All the Cool Kids Are Doing It

Life in 3-Q is now as passe as a 1950's life in 3-D while we sit knee deep in the hoopla about 2008, and rightly so given the breached-dam-like flood of candidates in the last week. Since my last post we have officially seen Hillary, Bill Richardson and Sam Brownback enter the fray, adding to the already crowded field. This is all very new, exciting and confusing for me. My recollections of primaries past are as follows:

2004:

• W has the GOP nomination locked up.
• John Kerry arrives as the early frontrunner, theoretically challenged by Gephardt. Dean comes on strong and steals the lead role until Iowa. He screams, Kerry wins, Edwards finishes strong, and next thing you know New Hampshire is over and Kerry's momentum is unstoppable.

2000:

• Early favorite Bush triumphs with a foreshadowing shadiness over McCain and the Straight Talk Express, while a bunch of yahoos like Steve Forbes, Liddy Dole, Orrin Hatch, Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes wallow in the background.
• Bill Bradley puts up a minor affront to Albert Gore, Jr.'s campaign, and is quickly and repeatedly snuffed. A real no-brainer.

Now we have '08. Whereas the last two cycles could be likened more accurately to Wrestlemania affairs consisting of two-man, and occasional tag-team, title matches we now have a true Royal Rumble. Clinton! Obama! Edwards! Kerry! Richardson! Biden! Dodd! Kucinich! McCain! Giuliani! Romney! Brownback! Hunter! Paul! Live from Washington, DC! Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday! 2008!!!! As they say in the District, we built this city on talk and polls.

As the Fix shows, everyone already has a pollster, and this good article in the Times wisely mentions how Clark came in too late last year, a mistake certainly not to be made by anyone with a head on their shoulders this time around. Which reminds me of my lucid regrets of 11/3/04, when I was never more certain of anything in my damned life than I was of Wes Clark's ability to win a theoretical race against the Dub. This year, though, everyone is in it to win it. We could have a primary season like never before, with each debate and each state like the Round of 64. You know there is going to be a Cinderella. You know there is a Goliath in the wait. Who will be the SW Missouri State, and who will be the Arizona? We'll have to let New Hampshire sort them out...unless the rest of the country has something to say about it.

The snow and the frigid temps appear to be back on the Quabbin Radar. Here's to a relevant woodstove, and the necessity of layering. In Corsedonk We Trust,

BTB