The political landscape viewed from the fringe

After many months of proclaiming that the economy is "strong", suddenly Congress, the President, and the Fed Chief are all scrambling to pull together a "stimulus" package of tax rebates to fend off the up coming (if not already here) economic recession. As is typical with our elected officials they are about a year behind the times in planning. Any tax rebates will not have an impact on anyone until 2009, and by that time the housing debacle will be well over 2 and 1/2 years old, and any recession will be a year old. If this wasn't an election year, I imagine we would still be getting the "economy is strong" blather from Washington.

Does the idea of "President Huckabee" scare anyone else but me? In his South Carolina campaigning he has again re-iterated his support for constitutional amendments banning abortion and same-sex marriages. It is not his support for those constitutional amendments that scare me as much as his purported reasoning for them saying that allowing same-sex marriages will lead to -- "I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal." www.beliefnet.com interview The fact that we have a serious presidential contender so far embedded with the evangelical right that the separation of church and state looks to be in serious jeopardy should he win scares me.

After several days of bickering over the issue of race in the spats between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the founder of BET Bob Johnson, who made veiled comments about Obama's teenage drug use, has finally come out and apologized (CNN article). Of course before the apology Clinton fully supported Johnson's remarks but now when asked if his comments were out of line says "Yes, they were. And he has said that." Amazing how a couple of days can cause 180 degree turn around in a politician's interpretation of what is said when sitting right next to someone. When asked immediately after his original comments Clinton saw nothing wrong with them, now he was "out of line".

An interesting division within the African-American voting "block" has started to unfold, particularly as it relates to the support of the Democratic presidential candidates. Clinton has pretty much garnered the support of the "traditional" leadership, while Obama seems to be garnering much broader support from the next generation of African-American voters. One of the startling things that came out of the Michigan Democratic beauty contest masquerading as a primary was that 68% of the African-American identified voters opted for "Uncommitted" rather than Clinton, a statistic that could spell trouble for Clinton as the race moves closer to Super Tuesday on February 5th.

So let us have an open convention in both parties this year. An unlikely scenario just a month ago when the political experts were expounding the clear winners of the inevitable nominations of Clinton and Romney. Now after a few caucuses and primaries the political landscape suggests there is a more than 50/50 chance that the Republican convention could be held with no one having enough delegates to achieve the nomination on the first ballot, and the Democrats look to be going into Denver with a possible split between the two front runners putting the balance of power in Edward's hands. On the Republican side, with separate victors in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan, and possibly yet different winners in South Carolina and Florida, the Republicans could end up so split delegate wise that the possibility of a "compromise" candidate coming out of the convention is a real possibility.

The one thing that is certain about this election, is that there is nothing certain about it. Each week brings out new and interesting items for the political junkie, and the race to the end will, if nothing else, prove better entertainment than the thousands of "reality" shows on the networks. There is no way you can script what is happening this year, and it should be a wild and entertaining show. Time to pop another bag of popcorn in the microwave and get comfy in the recliner to watch the show.