Look, I can be serious!!!

I am gonna totally switch gears here today, because that is the kind of mood that I am in (could be because I slept soundly after some seriously awesome, bed-rattling sex...OK, now I am really switching gears, promise).

The race for President in 2008 is beginning to heat up, and I want to poll the peanut gallery for some early thoughts. Truth be told, I am sort of a politics geek (I was a poli-sci major, after all, before I was corrupted by the evil, faceless Finance industry). Mostly, I like the sport of running for elections more than the power struggle amongst elected officials. Which means that a presidential election is kind of like a Super Bowl for me:-D

So...my thoughts.

First, there are like a trillion people running. The lack of an incumbent President or sitting Vice President in the race makes it more wide open than it has been since the early part of last century. CNN lists 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats currently running, and that doesn't include a couple that have already dropped out, and some others that may jump in. No matter how you cut it, that is a LOT of candidates.

On each side there are 3 or 4 people that are the really legit contenders, and maybe a couple other realistic long shots. So, even throwing out the complete crazies (like Tom "I think we should halt all immigration, legal and illegal, until such time as we no longer have to press 1 for English" Tancredo) there are probably 8 or 9 people that count as really, legitimate candidates.

The second great unknown factor in this campaign is the time frame. Many of the candidates declared at the beginning of 2007...a full 13 months before the first Primary, and 23 months before the election. Nobody in America has any experience running, funding, organizing, plotting or winning a campaign of that length, because it has never happened before. Is a lead in the polls now insurmountable? Maybe. Or maybe everything that the candidates do, say or spend before January 1 of 2008 is totally wasted because that is when voters begin paying attention. No one will know until the actual votes start to get tallied.

Third is the absolutely incredible amount of money that this will cost as compared to prior elections. In 1996, Bill Clinton shattered all kinds of fundraising records and drove the cost of the election to nearly $500 million. In 2000, George Bush completely reversed the fundraising gap and the cost went up even more. By 2004, the Democrats had caught up and the cost ran to about $1 billion. This election will be much more than that. Until the mid 1990's, $100 million was the total cost, front to back, of a winning presidential run. This year, several candidates will have raised that much by the end of 2007!

Again, maybe money equals votes...but maybe there is a diminishing return, and once you get past a certain point, all of the extra money doesn't do any good. We will all have to wait and see.

Another question is: what will be the really key issues of this election? Iraq will be one, although maybe not as big as some people think. Maybe if someone had any real interesting ideas worth discussing, but until then, it will remain a source of soundbites and little else.

"The economy" is always the overarching issue, although the discussion varies from year to year. It is not clear what it will look like this time around, although we can be sure that it will be ill-informed and full of half-truths. That, after all, is what politicians do best...thrive on the semi-understanding of issues.

Health care will be a huge issue, and hopefully there are some significant ideas on that. I was a little disappointed at the initial passes from the major candidates...there is little of substance. Especially the three leading Democrats...Clinton, Edwards and Obama...I would hope that one of them would offer a universal, single payer plan. I think it is a bad idea, but it has to be in the discussion. What they have offered is just more subsidies to prop up the same broken system.

And I am sure Social Security will come up, with every candidate tripping over themselves to give more and more free money to the elderly at the expense of the youth. To the people my own age, I say: this is what happens when you don't vote. If people between 18 and 27 voted in the numbers that senior citizens did and with the same regard for their personal interests, college would be free, the budget would be balanced and prescription drug makers wouldn't be getting whatever they wanted to provide an endless supply of arthritis drugs.

So where does that leave us? For the time being, I will withhold my opinions on my likes and dislikes of specific people in the race, other than to say that the people I like most are not really the front runners at this point. You can all feel free to tell us who you like and dislike, but mostly what I want to get at this point is;

1) What do you look for in a President? What traits, experience and characteristics do you value highly?
2) What issues are you basing your vote on next year? Or, if you can't vote, what issues would you? What is important to you or unimportant to you, and why?