What's Ahead in 2008? Rate the Odds

One of the little things I've always enjoyed around the new year has been an annual quiz put together by semi-retired New York Times columnist William Safire in which he would ask a question about national and world affairs, give four choices of what might occur in the upcoming year -- including one or two that were pretty funny -- and at the end reveal his own picks as predictions.

So, with apologies to the great writer who hates dangling participles like the one that begins this sentence, here's my own version of a look ahead at 2008. I'll group 12 issues together -- one for each month! -- and rate the chances of each scenario.

1. DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT
a. Hillary Clinton squeaks out a win in Iowa, hangs on in New Hampshire and with opposition thus knocked out of the way, cruises to the nomination. 40 percent
b. Barack Obama edges Clinton in Iowa, giving him enough momentum to pull out a win in New Hampshire, but doesn't have enough organization or resources to consolidate his win in the next group of states and is swamped on Super Tuesday. Hillary goes on to the nomination but has to struggle to get there. 35 percent
c. Obama wins a much bigger-than-expected victory in Iowa, takes New Hampshire, and the dogs begin piling on Clinton. Testimony by indicted fundraiser Norman Hsu sinks Hillary's ship and Obama emerges as the winner. 15 percent
d. Hillary, watching her campaign go down in flames in mid-January, offers to divorce Bill in a last chance bid at the nomination. 10 percent

2. REPUBLICAN NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT
a. Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney split the first couple of states, but can't hold off Rudy Giuliani as the race goes on. Giuliani outlasts the other two in an otherwise unimpressive nomination victory. 35 percent
b. Romney wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, giving him enough of a boost in Michigan and some other succeeding states to be a player. Becomes front-runner with a Giuliani loss in Florida and goes on to the nomination. 30 percent
c. Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani each win enough states to split the vote, and the Republican National Convention decides the nomination with an old-fashioned smoke-filled room selection of a candidate. 25 percent
d. Huckabee teaches Giuliani, Romney and Fred Thompson how to play musical instruments, and they form a band. Thompson loves playing before a live audience instead of a camera, Romney bets they can make a killing with a concert tour and Giuliani is just in it for the groupies. 10 percent

3. GENERAL ELECTION FOR PRESIDENT
a. Giuliani faces Clinton and the media focuses on who handles a failing marriage the least badly. 10 percent
b. Romney takes on Obama and between Mitt's smarts and Barack's ability to inspire, they end up going into business together. 10 percent
c. Edwards challenges Huckabee and they produce a re-make of the movie "Rudy," which ain't about the former New York City mayor. 10 percent
d. Giuliani or Romney beat Clinton or Obama because the public just doesn't like Hillary and can't bring themselves to vote for someone as inexperienced as Barack. 70 percent

4. CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS
a. The Democrats, thanks to a lackluster crop of GOP candidates, hold onto both chambers of Congress with majorities similar to what they currently enjoy. 50 percent
b. Republicans take advantage of a bumbling Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to reclaim the Senate and pull the House to a deficit made workable with some moderate Democrats. 20 percent
c. Democrats, thanks to GOP retirements, expand their Senate majority (currently 50-48 with two independents) by four or five seats but lose significant ground in the House. 25 percent
d. Disgusted Americans throw the bums out and give the Libertarian Party a slight majority over the Greens. 5 percent

5. THE ISSUE OF THE CAMPAIGN
a. The economy, which continues to hum along but has enough problems like high oil prices and a soft real estate market for candidates to complain about. 60 percent
b. Iraq, which Republicans will tout as a great and hard-fought victory while Democrats claim to have never heard of the place -- unless things fall apart again. 20 percent
c. Health care, after a summertime outbreak of West Nile Virus. 15 percent
d. College football's Bowl Championship Series, after 11 teams claim a share of the national championship over the next week. 5 percent

6. TERRORISM
a. al-Qaeda hits the United States on our own soil in the early fall, throwing our election campaign into turmoil. 20 percent
b. Home grown terrorists strike in Europe, giving the GOP candidate a political boost that is only temporary. 70 percent
c. U.S. forces capture or kill Osama bin-Laden. 40 percent
d. al-Qaeda, looking for a disfunctional country in which to thrive, sets up its new headquarters in a Manhattan subway tunnel. 10 percent

(more than 100 percent since the scenarios are not mutually exclusive)

7. IRAQ
a. While a certain amount of violence and political opposition remain a perpetual part of the Iraq story, the successes gained by the surge hold through next year and allow the country's splintered political elements a chance to come together -- whether they take advantage of it or not. 40 percent
b. Extremist Shiites bomb one of their own holy sites in order to blame Sunni "Awakening Groups" and touch off a year of sectarian fighting. 30 percent
c. The Iraqi government, rendered untenable after losing militant Shiite support, falls, leading to elections that result in a more moderate prime minister and the beginning of reconciliation talks. 25 percent
d. The missing WMD is found in a hermetically sealed jar on the doorstep of the Damascus office of Funk & Wagnalls. 5 percent

8. IRAN
a. Mixed signals about the nuclear program continue to come out of Tehran and U.S. and European intelligence services. Iranian, western government officials and the United States talk until they're blue in the face with no resolution. 70 percent
b. Not wanting to leave the issue of Iranian nukes to his successor, President Bush orders an attack that, in conjunction with Israeli forces, leaves the nuclear facilities a smoking mess. The U.S. and Israel are condemned as bullies by the United Nations. 20 percent
c. The ruling Mullahs realize that President Ahmadinejad is an idiot, and he dies after "a sudden illness" in order to short-circuit a popular coup. 8 percent
d. With peace reigning next door, the Mullahs wake up one day next December to realize that 90 percent of their subjects are now living in Iraq. 2 percent

9. THE ECONOMY
a. The federal reserve sends mixed signals to markets and investors through most of the year, finally easing monetary policy under political pressure in the fall. Oil prices remain high, but don't go over $4 out of fear by the oil companies that it will result in Democrat election victories. 60 percent
b. Improvements in Iraq security and a lack of action in Iran results in a slow but sustained drop in worldwide oil prices, and with Citi and Bank of America pulling itself out of their mortgage goofs, the stock market surges to 15,000 by fall. 30 percent
c. Continued high oil prices, the mortgage crisis and deficit spending continue to drive the economy out of balance. Stocks drop under 11,000 by and unemployment climbs significantly for the first time in eons. 7 percent
d. In conjunction with each other, Russia cuts natural gas shipments to Europe, Iran cuts off oil shipments to Europe and Asia and Venezuela re-routes crude from the United States to new clients in South America. Resulting panic drives stocks under five figures and creates a new worldwide depression. 3 percent

10. SPORTS
a. Roger Clemens proves that he's been clean his entire career and Alex Rodriguez dispels similar rumors, while baseball Commissioner Bud Selig declares the steroid era over and much-ado-about nothing -- all while the Washington Nationals defeat the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. 1 percent
b. The New England Patriots reach the Super Bowl with an 18-0 record but, with his team up by four points with 10 seconds left, quarterback Tom Brady fumbles on a "kneel down" play. The ball is picked up and run in for the touchdown. The '72 Dolphins reach for the champagne again. 1 percent
c. Louisiana-Monroe goes 12-0 with a series of close college football victories, forcing BCS bowl committees to post armed guards outside the rooms where they gather to make their selections. 1 percent
d. The Patriots cruise to the Super Bowl title and a first-ever 19-0 record, nothing really happens about steroids in baseball despite a lot of pious blabbing, the Arizona Diamondbacks win the World Series, the Chinese Olympics are competed safely but are totally boring. 80 percent

11. MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT
a. Newspapers and magazines nationwide continue to contract in both product and staff and put more and more original content on the Internet, without having any sort of clue how to make money off the new medium. In the summer, unopened copies of the Sunday New York Times are blown off breakfast tables by ceiling fans. 99.9 percent
b. At a mid-year Beverly Hills cocktail party, a movie director describes his idea for a new anti-Iraq War film, is lovingly surrounded by a hundred fellow guests and toasted. The following Monday, he pitches his idea to the exact same people in their offices and is thrown out. 80 percent
c. Paris Hilton is photographed eating a double-cheeseburger and large fries at In'n'Out and the celeb-obsessed media speculate she has an eating disorder. Gets a condolence letter from Jennifer Love-Hewitt. Lindsay Lohan is spotted dancing with her father at a Manhattan nightclub. Britney Spears releases a heartfelt double-CD album sung with her real voice, resulting in critics calling her the female Bob Dylan. She appears in concert with wires stuck in her head. 0.00000000001 percent
d. The editors of Time magazine, unable to bring themselves to name as Person of the Year either the GOP president-elect, as is traditional in an election year, or Gen. David Petraeus, pick themselves for the award. 50 percent

12. THE UNEXPECTED
a. Robert Mugabe announces that Zimbabwe is pursuing nuclear weapons to defend the country against angry former land-owners. 10 percent
b. A very slight 2007 trend builds into a tidal wave in 2008 as millions of illegal immigrants head south for home seeking more positive economic conditions. 20 percent
c. The International Olympic Committee, citing smog and/or political repression, pulls the Summer Olympiad from China and gives it to Sydney. 15 percent
d. Israel and the Palestinians led by Mahmoud Abbas reach a peace agreement during the spring, giving room for the Israelis to put the squeeze on Hamas and Hezbollah during the summer. By this time next year, the world is almost completely at peace. 40 percent

Obviously, the unexpected is the most difficult to choose. Overall, though, I'm somewhat optimistic about the upcoming 12 months -- at least in that I'm not terribly worried about a terrorist attack at home, a reversal in Iraq or an economic collapse. All could happen, but the chances are against them. Of course, I also expect our officials who do nothing to continue doing nothing. If 2008 becomes, for most of us, the year in which nothing really bad happened, then it will be better than the alternative.

Bhutto Assassination, Giuliani Polling Collapse

It's going to take some time for the situation in Pakistan to sort itself out after today's assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. That is the power struggle. There will be much violence in the coming days, maybe enough to teeter the government of President Pervez Musharraf.

While media reports will focus on the riots, the determining factor will be what takes place behind the scenes. Musharraf, out of political necessity, has had to a certain extent accomodate the Islamists. Will he now throw that out the window and go after them in earnest, or will he continue to pander to the extremists?

The odds on either strategy are about even. There will be heavy international pressure to bring the assassination ringleaders and their enablers to justice. Throw Bhutto supporters into that mix. However, Musarraf gains by the demise of Bhutto. Plus, his actions in the last few months made possible the conditions that led to her death.

If the Pakistani president does not go after the Islamists, their influence will grow tremendously. That's where you really have to worry, since we're talking about a nuclear-capable country.

You'll read in the coming days tributes to Bhutto that will make her out to be some sort of hero of democracy and the last best hope of the West for a stable and democratic Pakistan. In reality, she was neither. But her death is a tragedy, another great upset in a perpetually turbulent region.

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More poll watching, and it's not to Rudy Giuliani's benefit.

The former mayor of New York City has dropped about nine points nationally in the past couple of weeks and now leads second-place Mike Huckabee by 3.3 points, according to the RealClearPolitics.com tracker.

Giuliani is now FIFTH in Iowa with just 8.3 percent, though that's somewhat understandable with the evangelist Christian-heavy voting block in the GOP there. But in New Hampshire, with a more diverse demographic that should favor him in a state close to home, he's fallen well behind front-runners Mitt Romney and John McCain into third.

Okay, so take those first two primaries and their media-circus weirdness out of the mix. Next is Michigan, and Giuliani is running fourth. In South Carolina, about two weeks later, he's fifth again.

Even Florida, where Giuliani was going to make his first big splash, he's all but blown what was a 20-point lead in the polls in late-November. Now he leads Huckabee by just 2.2 points.

Get this. The candidate who currently LEADS the national GOP polls could be out of the race by the end of January. Admittedly, those polls from earlier in the year probably weren't terribly accurate, especially as the voting public slowly gets a feel for what the candidates are all about. But it's a surprising turnaround.

Merry Christmas

When you have time to breathe during the Christmas season -- between shopping, baking, shopping, mailing cards, shopping, attending parties, shopping and this year working or going to school right up to the holiday -- there is time to reflect on the meaning of our celebration. The birth of a baby that is believed to be our savior.

In this age of global theology-based conflict, it's important to examine the meaning of Christmas and how it makes Christianity, the dominant religion of western civilization, different from other faiths.

To me, the key difference that goes beyond everything else is the baby. Christians fervently celebrate a tiny, helpless lump of flesh. That such a being is able to exist in the first place, let alone grow, learn and flourish, is astonishing. We're all amazed and usually proud of how our own children develop over time. The odds of just making it to adulthood in ancient times were not so good.

It would be easy to go directly to someone in his 30s who performs miracles and worship him. Much harder to welcome the object of devotion as a crying newborn in a stable.

That's where faith comes in. Faith that this baby will grow into his savior role. Faith to look beyond the humble beginnings and see what could be in the future. That faith is what drives Christians so powerfully in their lives.

That part of the faith is what makes Christianity unique. It brings to believers a great appreciation of life itself, that life is worth living and that we can create something better for ourselves -- both individually and part of a group. That love of life, ingrained in us over the centuries, made us what we are as a people today. It allowed us to build our civilization in the Western world that is now emulated by many other cultures across many other religious lines.

To all who celebrate the holiday, Merry Christmas!

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Despite what people wish for, a hard look at the polling data still shows no sign of a resurgence by John McCain or a collapse by Mike Huckabee in the early GOP primary states or in national surveys. Save the wishing this time of year for gifts.

Person of Year Reaction; Media Wishing it Were So and Expressing It

Well, here's my post that I promised in the last go-round reacting to the selection of Time Magazine's Person of the Year -- and my low regard for the choice of Russian President Vladimir Putin dovetails nicely with another media issue that I've noted this week.

Regarding the choice of Putin, Time claims that he is a major player on the world stage who is greatly shaping our future. Bunk. Well, partially bunk. Putin's nationalistic fervor held his once-fractious nation together and his KGB roots allowed him to ruthlessly consolidate power. With those accomplishments behind him, he's turned his attention to reasserting Russia's role in the post-Soviet, post-Communist world. All that's granted.

But there's this, also. Russia would be thriving now because of high oil prices even if it were ruled by Mickey Mouse. He's been unable to prevent the creep of NATO to his country's doorstep. His military remains a shambles -- flying some decades-old bombers near western territory earlier this year drew some raised eyebrows, but that was about it. Haven't heard of those bombers since. Maybe they're down for their 30-year overhaul.

Russian political influence has not prevented the election of conservative prime ministers in Germany, France and the Ukraine, and energy blackmail has failed to deter former Soviet republics.

Putin, overall, has had a major impact within Russia, but not outside the country.

Gen. David Petraeus, meanwhile, has changed the course of history. World history. The future of civilization.

What bothers me most about the Time selection of Putin is that by reading their top five, it's pretty clear they really would have rather selected former vice-president Al Gore. Instead, fearful of the reaction, they placed the environmental hero second. Meaning they're chicken.

It's a reasonable query as to why they would pick someone in Gore whose impact was felt more the previous year when his "An Inconvenient Truth" film on global warming was playing in theaters nationwide. But what really goes to the credibility of the entire magazine is they're not printing what they really think. Time Inc. is based on the highly insulated island of Manhattan, which is separated from the rest of the United States more than Guam is. Time editors and the people in the circles in which they walk probably go years without seeing a man or woman in a military uniform. Petraeus just was not on their radar. Gore is. So is Putin. JK Rowling and Hu Jintao, the other runners-up, are non-sensical (though Hu could very well be a legitimate contender next year). Just goes to show how out of touch the editors are. They're a joke.

My estimate is that while Putin is, and will continue to, offer us some short-term challenges, he is the last gasp of a dying empire. In 20 years from now, Russia will be a much different place than it is now, and Putin will be a footnote in history.

But if in 20 years freedom and liberty still flourish in Europe and the Americas, and democracy in any form takes a foothold in the Middle East, then David Petraeus will be greatly responsible -- as will be the men and women he leads.

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More blasts for my colleagues in the media.

One of the trends I'm observing is writing or saying something as analysis in hopes that what they're saying will be so. This is a bit different from what we normally see, where a columnist, for example, writes something from their perspective that might be totally wrong factually and conceptually, but that's how they see things.

What we're getting now is designed to shape the future.

Cases in point:

-- The Wall Street Journal carried an editorial Tuesday entitled "McCain's Surge: Why he's making a primary comeback." Uh, what primary comeback? RealClearPolitics.com, which I strongly suggest visiting for polling data because they aggregate all the polls for a clear picture of what's taking place in primary states, has graphs of the polling of the various candidates. McCain, far from surging, continues to gain support in very low figures and his line is either flat or falling. There is nothing to suggest that McCain's candidacy is surging in any way.

-- Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, an unabashed evangelical conservative who has supported Mitt Romney from the get-go is fully aware that the rise of Mike Huckabee has damaged his boy's candidacy, and has led the GOP establishment's anti-Huck charge. I'm not much on Huckabee myself, but Hewitt's show has devolved into unlistenable three-hour diatribes against the former Arkansas governor. For well over a week now, he's been discussing the Huckabee downfall. While Huck's numbers have just started to drop in Iowa, and he never really has gained traction in New Hampshire, there is no sign of a collapse of support elsewhere.

-- I came across a column in, of all places, the Indianapolis Star (though it seems to have originated with the Washington Post Writer's Group) with a title that was appealing, "Public United, Politicians Divided." Those four words, in that order, express something I really believe in and give me cause to blog. Writer Marie Cocco starts well by saying there's nothing worse than a presidential primary campaign during the holidays. But her idea of where the public is united loses me pretty quickly. "They think the Iraq War was a mistake and that the United States should start getting out." That might have been our mood early this year, but not now. "They think the economy is lousy and that the country is on the wrong track." Probably true, but if you were to engage people on the topic, they'd probably concede that the economy is handling its current issues. Judging from her Iraq comments that she leans toward the Democrat side of the ledger, she doesn't seem to notice that her party's leaders are among those leading us down the wrong track. "They want the government to find a way to guarantee health insurance to everyone and they overwhelmingly believe the bipartisan effort to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a good idea." In fact, what we agree on is the current health care system stinks, but we disagree on how to fix it, with most people falling AGAINST more government intervention. And that we are more than willing to pay for health insurance for indigent children, but not those who have means, which is what the expansion would have done.

You can't sit there and dream of something and make it so just because you say it is, or will be. There is no case to be made for a McCain comeback. Hewitt will probably be right in time, but whether Huckabee's drop will be fast enough to save Romney is questionable. Cocco is living in a bubble just like the editors of Time. Though she'd probably have enough guts to choose Al Gore as her Man of the Year.

Man/Woman of the Year

A major political magazine today noted that it's almost time for Time Magazine to reveal its 2007 Person of the Year, and nominated for that honor Gen. David Petraeus, who has guided "the surge" to a certain amount of success in Iraq.

Time has a record of controversial selections, like the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, but the overwhelming majority have had a positive impact on the world. There have also been the incomprehensible concept choices like the computer or last year's pick of you.

So, to lend a hand to the editors of Time Magazine -- and ignoring the fact that they probably made their choice no later than September so they could have time to get their story together -- here are some selections of people who proved themselves worthy, or sufficiently notorious.

Petraeus -- Yep, good call.

Nicholas Sarkozy -- since being elected president of France, no one orders Freedom Fries anymore.

Barry Bonds -- the face of the just-completed steroids era of baseball. Might have more news article mentions than President Bush.

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim -- the founders of YouTube reinvigorated the Internet.

Barack Obama -- you have to give the guy credit for running a heck of a political campaign and making a lot of people interested. Like the positive message even if it's empty.

Ron Paul -- an amazing number of people wonder about him as an alternative. He is the number one most-searched political candidate on Gooooooooooooooooooogle.

Glenn Beck -- gets an hour show on CNN Headline News and it's even repeated just a couple hours later, you freak! He's interesting, isn't afraid to admit that he's nuts and is sensitive to the same ideals of this blog.

Miley Cyrus -- as Hannah Montana, she's captured the hearts and imagination of more little girls than dad Billy Ray ever did.

Steven Colbert -- the star of The Daily Show has the number two selling book on Amazon.com. 'nuff said.

Michael Yon -- no one would know that the surge in Iraq was working without Yon. The guy has more guts than any American correspondent covering the war. Basically raises donations and then goes out to the front lines to report on what he sees.

I'm sure there's some concept choices out there in case the Time editors can't bring themselves to choose Petraeus. The stem cell, the illegal immigrant. My concept choice is a product of my location: the firefighter. They're all heroes in my eyes.

When Time does get around to announcing my choice, I'll have a comment. Bet on it.

You freak. ;)

Baseball Steroids, Black Christmas

Dawn broke over the world of baseball on Thursday, Dec. 13. Far from being a dark day, a horrible day for the game as many pundits are saying, the release of the Mitchell Report on the use of performance enhancing drugs by players is the start of a new and improved era for America's pastime.

With a very minimal exception, there were no great surprises among the players named in the report. That exception is Wally Joyner, the brilliant first baseman who fashioned a squeaky clean image with the Angels and Padres. His exception is minimal because he in 1998 took three pills received from teammate Ken Caminiti while he was battling a number of injuries. He didn't like their effect and never used them again.

There were some surprises among the names left out. All of us baseball fans had some suspects, many of whom were officially unmasked by the former senator. However, because very few people in baseball actually cooperated with the investigation, the lines that were looked into were just two: a Mets clubhouse employee who sold performance enhancing drugs to players, and the BALCO lab in the San Francisco area that sold such items to Barry Bonds and disgraced track star Marion Jones.

Obviously, many other players were using, with the drugs coming in from a myriad of other sources. We probably will never know, only suspect, the ultimate impact steroids and human growth hormone on the game.

Whether the new day dawning on baseball is as long as an Alaska summer or as short as a Russian winter will depend on what lessons are drawn from the report.

Here's my take. Official baseball -- the owners, commissioner's office, team front offices, scouts, coaches, television and pundits -- along with too many fans, fell in love with the home run. Baseball people have always appreciated power bats, but the late 1990s home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa was credited with reviving the game after the 1994 lockout of players. It didn't matter that these behemoths couldn't field their position, take an extra base or hit behind a runner. As long as they could send a pitch into the upper deck, all was forgiven. And as we found out in the Mitchell Report, "all" really meant "all."

Hopefully, we're falling back into an age where all facets of the game are important. Bunting, stealing bases, the hit-and-run.

I love the home run, don't get me wrong. But it's not special anymore. That's what made a shot into the bleachers so exciting. It didn't happen several times in a game. Now teams just play station-to-station and hope for a three-run blast.

With players off the juice, we might get back to the game the way it should be played.

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Gabrielle Union, my new hero.

The star of "The Perfect Holiday" appeared to totally turn the tables on the writer of an interview I saw in my local paper the other day. A writer who, by the appearance of the questions, seemed to be shocked that a black family actually celebrated Christmas.

The writer asked about racial differences in celebrating the holiday. Union said all races celebrate and differences in traditions are among families.

The writer wondered why there were all those "white movies" like "Miracle on 34th Street." Union said maybe we could get Asian or Latino Christmas movies next year and that, in the end, all they did was show how we're not that different.

You go girl!

"'This Christmas' didn't make all that money just by pandering to a black audience," she said about a recent successful film. "People like Christmas. That's all there is to it."

Maybe I read too much into this, but I could picture the frustrated writer jumping out his seat and yelling, "Damn it! You people are supposed to celebrate Kwanzaa!"

Differences between how blacks celebrate Christmas than everyone else. Uh, yeah. Sure. The only real racial difference I can think of is that Latinos like to serve tamales on the Holy day. That's pretty cool, actually. Tamales can be really good if prepared well. Otherwise, blacks celebrate Christmas much like the rest of us. And if anyone still has any energy left after all that shopping, traveling and eating, then some even go out to enjoy Kwanzaa, too.

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Perhaps the reason I got annoyed at Union's interviewer is I had recently heard former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young's comment that Bill Clinton has been with more black women than Barack Obama. Nice, not.

It drew a laugh and Young quickly added he was just kidding, but that's treading on some dangerous territory. I think that most of us here at home really don't want to delve too far into the subject of interracial relationships. It used to be a taboo subject. Now it's commonplace. You see all kinds of combinations of couples these days. It's no longer that controversial. Yet, at the same time, people are tired of those who still try to dredge up the old sore feelings on the topic. Yeah, it was a joke, but no one really wants to go where Young was headed.

Why Clinton, Romney Are Struggling; More on Iran Nukes

With just weeks remaining before ballots are cast in the Iowa caucuses, both of the favorites are struggling, for a reason which will be a huge determining factor in choosing our next president.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led their Iowa races until falling into second place recently. Both are both strong candidates who might just simply be stuck in the wrong election year. The voters want someone who will play it straight with them, be blunt if need be, and not tailor their message for each audience. It's not the year for the traditional politician. Better to be rumpled and speak with clarity in 2007 and 2008 than to have a $400 haircut and be labeled as a flip-flopper.

Clinton, of course, has been the Democratic heir apparent practically since her husband left office in 2001. Romney made a conscious decision to sink his time and resources into Iowa and New Hampshire and hope to catch the same breeze that carried John Kerry to the Democratic nomination in 2004. Both accordingly had substantial leads in the first few months of the campaign before falling behind Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Clinton's lead has shrunk sharply in New Hampshire, site of the first real primary -- in fact a new poll today shows Obama in front in the Granite State. Romney remains ahead comfortably there in what is essentially his backyard, but is still not gaining much traction with voters elsewhere (which could change as he's done well in his last two debates and gained an endorsement from the iconic conservative magazine National Review).

So things aren't well in either camp.

What you hear about mostly with Clinton is planted questions and whether anyone really likes her, and Romney's battle to get his religious beliefs past evangelical conservatives. But those aren't the problems. Symptoms, maybe, but not the problem itself.

From Clinton and Romney, the feeling too often is that you're getting what they think you want to hear so you'll voter for them. Clinton is famous for taking varying stances on issues depending on the makeup of her audience. Romney comes across as too slick by half and hasn't been able to shake his flip-flops on social issues. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has some of the same "social issue issues" as Romney, has tackled them straight on from the beginning and has not paid the same price.

Core values. Plainly spoken. That's what people want to see.

Very simply put, they might be the right people for their party, but they've come along at the wrong time in history. Hillary Clinton had two terms of exposure to the White House. Romney had been a blazing success at nearly everything he's attempted. You can't knock either one. But when voters want a candidate who will tell you how they really see it, Clinton and Romney will get left behind.

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It's so darn early in the campaign season that predictions remain hard to make, but I'll try some.

I think both of the current beneficiaries of the Clinton-Romney struggles, Obama and Huckabee, are flashes in the pan. Polling still shows Hillary with an 18 percentage point lead nationally, so I'm suspecting that she will more likely than not hold onto her claim for the Democratic nomination.

Her key states are South Carolina and Florida, which follow hard on Iowa and New Hampshire. She's nearly blown a double-digit lead over Obama in South Carolina just in the past week or so. She's ahead by 30 points in the Sunshine State. If that advantage starts to crumble, watch out. Remember my post about piling on Hillary? If Florida starts to give way, she's in big, big trouble.

Huckabee has shot into big leads in Iowa and South Carolina, while Giuliani continues to hold a huge Florida advantage. Romney maintains that wide edge in New Hampshire. Certainly a mixed bag. As stated in a previous post, I think the races in both parties will come down to the later primary states, especially on the Republican side.

The mathematical losers in Huckabee's rise have been different in each of the early-voting states. In Iowa, it's Romney whose lost support. In New Hampshire and Florida, Thompson has suffered. South Carolina, Romney and Giuliani about the same. Nationally, the Huck vote has come at the expense of Giuliani and Thompson.

However, things are in flux. The past 10 days have seen a barrage of fire aimed at Huckabee from his opponents and the conservative press. It could take some time for those attacks to seep into the polls. We should know by Christmas if Huckabee has some real staying power with voters.

Dark horse? Thompson. If he's been hurt by Huckabee's rise, he might gain by his potential fall. If Romney fails to turn his recent debate performances and National Review endorsement into solid support, the plain-spoken actor could find himself back on Giulian's heels by the time Super Tuesday rolls around.

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It's taken a while to make sense of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear aims, but I think some things are becoming clear.

At first, you heard from the left a lot of anti-Bush and "see, Iran never was a threat and, by the way, neither was Iraq!" comments; from the right "no way" and "it must be the anti-war on terror crowd within the CIA at work again."

But thoughtful analysis from some smart people have led to three conclusions about the NIE's judgment on Iran:

1. The writers have high confidence that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but only moderate confidence that such work has not resumed since. It is what it is.

2. Iran continues its work on enriching uranium, for whatever reason. Once it succeeds, then whenever it decides to resume its weapons program, it won't be too far from having a bomb.

3. If the NIE is indeed accurate, then it's actually not an anti-Bush document at all. Instead, highly pro-Bush. The report suggests Iran stopped its weapons program because of international pressure. And what major pressure took place in 2003? The U.S. invasion of Iraq, right next door. The same event that caused Libya to cut ties to terrorism and end its own weapons of mass destruction programs, that forced Saudi Arabia to get tough with al Qaeda in its own country and eased Syria's grip on Lebanon.

The NIE was huge when it first came out. Still is. But in such a situation, best to ignore the immediate hysteria and wait for the cautious analysis to come out over the next few weeks.

The NIE is what it is. No more and no less.

Oprah Big in Iowa but Will Anyone Care?

One of the great problems with our political climate right now is illustrated by the excitement generated by television talk show hostess/mogul Oprah Winfrey as she campaigns for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Now, Winfrey has every right to campaign on behalf of the candidate of her choice and use her celebrity status to advantage. The candidate who benefits obviously has the right to use her in any way they -- and she -- find acceptable.

What bothers me is the commotion caused by a television personality on the campaign trail.

I think this is an "only in Iowa" sort of thing. First, you have Obama claiming the lead in polls from New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, so Oprah is just giving a rocket some extra boost. Secondly, as stated before, in Iowa you're looking at party activists (unions and anti-war voters on the Democrat side, evangelicals for the GOP), and they're looking for any excuse to look excited for their candidate. Plus, such people are probably more celebrity conscious than the rest of us. Finally, how often do you get someone like Oprah in Des Moines?

I think the Oprah factor will matter less as time goes on and we move on to other states. I don't know about you, but who she endorses won't matter much when I make my ultimate decision on whom to vote for in the California primary. I am still undecided, after all.

Regular people like us really don't give a darn about what the celebrities say. It's troubling that there are a few people out there who do.

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Here's our government at work. The CIA admits it destroyed tapes of secret interrogations of terrorism detainees. Ooops. In government work, you just don't destroy records of any sort, especially in something controversial. The whole issue how to handle the detainees is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Pretty dumb thinking at Langley.

Now it comes out that Congressional leaders of both parties responsible for intelligence (there's an oxymoron for you) were briefed on interrogation techniques in 2002 and none objected at the time. Waterboarding was one of the methods displayed. One of the operatives at the briefing says they were encouraged to get even tougher on the detainees.

Yep, our government. A lose-lose situation.

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Opponents of California's Three Strikes Law, which mandates 25 years to life sentences for criminal defendants upon their third conviction of a serious charge is under attack again. According to the Associated Press in this story a commission will be created in an attempt to reform the state's sentencing laws. Voters overwhelmingly support Three Strikes. Defendants advocates -- lawyers -- don't.

What this story fails to tell you, and what Three Strikes opponents never mention, is that judges and prosecutors have all sorts of leeway in Three Strikes cases. Strikes are waived all the time if justice dictates that a defendant shouldn't be sentenced to such an extreme term.

In the case of the prisoner mentioned in the story, the conviction which gave him the sentence seemed like it was not terribly serious, but we know nothing of the circumstances in the case. They were conveniently left out of the story. You don't get 76 years in prison for nothing. If he did, it would be overturned on appeal.

Three Strikes works just fine, has the outs that the judicial system needs in cases where it does not apply and has strong support among voters.

Nuclear Iran

So now what are we to think about Iran?

In the space of just over two weeks:

-- the United Nations' atomic energy watchdog reported that Iran had acquired 3,000 centrifuges needed to process uranium and would thus be able to build a nuclear bomb in about a year,

-- and 16 U.S. spy agencies jointly released a National Intelligence Estimate that revealed that while the troublesome country was making progress on its nuclear program, it had apparently halted its nuclear weapons program back in 2003.

Oh-kaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy. That's helpful.

Now, as is befitting our national leadership, you have Bush administration officials, Democrats and "experts" debating whether the NIE is right or wrong.

Well, I have no idea whether it's right or wrong and you probably don't either. The only thing I learned is that we have 16 spy agencies. I can count the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and the intelligence organization within the State Department. That's four. You can probably fold in the Secret Service and FBI to make six. But I digress.

The only argument I can make against the NIE report is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has for several years now stated his goal to build a bomb that will wipe Israel off the map. He's hailed various breakthroughs in his country's nuclear program. Logically, there's not much need for energy-rich Iran to have nuclear power.

Otherwise, here we are with divergent reports trying to figure out which one is accurate. We need to know. There is nothing that can be more dangerous in the world than to have a nuclear-armed Iran. Fortunately, Ahmadinejad has been forthcoming with his plans when it suits him. It might take one of his vitriolic speeches to figure out the truth.

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This one we know is wrong. Sen. Harry Reid says the troop surge in Iraq is not working. That's political speech that can roughly be translated into "Darn it, I can't stop this war no matter what I do and now my party is going to get creamed for it."

There's tons of anecdotal evidence that the surge is indeed working, enough so that Reid's fellow Democrats and most media observers agree. Why Reid continues to make himself look foolish is beyond me. But it's a real illustration of the problems we have in Washington, D.C. You can hold three fingers up before Reid and ask him how many fingers you're displaying, and his answer will be whatever he believes suits him politically.

Give us the truth. Then feel free to tell us you don't like it.

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This is NOT the most exciting college football season in years, like you might hear or read.

This season has been all about failure. Seriously, last week of the season and numbers one and two both lost. No team that's climbed to the top spots in the rankings have been able to hold their place. USC, West Virginia, LSU, Ohio State, Cal, Boston College, South Florida, Oregon, Missouri and Kansas all had a shot at glory and couldn't hold it. Only Oregon has an excuse, since their collapse coincided with an injury to star quarterback Dennis Dixon. The Ducks, when healthy, are the best team I saw all year. Unfortunately, their offense was built around Dixon and when he went down, they were toast.

Of the teams playing for the national championship, Ohio State's non-conference schedule has consisted of Youngstown State, Akron, Washington and Kent State; while LSU has lost twice and barely survived three other contests. Outside of a pasting of Virginia Tech, the Tigers non-league slate is as bad as the Buckeyes. Being in the Big 10 is no excuse for OSU's sorry schedule. That conference is really down this year.

I've not been in favor of Hawaii being included in the BCS because it's schedule has been so weak, but looking at the teams that have been favored, I think the unbeaten Warriors not only deserve their BCS spot, but maybe should be the team playing the Buckeyes. LSU will probably win by two or three touchdowns, but no two-loss team should ever be the national champion.

We should neither celebrate nor reward failure.

More CNN-You Tube, Various Notes

Much of the fallout from the Republican You Tube debate dubiously hosted by CNN this week has centered on either the incompetence or the bias of the producers who sifted through about 5,000 submitted questions.

There would seem to be a deeper issue, however. A couple of posts ago, when I reacted to the indictment of baseball star Barry Bonds for allegedly lying to a grand jury, I lamented how our culture had changed from one of striving for excellence to one of winning at all costs. That shift has come at a severe price, which is showing up in all sorts of ways.

The debate was a great example. The over-worked, low-paid and probably lightly experienced CNN producers just wanted to get the show over with so they can get back to what they normally do. They scanned through submissions faster than a speed-reader samples a lunch menu and picked out the ones that made sense to them as being representative -- which may lend credence to the bias claims.

They did not have as a goal putting on the best show they possibly could, or the most insightful debate. Instead, we got planted queries and front-runners pummeling each other over immigration. The CNN producers really didn't care, or they would have done better.

As you read this, they now care. Key word being "now." If CNN is going to have any credibility left, those tasked with sampling You Tube questions will have been given a dressing down by the big bosses.

Too bad they didn't care earlier. Like Barry Bonds, or the Enron heads, they didn't care about what they were doing when it mattered. There are consequences to your actions, good or bad.

We all have to remember that our actions do matter and they will have an impact at a future time. The more we think ahead, and think about performing the best we can, then those consequences will be good ones. It's a good rule of thumb for you and me and should be the rule of life for those in the public arena.

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Does Iowa matter? I've always wondered why the caucuses mean so much to the primary campaigns other than the symbolism of being the first state to actually cast votes. It's not you and me out there casting ballots in a neighbor's garage. It's party officials and activists. They don't exactly represent the rest of us.

New Hampshire matters. That's us voting. New Hampshire residents are a pretty good sample of the rest of the United States with liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, and only miss out on racial diversity.

The comments come to mind because, according to the polling, preferences in Iowa are changing rapidly.

On the Democratic side, Barack Obama now leads Hillary Clinton among party faithful by a half-point per the Real Clear Politics Web site's aggregate of polls.

For Republicans, Mitt Romney now leads Mike Huckabee by just 2 points after at times sitting on double-digit margins over Rudy Giuliani. The former New York City mayor is now mired in third place after leading in Iowa as late as May. The respected Rasmussen poll has the Arkansas governor up by three points.

Now check out New Hampshire. Clinton even after a bit of a drop following her debate disaster, still leads Obama by 11 points. Obama profited from Hillary's errors, but has even given some of that away in recent polls.

Romney is up by 15 points in the Granite State and is building his lead over Giuliani. Huckabee is still in single-digits in the polls.

Remember, in New Hampshire, it's real people who are voting.

Does Iowa matter? Or will New Hampshire? History tells us that on the Democratic side in 2004, they both mattered. For the Republicans in 2000, neither did. This time, it'll be a split, but it'll be the later primaries which tell us which direction is favored.

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Keep in mind what I said about dog-piling on Clinton if her poll numbers fall more. It hasn't happened yet because she remains strong in New Hampshire. But if those poll figures go south on her, the attack dogs might start running loose.

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If either Iowa or New Hampshire matter for Republicans as momentum builders, Romney is sitting pretty. In the states following, polling now has him leading in South Carolina and has about doubled his numbers there since the beginning of October. He's also close in Michigan.

This is huge for the Republican race because the Massachusetts governor has front-loaded his resources in hopes of catching a friendly breeze. It means nothing to win either of the first two states if you can't follow it up. Ask John McCain. With Giuliani holding a commanding lead in Florida, Romney needs South Carolina and Michigan.

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Giuliani might be heading to where Hillary is. You won't find anyone who says he did well in that You Tube debate, plus the story came out on his use of publicly-funded security to take him out for trysts with the woman who is now his wife.

In some ways, the stuff about Giuliani mixing his personal and professional lives is water under the bridge. People who support him, or think they might, have taken such things under consideration already. But if his numbers slip in the next couple weeks like Clinton's, then he'll get raked over the coals.

CNN-You Tube Debate a Blessing in Disguise

CNN is getting blasted for its performance in hosting the GOP presidential debate, and rightfully so, but this could be the best thing that's happened so far in the primary campaign. All those planted questions, which CNN producers either let by with a wink or were ill-prepared to catch, when combined with the planted questions at the Hillary Clinton event a few weeks ago will serve to prepare the public for how things are going to be next year.

Republicans, with some justification, have long complained that so-called non-partison general election debates were stacked with liberals. That was back long before the, famous to conservatives, pony-tailed man who asked Bill Clinton how government was going to take care of all of us.

Now we had a Republican primary debate in which so many of the questions were about liberal concerns. For a list of the plants, check the Michelle Malkin Web site. The early buzz was all about the gay general, but there turned out to be so many more that it gave CNN a black eye.

There's two bottom lines:

First, we at home have to realize that CNN's political coverage is a joke. The debate producers either got duped or really thought these questions were pertinent. Either way it looks real bad for them, and not so hot for us either, because now we can't depend on them for high quality coverage.

Second, Republicans simply have to be ready for this. Not just in being blindsided in debates, but eventually, one of them is going to win the nomination and is then going to have to answer to concerns of people other than committed Republicans who are paying attention to presidential politics one November too early. Like independents. Like Reagan Democrats. There's no problem with them starting last night.

A Holiday Free From Politics, Later Primaries Will Determine Presidential Candidates

I attended two family functions in and around the Thanksgiving holiday, and nary a political word could be heard. It could be that everyone was on their best behavior. More likely is that everyone is so sick of the BS out of Washington that it was more interesting to talk about whether you liked light or dark meat.

My bet is I'm not the only one to have experienced this phenomenon. Probably few people gave a darn about the fortunes of Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani or other political candidates during the past week. A week, mind you, when according to polls those front-runners were ahead by less than they had been.

My other bet is that's just where the political pros in Washington, D.C. want us. To be disinterested and ignore what's going on there. The precedent was earlier this year with the immigration reform agreement forged by President Bush and Senate leaders. Sen. John McCain was quoted as saying he wanted the measure passed before it underwent scrutiny. That's because he knew what would happen once we got a look at it. He was right.

While we certainly have more important, or at least more pressing matters to attend to in our lives, we have to remain vigilant to what our political leaders are doing. White meat vs dark meat is still more conversational, but we can't let our attention stray too far from what the politicians are doing, because more often than not, it will be fowl.

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One of the ironic things about the presidential primary season that's soon to be upon us -- New Hampshire voters can collect and submit their absentee ballots beginning Dec. 10 -- is that with all the states rushing to be in the first group that votes and help determine the candidates, it will be the states that remain later in the calendar that will probably have the final say on who our choices will be in the general election.

States for years have been inching their primaries earlier and earlier so their voters would have a stronger influence on who will be the nominees. The greatest example is California, where state leaders decided the largest state should have the biggest impact on the races.

The inching became an all-out race after 2004, when John Kerry surprised everyone by winning the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in the first two weeks and ran away with the Democratic nomination. We should all have such power.

Fast-forward to now, where you have on the Democratic side a near-dead heat between Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards in polling for the Iowa caucuses; and the Republicans have Mitt Romney leading in Iowa and New Hampshire and Rudy Giuliani ahead in most other locations.

In other words, the first couple of weeks might not decide anything. I see nothing changing the GOP condition. The Democratic race would only be locked up early if Clinton wins Iowa decisively, which could still happen.

So, my crystal ball says don't put too much stock in the first couple of primaries this time. Things won't get sorted out into the front-runner and challengers until Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, when 15 states have primaries and a few others have caucuses or conventions. Clinton could lock things up by then if she gets as many votes as polls currently indicate.

For the GOP, and the Dems if Hillary weakens, the nomination will probably come down to March 4, when primaries will be held in Massachusetts, Rhode Island (for Democrats), Vermont, Ohio and Texas. The New England states could put Romney over the top or be his last stand. They should also favor Hillary. Texas simply has a lot of delegates. Ohio will again be a major battleground state where the parties will want their candidate to poll well.

Ironic, because by March 4, California and most other states will have already voted, and once again it will be just four or five states that make the decision.

Bonds Indictment Hopefully Ends Era

The sad saga of Barry Bonds, which brought such a stain to the sport of baseball, hopefully will have some meaning to other areas of life, and therefore maybe do us all some good.

The bottom-line on the Bonds story was this: it never really mattered what he did. For a decade now, there have been thousands of Bay Area baseball fans who've ignored the fact that he used foreign substances to double his size and strength, going from a consistent 30 home run hitter to a consistent 50 home run-plus terror at the plate. It didn't matter. He led San Francisco to a World Series and another league championship series, didn't he? No big deal. He set the career home run record while wearing a Giants uniform.

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball, which recovered from its devastating 1994 labor strife by way of the exciting home run duel between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, dug its head into the sand as Bonds played bombs away. The home run was king. No matter that home runs are exciting because their special, not run of the mill. No matter that the entire game of baseball was distorted by huge sluggers who can't field their positions or drop a bunt.

Barry Bonds is by no means the only one who used steroids and/or human growth hormone. Far from it. Baseball is rife with players who, out of nowhere, had a couple huge seasons, and in the past few years, under increased scrutiny, have just as suddenly tailed off in batting performance. He is just the only one caught allegedly lying to a grand jury.

The story of Bonds, and McGwire, and Sosa, and many others, is that our culture has become one in which people will do anything to win. It used to be that, as children, we were taught to be our best. Now we're instructed to come out ahead at all costs.

Being a very good player who led his team to the playoffs just about every year was not enough for Bonds, a player who might have gone to the Hall of Fame even without the outrageous home run records. He had to have it all.

Sound familiar? How about the folks who ran Enron? Or Worldcom?

How about our national leaders? The president and Democrat congressional leaders would rather beat each other in a political squabble than improve the condition of the country. Iraq is Exhibit A, and that continues today. A great example is the failed Social Security reform effort of 2005 that failed over Personal Savings Accounts -- a minor portion of the overall program. But the two sides locked horns on that contentious point and never achieved a solution.

People who'd been raised to do their best would have put together a great energy company, a marvelous communications firm, and would not have the nation on the road to financial ruin.

I think things are slowly changing as we here at home are catching on to the shenanigans of the nation's elite. The Bonds indictment shows that, in the end, the way one conducts themselves in their profession does matter. McGwire is more or less in exile. Sosa did penance before returning to play. Most of the Enron and Worldcom do-badders were punished. Many troublemakers in Congress have been sent home.

We need to return to the "be the best we can be" theme than "win at all costs" desperately.

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One of the really bizarre things from entertainment this year is the troika of heavy-handed anti-war movies recently released. You'll find almost no one who likes "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs" or "Redacted," even those who would be naturally inclined to appreciate their basic premise. Like movie critics. Even the reviewers, who love all liberal messages, hate these flicks.

In the good old days, it was the pro-war movies that were heavy-handed. Or have you forgotten "The Green Berets," the John Wayne primer on the Vietnam conflict. Or all the films that came out during World War II.

Bad things often come from desperation. Like the need to win at all costs. Barry Bonds always performed poorly in postseason because he got desperate. The anti-war Hollywood crowd is desperate, along with their like-minded in Congress, to get the United States out of Iraq. The tide is turning in favor of the fight again, so I think what you're seeing is desperate movie-making.

Like Bonds, Enron, and Congress, Hollywood movie-makers played to win, rather than to make the best movies they could.

More Disappointment in Congress, Other Notes

You won't know about it unless you for some reason breathlessly await the release of each poll on Gallup.com, but a new poll released by the organization this week showed continued American disappointment in Congress.

That our approval rate of the national legislature is in the teens is nothing new. What's different about the poll is how it goes into detail on issues.

-- Terrorism: 47 percent of those polled are disappointed or angry with Congress, compared to 17 percent who are pleased.

-- Economy: 53 percent disappointed or angry vs 12 percent pleased.

-- Government Reform: 55 percent disappointed or angry vs 12 percent pleased.

-- Healthcare: 60 percent disappointed or angry vs 12 percent pleased.

-- Iraq: 68 percent disappointed or angry vs 11 percent pleased.

-- Immigration: 65 percent disappointed or angry vs 8 percent pleased.

-- Budget Deficit: 60 percent disappointed or angry vs 7 percent pleased.

Note that there are two categories of dissatisfaction, and only one of a positive nature. The leftover numbers up to 100 percent are neutral.

So we're annoyed with these folks, obviously, and those are the reasons why. Those reasons, of course, cover just about everything, assuming that the massive issue of entitlement reform is covered in the government reform category.

Respondents listed as Republicans are obviously more displeased with the opposition-led Congress than those who identify themselves as Democrats. But even a majority of Democrats are unfavorable toward Congress on four of the seven issues.

The things missing in this survey, other than the fact that almost no news organizations are reporting on it, are the reasons for the dissatisfaction.

The text of the Gallup report on the findings includes some reasonable explanations for the results. For example, regarding Iraq, Republicans are likely to be upset because of the numerous mickey-mouse votes and threats to cut off funding for the war effort, and Democrats are mad because they hoped their representatives would have pulled the troops out by now.

There's a lot here for the Democrats to worry about for their re-election prospects, but not much to buoy GOP hopes. The problem is that the Democrats are losing standing, falling to Republican levels, but there's nothing to suggest the GOP image is improving.

Again, another reason for us voters to take care of our own houses during the primaries. We're unlikely to vote for the opposite party in November, so we have to take care of business early in 2008.

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Speaking of stories that haven't circulated much this week, the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission has a new report out that says Iran is only a year away from being able to make a nuclear weapon.

There are some who equate worries about Iran's nuclear program with the bad intelligence of Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction. The difference? Saddam stayed mum on whether he had any WMD. Iran's president gleefully tells anyone who listens what his plans are once he acquires the bomb. He hides nothing until he talks to Western politicians or reporters.

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Maybe I spoke too soon about Pakistan President Pervez Musarraf releasing Benazir Bhutto from house arrest. Not long after Bhutto was released from house arrest, she was placed back in such custody. Today she was released again. My bet is this pattern will go on for a while, depending on what Pakistani security officials make of her plans.

Whatever Musarraf does, time will be the ultimate factor in this drama. Nothing over the next couple of weeks will mean much. He promises to step down as head of the military soon and to hold elections early next year. Whether he carries out those intentions is doubtful -- at least in his initial time frame. Whatever he does probably will not restore his credibility.

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Santa Ana winds are due back in California next week. If the winds are as strong as they were in late-October, it will be a problem. Most of the fires apparently started by power lines which arced or we blown down by the winds.

I drove through some of San Diego County's once-beautiful mountainous backcountry over the weekend and while the damage was tremendous, there is still an awful lot that has yet to be burned. Pray for us.

Dull College Football, Pakistan and Turkey

Less than a year after one of the greatest games in the history of college football, and one of the most interesting seasons, we're mired in the midst of what is the least fan-friendly seasons I can remember.

There aren't any really great story lines about teams rising to success. Ohio State is number one and offers very little in the way of interest. No one really cares about Kansas, and Hawaii hasn't played anyone to write home about. The most interesting stories are negative: the collapse of Nebraska and imminent departure of coach Bill Callahan, the greed of Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione that will finally bring a downfall that will cause no one to shed tears, the defending national champion has three losses, and teams such as LSU, USC and Cal have not played to the level of their hype.

My biggest complaint: television coverage. I traditionally enjoy opening the Friday sports section of the newspaper to get the TV listings of the next day's college football games. I've lovingly followed this sport for decades and thoroughly enjoy catching the variety of games on the tube. This year has been without a doubt the absolute worst for TV watching.

Probably the biggest example is two weeks ago when Oregon hosted USC in what was to that point the biggest game of the year on the West Coast. It was televised on something called Fox Sports Prime Ticket which, I believe, is only available in Los Angeles. This was a game that should have been on ABC in prime time, or at least on all the Fox Sports affiliates out west. But no. We got Arizona vs. Washington -- of course that did feature a 99-yard TD pass.

That big game we've been waiting for out this way, USC at Cal, is on ABC's prime time coverage tonight. Oh boy! The winner goes to the Sun Bowl.

In a year without much interest, it would be nice for the TV people to be a little more flexible in their scheduling.

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Hey, give some credit where it's due, to the Bush diplomacy regarding Pakistan and Turkey.

In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf has -- albeit slowly -- started to back away from his state of emergency and promised elections before Feb. 15, and has ended a blockade around the home of Benazir Bhutto. He has arrested thousands of opposition political activists, so the next step will be seeing how long it takes to get those people freed.

Musharraf's steps are just the first. There needs to be a lot more. But at least they're in the right direction.

Turkey has so far not attacked Iraq in force, and the Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, Turkey's prime target, now says it's open to talks and could be willing to lay down its arms.

Me, I try to find some sort of at-least temporary peace between the Kurds and Turks, and aim the Kurds toward Iran, where there is also a substantial Kurdish population yearning for freedom.

Independent Presidential Candidate?

Sometimes validation can come from unusual sources. In this case, here's a link to an article by CNN's Lou Dobbs, whose exposition of our current lack of national leadership is pretty well on the mark.

Lou Dobbs - The November Surprise

His points have been mentioned on this blog repeatedly. While problems creep up on America, our politicians fight for their chance to play Nero's fiddle. That's where the validation ends, though.

He goes on to say that he thinks that an independent candidate will rise to capture the imagination of the voters, make the current Republican and Democratic candidates look like hyenas and run away with the White House. In this regard, he's wrong for a couple of reasons.

First, while things on the surface appear bad now, with some foreign policy concerns, the continuing fighting in Iraq and a souring economy, conditions are really no worse than previous moments when independents ran. In 1992, the economy was in an actual free fall, where today we're just worried about the possibility. In 1980, the economy was horrible, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and numerous Americans were being held hostage in Iran.

In 1992, Ross Perot ran as an independent against massively unpopular President George H.W. Bush and unknown Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and still only gained 18.9 percent of the vote and failed to win any electoral votes. In 1980, Illinois' John Anderson won just 7 percent of the vote in 1980 and did not win a single precinct in the entire country. Mathematically, how does it get done?

Secondly, who? The only independent ever mentioned who actually has the resources to run like Perot did is Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, and he's ruled out a candidacy. And he's really a liberal Democrat who ran as a Republican so he could win office. Not exactly the sort of personal integrity people are looking for these days.

There really seems to be no one else.

Lastly, Dobbs is entirely dismissive of the current crop of candidates. Generally dismissive is a correct assessment. Entirely? I'm not sure. Someone, though, is going to have to address our issues head-on and speak clearly, and -- Hillary -- not waffle on key questions of the day. There might not be anyone to capture our imagination out there, but if a candidate can claim our intellect, he might get our vote.

Still and all, it's nice to see that someone out there in the national media is getting it regarding the failures of our national government. We're up to Dobbs, who has angered most elite opinion-makers with his stance on illegal immigration, and broadcast talk show host Glenn Beck, who is the first to admit that he's nuts. Hey, it's a start!

Daylight Savings Time, Pakistan and Turkey

The extension of Daylight Savings Time into November is just one more example of how politicians in Washington, D.C. are way out of touch with the rest of us.

Okay, maybe that's harsh. But really, taking that extra hour of later daylight into the middle of autumn turned out to be really annoying. First, sunset in the final week or two was around 6 p.m. here in the more southern latitudes, so any benefit was negligible. Second, the definition of 0-dark-:30 shifted to when most of us woke up to go to work or school. People often like to walk or run before starting their day, but not in the last few weeks of DT. Did your kids have to walk to school in the dark? Wait and catch a bus in the dark?

Don't get me wrong. I love Daylight Savings Time. In April. When it's intended. Getting outside after dinner is a nice thing. Not so much in November, though.

Just another way that Congress, stationed in an indoor town like D.C., can really screw things up for the rest of us. Of course, my next concern is my commute home from work tomorrow. Yep, in the dark. Maybe I'll quickly change my mind.

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In both Pakistan and Turkey, we're seeing governments acting out of their own perceived interests whether we'd like them to or not.

Pakistan has declared a state of emergency to curtail whatever civil liberties ever did exist there, ostensibly to fight its Islamic insurgency and a national Supreme Court that consistently ruled against the regime.

Turkey has declared its intention to invade the Kurdish section of Iraq -- by far the most prosperous and successful section of the war-torn nation -- in order to chase down terrorists who conduct cross-border attacks to further their goal of an independent Kurdistan. Kurds live in northern Iraq, northern Iran and southeastern Turkey, and their attacks against the latter have been noteworthy. Turkey has had enough.

I'm no longer sure how much we need Pakistan as an ally in our fight against terrorism. It was crucial in the early days so we could fly from ships in the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan. Now, with six years of Pakistani inconsistency in overcoming it's tribal areas on the Afghani border behind us, that country's support may not be worth much.

I'm not sure we should throw President Pervez Musharraf under the bus, but we and the U.K. are reviewing our financial aid plans, correctly. We have to carefully balance his value in the war on terrorism against our need to maintain our standard as a beacon to the world as a consistent source of liberty.

In the Cold War, we supported plenty of dictators, but that was a contest of sheer power. The was against terrorism is a battle of ideas, our democracy against their theocracy. Sheer power will not be the deciding factor.

Regarding Turkey, there's no getting around that they're NATO allies, have been subjected to murderous attacks and have been pretty responsible for a majority Muslim country. We need to focus on managing their fight and containing it to the border areas, instead of telling a sovereign nation that it cannot defend itself.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has some pretty interesting weeks ahead of her. By Christmas, we ought to have a good idea how she stacks up against previous holders of her office.

Holiday on Steroids, Open Season on Hillary

Since when did Halloween become THIS BIG of a holiday? Are you kidding me? Houses decorated in September?! Horror movies on television for an entire month? Children's specials other than Peanuts' "The Great Pumpkin?"

We've all come to terms with the commercialism of the Christmas season, the cultural misguidedness of Cinco de Mayo and the Valentine's Day guilt-trip. Halloween is just supposed to be about kids getting dressed up and going around the neighborhood to get candy. Another chance for college students to party.

Now Halloween has grown beyond all reasonable proportions. Why? I think that since some of the scares of the 1990s -- predators going after children, poisoned candy, etc. -- that we've tried to come up with some alternative activities for the holiday. Everyone got into the act, and now we have an overblown holiday. I know of a family going to a Halloween gathering at their doctor's office. Me? I try my best to stay away from the doctor's office.

Okay, enough ranting. Pass the chocolate.

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It's open season on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. It was bound to happen, but how deep it gets will depend on how she handles the next week or so and how her reaction plays with voters. If she remains above Barack Obama and John Edwards by double-digits in the polls in mid-November, then the verbal assaults will peter out. If the polls get closer, then the attacks on the front-runner will grow in volume and ferocity.

I did not watch the debate at Drexel University, so I can't comment directly on Clinton's performance. But the reviews are bad. She reportedly stumbled terribly in answering questions about the New York governor's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and was evasive throughout.

Edwards had what could be the quote of the campaign so far by saying that people wanted straight talk from their leaders. He's absolutely right in that regard, and it will be interesting to see if polling takes away from her and gives to him.

Criticizing the Clintons, Hillary or Bill, has traditionally been hazardous to one's career. And dissing the front-runner, by nature the favorite to win, is also unwise. That's why many Democrats have been reluctant to put the screws to her during the campaign. But it now looks like the long knives are being drawn.

But you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Maybe.

Let's say her evasiveness proves costly at the polls, and Obama or Edwards pulls ahead in the race for the nomination in January. The dogpiling on Hillary Clinton, and maybe Bill, will be tremendous. There are many Democrats who blame the Clintons for their loss of power this decade, and they're right to some extent. There are many other very active party enthusiasts who are far to her left who distrust her instincts on issues like Iraq and the War on Terrorism. If Clinton falls behind early next year, they're going to tear into her like nothing you've ever seen.

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It's been way too early for the considerable Democratic optimism about next year's election. There was too much time for their candidates and congressional leaders to mess things up, and they're obliging.

Now the pendulum appears to be swinging toward the GOP, with conditions in Iraq improving and the economy absorbing a number of recent hits without major problems.

Again, it's too early. There's plenty of time for things to turn back against the Republicans, too. Another good reason why the campaign started way too early.

America's Talent is at Home

We live in a celebrity-conscious environment where we are led by the media to worship movie stars, great baseball players and powerful politicians. But this week's wildfires in Southern California have proven once again that the true talent of America is right here at home.

The praise for the firefighters and volunteers has been immense and deserved. The integrated command structure within the county of San Diego and the state of California has, from at least the outside, appeared to work well. Local leaders, from San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders to county Supervisor Ron Roberts and many others, performed marvelously -- and both were somewhat struggling with their reputations in the months before the fires struck. The local media, although hampered by ever-shrinking staffs, did quite well.

Compare that to our political leadership in Washington, D.C. where they're arguing over whether the fires were caused by global warming, ignoring the fact that the issue is a long-term phenomenon and that many of California's worst Santa Ana wind-related fire events have occurred in late-October. Sen. Barbara Boxer might not dare set foot in the county again after a hysterically poor performance. And compare with the national media, which I criticized in the previous post for making it appear that the entire southern half of the state has burned down.

Our heroes are right here in our hometowns. The guys who go off to fight fires and travel to foreign lands to battle terrorists, the women who streamed to shelters to help the unfortunate evacuees, and the businessmen who donated everything from bottled water to diapers. The folks who stayed home from work to keep the roads clear and helped care for the children of those whose services were needed.

We are what makes America work. The 300 million of us right here at home. Individually living our lives and making, for the most part, correct choices without help from the so-called elite in Washington, D.C., New York or Los Angeles.

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You see small signs all over San Diego about how generous people are. I accompanied my wife to an area supermarket on Sunday, and there were pallets upon pallets of bottled water stacked up around the store -- inside and out. Ready to be donated. Unneeded, because so much water had already been delivered to those in need.

An amazed woman who lived in an area hit by the fires called a radio talk show in disbelief about how much help was arriving. She listed just about every organization she could think of and said they just kept coming and coming and coming.

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Californians should "Google" Jerry Sanders' background. Learn about the guy. He's probably our next governor.

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Maybe I've missed it -- and it's a good thing if I have -- but I've yet to hear anyone screaming about how we're paying for the care of a bunch of illegal immigrants in the Burn Unit of the UCSD Medical Center. Several of these unfortunate souls were caught in the path of flames of the Harris Fire near the border. Four died. Others were hospitalized, at taxpayer expense.

As much as the big issue of illegal immigration needs to be solved, the smaller issue of sometimes needing to take care of someone in need can take precedence. As a generous nation, this is one of those times.

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Yeah, October is still the beautiful month. Sometimes the price is steep.

Breaking News! San Diego is Still Here!

After several days on the fire lines and, more pertinently for this posting, driving around San Diego County from assignment to assignment or just scouting for fire news in general, I can tell you something that will be shocking. Especially if you've been watching national network news.

Sit down and take a deep breath. Exhale. Okay.

San Diego is still here.

Seriously!

So, for that matter, are Escondido and Ramona and Poway and Fallbrook and a lot of other towns you may have been hearing about this week.

Coverage of the wildfires this week from the national perspective has been pretty instructive and can be applied to other topics. The networks did not make a mountain out of a molehill. Our fires are absolutely a mountain of a story. However, they've managed to turn Mt. Whitney into Mt. Everest.

I spent today in Poway and the city of San Diego section of Rancho Bernardo. Many homes were destroyed. Many, many, many more were saved. In the areas where the fires passed through, my observation was that the ratio of homes saved to homes lost was conservatively 50-to-1. You probably can't tell that when the network news locates its programs at the end of a completely destroyed cul-de-sac.

The story is the same throughout Southern California. This is a huge place. The fires affected a wide area, but San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties are far wider. If you're planning to come here to attend a convention, visit for a long weekend or see relatives, give it a week or so because the hotels are filled with evacuees. But the vast majority went home today to intact homes. Our attractions like the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld and The Wild Animal Park -- which was right in the path of the flames -- are still there.

That might be news to you if you're not from around here, and the breathless national news-types are to blame. A colleague of mine told me that Katie Couric of CBS News Tuesday walked around Qualcomm Stadium -- the city's main evacuation center -- before her newscast and did not make eye contact with anyone. There's a way to boost ratings.

When you watch national network news in the future and see stories on politics, Iraq, the economy or other major news, ask yourself whether they are making big mountains out of small mountains. Because they might be.

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A lot of what you read about how San Diego is handling the situation, when compared to Hurricane Katrina, is true. Evacuees are behaving themselves responsibly, shelter conditions are good and volunteers by the thousands have donated time, money or goods. Yet even those comparisons are overblown by the national media, because New Orleans was more or less wiped from the map and it was the less-fortunate who were affected -- with very few people left to help them. Here, most of the city is intact and, for the 500,000-plus who evacuated, another 2 million were available to assist.

The major and comparable differences between New Orleans and San Diego are leadership and civic pride. Putting San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders against Ray Nagin of New Orleans would be cruel. So would a matchup of the Governator vs. Kathleen Blanco. From police chief to police officer, from fire chief to fire fighter, things are better here. And we do have civic pride, though a more laid-back sort. This response is what we expect from ourselves. San Diego has been let down by previous mayors and city councilmembers, along with city management, but they've been run out of town. In New Orleans, the poor leaders were left in place for years and years, and were in place when Hurricane Katrina hit. The differences between them this week were clear.

Time Ripe For Independent Candidate?

Every so often, a politician decides to make a Quixotic run for president as a relatively late-entry independent candidate, fueled by delusions of holier-than-thou grandeur (Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, who was technically a third-party candidate), more-intelligent-than-thou (John Anderson in 1980), or ideologically purer-than-thou (Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004).

The result from those examples was that the candidate farthest away from the independent or third-party entrant won the election, since he pulled votes from the one whose beliefs were closer to his. That's why many Republicans hate Perot, a successful businessman and military supporter, and why many Democrats despise Nader, a champion of consumer's rights.

This ridiculously early campaign season, however, could be different. The timing might be right for someone to get into the race -- probably as an independent rather than a third party -- and make a bid to be the first president without a political party behind him. But he, or she, would have plenty of supporters around the country.

First, let's look at some facts. This week, a Zogby/Reuters poll found that just 11 percent of Americans supported the Democrat-led Congress, while only 24 percent were happy with President Bush. While both numbers reflect significantly lower support than other poll results, it's clear that we are not happy with our governmental leaders.

But there's more. We are showing similar levels of disappointment in a number of cultural areas as well. Television ratings released today show major drops in prime-time viewership, even when DVR playbacks are factored in. Established shows are still doing well, but the viewing public does not trust Hollywood to put out new worthwhile entertainment, so the new programs are struggling.

The National League Championship Series featured one of the best stories in baseball in recent years: the nearly unbeatable Colorado Rockies, against the young and exciting Arizona Diamondbacks. Viewership was the lowest in years.

Newspapers are struggling across the country. While some blockbuster movies still do very well at the box office, those that are less so are money-losers.

Bottom-line? We're not just apathetic about politics and culture anymore. We're fiercely apathetic.

That's a rare combination of feelings that someone ought to be able to capture. But it's not going to be a Republican who can do so, nor a Democrat. The overwhelming majority of the public sees the GOP as incompetent and would rather suffer from psoriasis than elect someone else from George Bush's party to the White House. The Democrats are on the wrong side of too many issues and have disappointed too many people with their failure to capitalize on their 2006 Congressional victories by governing responsibly.

Who then? I unfortunately can't name anyone specific. He or she will nominally belong to one of the major party, odds are, but can't be linked too closely to that party or the public will reject him. He or she needs to have a traditional viewpoint as opposed to stridently conservative or liberal. The person will need to speak clearly on the war and national security needs, be willing to hold the line on taxes and spending, protect our health care expenses for the poor and those hit by catastrophic expenses, be willing to solve illegal immigration and entitlement reform, and attack cultural issues such as drug abuse and gang violence.

The person most mentioned as an independent candidate is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but he is considered to be a too-liberal money man too close to the political establishment that got us into trouble in the first place.

The tragedy is that there is someone who could have played the role of the presidential candidate to the rescue, but he entered when everyone else did and thereby diminished himself and his candidacy. Mitt Romney. If he'd stayed out of the race, he could have entered as an independent early next year as the savior of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games (which were worse off than the United States is in 2007 by a long shot) and the moderate Republican governor of a liberal northeast state.

Unfortunately, he entered the race already, has run a mediocre campaign and can't fill this role.

I will name someone who can fill a vice-presidential spot on an independent ticket, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman. The left likes him for his stands on most issues. The right likes him for his support of the war on terror. But Lieberman is not a presidential kind of guy. Someone else will need to step forward and offer to clean up the Washington, D.C. cesspool.

Gore Hurt Global Warming Cause; Not "Phony Soldiers, Just Poorly Timed

Shopping at one of those "big box" stores the other day, I was struck by something the attractive young checkout lady said to me, quite out of the blue: "What scares me more than anything is global warming."

We had been talking about something innocuous -- I forget what -- when she made the comment while handing me the bag. If it had come up earlier in our conversation, I might have asked her the basis for her fears or try to calm her in some way. Alas, I had the bag of items I bought and my receipt, so I was on my way.

In this age when we are at war, with men and women of her age fighting and sometimes dying halfway around the world, global warming was her biggest concern. Being a checkout girl, I wondered if she lived in a blighted neighborhood threatened by crime. Or if her parents were facing foreclosure of their home. Or if she were able to afford the schooling necessary for her to get a better job.

Maybe she was otherwise content with her lot in the world. Perhaps she had nothing else to worry about other than global warming.

I thought about her statement every so often until last week, when it gained new relevancy with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore, who has spent the past few years on a crusade to raise awareness of global warming. He certainly made his point with this young woman.

I wonder if it was Gore's intent to instill fear into a young cashier. Maybe it was. That doesn't sound like a very peaceful act to me. My opinion on global warming is stated in the header on this blog -- it's something we need to deal with and plan for but the claims of worldwide catastrophe are way over the top. And it's Al Gore who has been the King of Catastrophe on the subject.

It was rather funny that the Nobel Committee in Norway announced the Peace Prize winner the day after he was rebuked by a judge in the United Kingdom for including numerous falsehoods in the film "An Inconvenient Truth." He misrepresented data to support his claims, exaggerated the projected rise of the sea level and based his presentation on worst-case scenarios. He also did something that global warming naysayers are guilty of -- point toward individual weather events like a heat wave, unusual snow storm or destructive hurricane to prove his point of view.

And there are a lot of people right now who disagree with claims about global warming. That's a shame, because there is a strong basis of information that the world has been warming significantly over the past few decades. I don't know what share of blame we people have, or cows have, or Mother Nature has in her natural cycles.

Al Gore did not need to depend on hyperbole and falsehoods to prove that something was indeed taking place with our world. But he did. Now there are two strongly diametrically opposed camps on this extremely important subject. It didn't have to be that way, but it is, and is in large part due to the former vice-president of the United States.

Strange to think that the leading global warming advocate on the planet has POLAR-ized us on the issue. Not cool. (Sorry, couldn't resist).

For that, and scaring a young woman just beginning life as an adult, Al Gore definitely did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

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The Washington Post has answered the New York Times story of a couple months ago in which a number of U.S. airborne troops discussed how poorly things were going in their Shiite section of Baghdad despite the surge. The Post's own article is from 12 former Army captains who served in various times in Iraq, and they also write about how bad things were.

The media lately has ravenously consumed any military opinion that opposes U.S. policy in Iraq, including recent stories on criticism by retired generals and troopers who turned out to be less than what they said they were, giving rise to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh's now-infamous "phony soldiers" label.

There's a couple of problems here. First, the airborne soldiers -- a couple of whom have tragically died since the article was published -- were billeted in one of the worst areas of Baghdad while surge operations were taking place outside the city. Of course things were bad where they were. Only in recent weeks have our soldiers and Iraqi troops been concentrating on Shiite areas. The stories of those soldiers were true, but meaningless in the debate over Iraq policy.

Second, the criticisms of Gen. Mark Sanchez, who led the military effort, who called the Iraq operation "a nightmare with no end in sight," are also true. The trouble is, he was the commander from June 2003 to June 2004. That's now a long time ago. His complaints are best left for the history books.

Now, the Washington Post article posted today. It was written by 12 former Army captains and exposes the rampant corruption and crumbling infrastructure they witnessed. They told of how the lack of manpower hinders operations even today.

At the bottom of the article, the names of the authors appear, along with when and where they served. None of them have been in-country this year. Zero. Two of them were in Iraq as recently as last year. This being mid-October, that was a while ago, well before the surge started. Most of them served their tours in 2003 and 2005 -- the second one certainly coming at a time when things weren't so good.

So be vigilant when reading articles from former and current members of the military who criticize the war effort. What they'll tell you is interesting and probably true. But so far, in the media's rush to put some armed forces credibility behind it's anti-war stance, there have been none who can legitimately say that the war is lost based on current conditions.

Stealth Guerrilla Candidates Mock Electoral System

Coming soon to a presidential election near you: Dennis Kucinich running as an independent in the general election, funded by Wall Street capitalists scared of the concept of Hillary Clinton in the White House; or Mike Huckabee also aiming for commander-in-chief without a party, with campaign funds funneled surreptitiously from George Soros.

That mind-spinning scenario came down late last week and is just another sign of how our political leadership would rather play the system than take care of the needs of our country.

The idea is simple. In the past couple of years, Ralph Nader ran to the left of the Democratic candidate and took away just enough votes to give the presidency to Republican George Bush. The current leader's father was undone in 1992 by H. Ross Perot, much more a conservative than a liberal. Each time, the effect of the insurgent candidate was to help someone with a completely opposite point of view into office.

Perot and Nader at least ran on principle. If there's an independent candidate this time, it will be all about politics.

The possibility of something like this happened rose when Dr. James Dobson, who has been one of the leaders of the so-called "religious right" as the president of Focus on the Family, threatened to withhold support from the GOP if abortion-rights supporter Rudy Giuliani won the nomination. No matter that the former mayor of New York City has a tough law-and-order record that cleaned up the Big Apple, is strong against terrorism and is more likely to appoint judges sympathetic to Dobson's viewpoint. Pulling a power play, it would seem he'd rather throw the election to Hillary Clinton.

Dobson has been highly influential in the Republican party in the past, with many thousands of supporters across the country. However, in this election season, none of the front-running candidates could be described as a Christian conservative and one of them, Mitt Romney, is a -- gasp! -- Mormon. Seeing Huckabee and other religious right candidates trailing badly, Dobson is grabbing at straws to try to remind party pros how much sway he really has.

Right now, it's an empty threat and could remain that way. People are going to vote however they're going to vote in the primaries and, if the polls are in any way accurate, Giuliani could very well win the GOP nomination. In a match between Giuliani and Clinton, the religious housewife from Alabama will hold her nose and vote for Rudy, much like independents held their nose and gave Hillary's husband a second term.

But, what would happen if someone were to approach Huckabee (and I'm only using the Arkansas governor as an example because he fits the Christian conservative profile) and convinces him to run as an independent. Financial backers of the left, seeing a chance to divert Giuliani votes to someone else, can flood the new campaign with donations and make him appear to be a legitimate candidate, giving that Alabama housewife a realistic alternative to Giuliani. That could give Hillary one or two competitive states.

There's a similar scenario possible for the other side, where Clinton's stance on Iraq has not convinced anti-war activists that she represents them. In fact, Clinton and Barack Obama both refused recently to promise that all U.S. troops would be out of that country by the end of their first term. The anti-war left wants those troops out NOW, if not YESTERDAY.

Just like the Alabama housewife wouldn't change her vote in a two-person race for the White House, the University of Massachusetts philosophy professor would hold his nose and vote for Clinton over someone like Giuliani, who generally supports President Bush's military efforts in the Middle East.

However, if Kucinich (like Huckabee, a profile-fitting example), were to be convinced to run as an outside candidate in the general election, and for rich Republicans to provide him with money and legitimacy, then he could draw away votes from Clinton, handing a couple Upper Midwest states and maybe the White House to Giuliani.

This is politics in the United States in 2007. We still have not passed solutions to the Medicare and Social Security crisis, our borders are still sieves, and terrorists might still be in our midst. Our leaders might not be able to tackle the real problems of the day, but they're at the ready to game the electoral system in a bid to gain or maintain their power. After all, what's more important?

You know the answer for them. Just remember the answer for us.

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Interesting to see the pro- and negative treatments of the arrival of the autobiography by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, "My Grandfather's Son." As you might expect, the conservative media has been glowing in its reviews of the book and the man, while the left is somehow shocked -- shocked! -- that he hates them for their abusive confirmation hearings in 1991.

Those hearings were a watershed moment for American politics. If a young person amazed at the hatred and mistrust between the political parties ever asks how control of Washington, D.C. turned into a death struggle, point to the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas.

Anita Hill, then a professor at the University of Oklahoma and now at Brandeis University, claimed that Thomas had sexually harassed her years earlier while they worked at the Dept. of Education. The issue never came up in Senate Justice Committee hearings, only when his nomination, opposed by liberal groups fearful of a black conservative in a high government position, went to the whole chamber.

There was no way to prove or disprove what took place between Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. Therefore, there was no way it should have become an issue in the nomination. But liberal groups, desperate to keep blacks on their side of the political fence, pulled out all the stops to prevent Thomas from reaching the high court.

Thomas, however, won approval and has for 16 years been a pretty good justice, and has proven to possess a mind of his own, not always ending up on the side of Antonin Scalia. We're definitely better having him on the court, and much worse off for how his confirmation was handled.

National politics, through the Clinton and Bush years, have never been the same.