Polly Ticks

Is it too soon to write the political epitaph for Rudolph W. Giuliani? As if it wasn't bad enough that the man made his wife Donna Hanover a laughing stock by schtupping his press secretary Christine Lategagno, he tells her that he's leaving her by announcing it in a press conference without giving her any advance notice. Wouldn't that have made for an interesting bit of presidential trivia? "Which American President let his second wife know that their marriage was over by having her hear it from a reporter from the New York Post?" Hmmm... James K. Polk? Warren Harding? Oh right! President Giuliani!

And amazingly, John McCain seems to be the nominee apparent on the Republican side.

I gave McCain money in 2000, and somewhere I still have the campaign buttons he sent me. A buddy of mine, perhaps more astute than I am, opined that John McCain was very dangerous man because he was one of those political figures who people naturally like and they assume that such a reasonable-seeming nice guy would see the world much the way they do, obscuring the fact that he's actually very politically conservative. Far more conservative, for example, than was Ronald Reagan. That said, would you really be as panic-stricken at the thought of a McCain presidency as you were when you heard that Ohio was going for Bush rather than Kerry four years ago?

And John Edwards bows out! Love love love his politics, but something about John Edwards just rubs me the wrong way. I would like to believe that John Edwards really is doing all this on behalf of hard-working Americans who are having a hard time making ends meet (like me!), but I am visited, perhaps in dreams, by a spectral John Edwards appraising some Joe Lunchbox like myself and saying, "Yeah, you'll do" and mounting his chariot by stepping on the small of my back like Xerxes in 300. (Xerxes was the Persian bad guy in 300, right? Fact checking! Look into that, will you please?)

So it's down to Clinton and Obama in the Big Brawl. Lord help us all. And note to Senator Obama: stay out of hotel kitchens in Los Angeles, 'kay? It's so difficult to step outside myself on this, being a guy who is a sucker for the slightest nuance of electoral politics. The majority of people who will be voting to decide who will be our next president in November are only vaguely aware that there's an election going on. And round about September, they'll be stopping to watch that segment of the news when they usually turn the channel to watch American Idol and say, "Whoa. There's a Black guy running for President? And his name is Obama?" Versus, of course, "Whoa. Bill Clinton's wife is running for President? Huh. How about that."

Ohhhh... I don't know, I don't know.

It's too hard!

For me, I have to admit it all comes down to a matter Who Will Win In November. If I were to be convinced that Barak Obama could squeak through enough electoral votes ('member those? that quaint and antiquated way we have of selecting our executives?) than I would totally be for him. And totally relax.

But at the same time, I just remember how sweet life was back during the 1990s when the economy was chugging right along and that other Clinton was out-foxing the Republicans in Congress on a weekly basis. One of the most memorable Onion headlines I remember was President Bush announcing, "Our long national nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is finally over!"

So we'll see.

Anyway. I've gotta get ready for my date with Way Hot Man today.