now that the presidential race for 2008 has opened up, i thought id weigh in with my own thoughts. first of all, this past weekend has hearkened us with the news of exploratory committees formed by hillary clinton and barack obama, the two front-runners for the democratic party. the rest of the field is distinguished among chris dodd, john edwards, mike gravel, dennis kucinich, tom vilsack, joe biden, and bill richardson.

if i may… there has been a lot of discussion this time around of first and second-tier candidates – those who are in the election to present a balanced approach to the creation of party platforms as opposed to those who actually stand a substantial chance of winning the elections (let alone any sort of showing in the state primaries).

quite obviously, obama and clinton are the first-tiered candidates for the democrats. as i see it, obama stands the best chance of winning a general election. not only is he a smart man who was not in office to be criticized for involvement with the iraq war, but he holds massive ‘electibility’ (see: buzzword of the campaign) among red state and other republican voters. they see him as a pragmatic democrat who is above the insider politics of mrs. clinton. obama is oft quoted as being charismatic, but the charisma transcends the usual party politics and is, in fact, merely an extension of his personal intellect.

clinton, on the other hand, has made no secret of her presidential aspirations, however she has a lot of image problems, particularly among those who are conservative to moderate. clinton has the “machine” of washington behind her – the skills and the knowhow to get things done. but she remains too left-wing for the majority of the country to accept as president. in addition, she projects a coldness which obama deflects with a genuine human side. if obama can be successful at maintaining that his neophyte-ism is not an obstruction to his bipartisan political capabilities, there would be many republicans who would actually be willing to vote for him, even over the likes of john edwards. hillary might make a good president in theory, but in practice it would be a giant strategic blunder to end up giving her the nomination. give it to obama instead.

on the republican side, the field is shared by first-tier candidates rudolph guliani, john mccain, and mitt romney. among the second-tier contenders are mike huckabee, sam brownback, duncan hunter, tom tancredo, jim gilmore, ron paul, and tommy thompson.

it is of my opinion that rudy guliani – since leaving his position as mayor of new york city – has kept an otherwise low public profile, leaving him with virtually no public record for the past 6 years. while new yorkers know him as the mayor who finally cleaned up new york and the rest of the world remembers guliani’s heroicism during the aftermath of 9/11, he was also known as having a streaky personal life. and while mayor of new york city is one of the most prestigious municipal positions in the world, that may not be enough to combat his stance on the social issues.

john mccain, however, seemed to be the republican party’s star choice for the nomination… until he imploded. first, he flip-flopped on the issue of gay rights (which is perfectly reasonable to do when you hadn’t been previously educated nor affected by the issue). but then he decided to partake in the shadow of the bush administration, using his vietnam/pow experiences to justify his support and reinforcement of the iraq war. early on, this background used to put mccain in a position of maverick status, bucking the trends of the republican party and appearing to be a moderate. yet it all unravelled.

so the great mormon hope of the republican party may yet be mitt romney. mr romney was the first governor to enact legislation mandating employers to either provide or subsidize medical insurance for all workers. in addition, he gained prominence not only through his private equity firm, bain capital, but for completely turning around the direction of the 2002 salt lake city olympics for the better. he’s a fiscal liberal and social conservative, making him moderate enough to be strategically the republican party’s best chance for change.

but through all the murk of these candidates, perhaps some of the lesser candidates will emerge from the pack – a chris dodd or mike huckabee, for instance. interestingly enough as shitless as sam brownback scares me, he’s so far right on the political spectrum, he’s almost left. he’s got a few conservative knacks on the social issues, but his evangelical roots, almost lead to some socially liberal views on various issues such as darfur or carbon emissions caps.

this campaign can only get worse. keep reading…