Panic Time?

A few months ago, I wrote about which person Ms. Clinton should be picking as her running mate. Well, that seems to have been a bit premature. Mr. Obama seems to have passed his case of foot-in-mouth disease to Ms. Clinton, who has compounded it with a bad case of panic attack.

The wheels started to come off about 5 weeks ago when Ms. Clinton was caught in a flip-flop of position only 90 seconds after supporting the other position. She can thank the new governor of New York, Mr. Spitzer (D) for raising the issue (driver’s licenses for illegals) in the first place. Since then, Ms. Clinton’s team has gone nasty and attacked using the basest and meanest of tactics. As such, her lead in Iowa and New Hampshire is gone. Her lead is less than 8 points in South Carolina (some are as close as two) and Mr. Obama may soon pick up the endorsement of a major service union in Nevada. Ultimately, this could mean that Ms. Clinton loses three of the four (possibly even all four) of the first primary races. That could all but kill her chances even before the primary moves to the large states.

On the other side, Mr. Huckabee has surged. No one can quite tell how, but the current theory is that the Evangelical faction has latched on to him for his conservative social values (he’s a former pastor). This surge may sustain itself, or it may peter out. When examined closely, Mr. Huckabee is very vague on economic policy and his foreign policy seems to have been taken out of Mr. Jimmy Carter’s playbook, a position that won’t sit well at all with war crowd.

Mr. McCain has picked up some major endorsements and Mr. Giuliani still seems to be the consensus frontrunner, but things are very mixed up right now. Unlike the Democratic nomination, this will definitely not be over after the first four states. The real question is how long will all the candidates stick it out. It’s assumed that if he fails to win Iowa or New Hampshire, Mr. Romney will drop out. Mr. Giuliani seems to have put his bets on a later, big state strategy. If the Huckabee boom is a dud, will he last past Nevada? What of Mr. Thompson, who seems to be sitting anywhere from second to fourth in most of the early primaries? Only time will tell.

I can only say this, I have never voted for a third party candidate, but if it is an Obama vs. Huckabee race, I might think very seriously about it.

Go ahead! Throw your vote away! *Orwellian laughter*