unhappy with all their so-called “mainstream” candidates.

Having said that, who would I like to see on the ballot in November? Frankly, there are no good choices in either party. At this point the winds are blowing in a Democratic direction, so there is a good chance either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will be our next president. I know this is a depressing thought, but I suggest you start getting used to the idea. I think either of them can beat whoever the Republicans nominate. Hillary may be slightly less threatening than Obama, whose rhetorical skills might enable him to actually get large parts of the liberal agenda passed into law.

The Republican race is more wide-open. Excepting Ron Paul, my next choice would have to be Huckabee. I think he is more reliably pro-life, but I fear he will be little different from George W. Bush in most other respects. McCain and Giuliani scare the daylights out of me with their eagerness to bomb and/or torture everyone in sight. (McCain, to his credit, is against torture.) As for Romney, I can’t believe a word the man says. Fred Thompson puts me to sleep, which wouldn’t be all bad in a president but I also don’t believe he is really pro-life.

My guess is the GOP race will come down to McCain vs. Romney. After his distant third-place showing in Michigan, Huckabee is probably past his peak. This is sad in a way because I think Huckabee is probably the only one with a fighting chance to beat Hillary or Obama. The GOP power brokers would apparently rather lose the election than get behind one of those wacky Christians.

Rod Dreher has an interesting scenario: McCain gets the nomination, makes Huckabee his running mate and they then lose in November. This would set up Huckabee to be the GOP presumptive nominee in 2012, by which time the Democrats may have screwed up enough to make a GOP victory more realistic. We'll see.

In any case, for me this election cycle is probably over. There is no chance of a good outcome, from my perspective, so the best I can do is pick the lesser evil. Since the lesser evil is still evil, I can't get excited about it any more.