"It gets late early out there." - Yogi Berra
It's about two days too late and two days too early as I sit here trying to put Presidential politics into some kind of perspective. Two days too late because that's about how long I've been getting phone calls and e-mails from our esteemed Editor-In-Chief wondering if I'm planning to write anything at all this month (I'm beginning to understand the Thompson v. Wenner battles of campaign journalism legend). Two days too early because just about anything I say here is likely to sound pretty stupid two nights from now when the polls close on the "Super Tuesday" activities in thirteen states from coast to coast.

Super Tuesday started out as an effort by conservative Democrats in the south to exert more influence on the Presidential selection process by joining together in an early joint primary effort. It almost worked once, when a young Tennessee Senator name of Albert Gore swept those southern primaries and kept his faltering campaign alive. Michael Dukakis had to wait for the liberal northeast and the industrial midwest to weigh in and wipe Gore off the map. In the process, Dukakis began to pick up the campaign wounds that would lead to his eventual defeat.

This time, Al Gore is back, and from the looks of things he's going to sweep the southern states again. This time, though, he stands to pick up almost everything else, including the delegate rich primaries in places like New York, California and Ohio. Three days from now, the Democratic selection process will be all but over, with Gore taking a long victory lap to the Convention this summer. Along the way, he's managed to duck and dodge nearly every salvo aimed at him by Bill Bradley, becoming the Teflon candidate of 2000. I'm still with Bill, but it's over. Damn.

On the other side, things are somewhat less clear. While G. Dubbelyah Bush is the front runner in delegate count, the polls have been see- sawing in important places like New York, and Sen. John McCain has closed the gap or pulled ahead in a variety of other spots. Still, the expectation is that Super Tuesday will produce enough Dubbelyah delegates to put the nomination practically, if not mathematically, out of McCain's reach. It's a little trickier than that, though. If, due to the arcane party rules that govern the various contests, McCain comes out ahead in the popular vote in a state like California, while Dubbelyah walks away with all the delegates, we might see the first actual floor fight at a national party convention since the Freedom Democratic Party challenged the Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic Convention.

Meanwhile, John McCain has gone from campaigning against Dubbelyah to outright attacks on some of the most influential ayatollahs in the Republican Party. Yep, somehow a credible Republican candidate has found the cajones to take on Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, call them exactly what they are and stand willing to suffer the consequences. The short term consequences are likely to be the defeat of John McCain's Presidential aspirations this year. Longer term, he's provided solid ground for campaigns, his or others, yet to come. Ronald Reagan sold the Republican Party to the radical right twenty years ago. Since then, it's become an institution that would never embrace some of its most famous fore bearers. There's no room in the current Republican Party for a Dwight Eisenhower, a Teddy Roosevelt, an Abraham Lincoln or even a Richard Nixon (crook that he was, Nixon was on the side of a variety of reasonable, even progressive, policies. He was, for instance, the affirmative action President). John McCain seems to be willing to buy it back, even if his campaign is the price. Good on him.

Meanwhile, it's starting to look like I'm gonna have to find something interesting to say about Albert and Dubbelyah every month for months to come. On deadline. Or else.

Welcome to Thompson v. Wenner II, The Cosmik Edition.

Damn.


(C) 2000 Shaun Dale