Don't caucus me bro'

As the world breathlessly awaits the results of thousands of lily-white, rural and suburban Iowans creating momentum for the candidate of their choice, I'll throw up my current thoughts on the candidates.

I'll start with the Republicans...

Almost universally a joke.

• McCain - he may actually come back from the dead and win this thing (not Iowa, the whole thing). As perhaps the least insane (though plenty insane) candidate, and a perennial media favorite (he's such a 'maverick'!) he's got a lot going for him again. And as people come to know the rest of what the clown car disgorged, he only looks better.
• Huckabee - much of the charm of Bill Clinton, but dumb as a box of hammers. He really doesn't know anything about any policies. His tax ideas are terrible. He has less than zero foreign policy understanding. And forcing the parole of a serial rapist who went on to murder and kill almost immediately never looks good.
• Romney - truly the Manchurian candidate. I never fell for his shtick when he ran for governor when many on the left did. Few politicians in history have taken pandering to his level. He might not even be a terrible president (at least he would be an improvement) but good lord he his a talking Ken doll when he campaigns.
• Ron Paul - not since Ross Perot have we had this kind of character to entertain us. But, where Perot was a kooky pragmatist, Ron Paul is simply insane, even if you think he's right on the war. He believes the Civil War to have been a bad decision, and of course in the abstract it WAS a bad decision, but that's not the frame in which he argues it was a bad decision. He thinks another few decades of slavery would have been preferable. That's just the tip of the iceberg as far as his insanity goes.
  
• Fred Thompson - even lazier than George "Crawford vacation" Bush, and that's saying a lot. He truly seems to have believed that he just had to say he was running and the nomination would be his.
  
• Giuliani - less than a month to go in his candidacy, after which he will sit at home in a rocking chair under a wool blanket occasionally yelling "911" to no on in particular.
• Are there other insane people running? Yes, but who cares.

The Democrats

• Clinton - I am strongly against her campaign based on two things. Nothing is less democratic than ruling families. What is this, India? Then there is her hawkishness. Not only has she never expressed regret at her vote for authorizing the use of force, she essentially voted for the same thing in regards to Iran just a couple of months ago. if she believes that the war was a good idea, but waged poorly (in fact anyone who believes this) she is insane. If you assume that general Shinseki was right in saying that 400,000 troops were needed then the whole deal is off. There never were that many troops to send (short of a draft), so without mustering the cursed army of the dead the whole thing was a non-starter and anyone who says otherwise believes in magical ponies and leprechauns. Clinton seems to be that person, and is surrounded by advisors who are similarly deluded.
• Obama - still at the top of my list, though losing some ground based on his recent attempts to attack the other candidates using Republican memes about the evils of trial lawyers, and many of the urban legends about the Clinton administration. I still like him as a personality, and as a personification of someone who got ahead by achieving and generally doing the right thing. I still fear for his safety in the general election (something I wrote about years ago). I believe there are people in this country still that would kill him rather than see a black person elected president.
• Edwards -if not for his tendency to come across as a bit of a used car salesmen, pretty much everything else is something I could get behind. He's running the most populist/progressive campaign that isn't insane (Dennis Kucinich) and hitting all the right buttons. I would happily support him should it come down to him against Clinton.
• Bidodardson - lots of individual traits to like amongst these folks, but the nature of our election campaigns renders them entirely meaningless.
• Kucinich - really needs to move to Canada. Not even I am as liberal as he is.
  
• Anyone else...Gravel...I'd like to see Gravel and Ron Paul wrestle.

So there you have it....Obama or Edwards for me.

I hope the Iowans get a much needed respite from the relentless onslaught, and then on to NH, where I get a little blowback living on the border.