It’s time to take the red pill Mr. Edwards

Lord knows I am an Edwards fan. His southern boot-straps biography and his ability to give a voice to the seemingly continuous screwing over that a lot of decent people get just because they have to live on the margins are both reasons why he is a great candidate. But, the writing is on the 30-foot wall of flaming letters and it is time for him to go.

Sure, he may end up being viable in Nevada’s caucuses (as goofy and as litigious as they are shaping up to be) but he probably won’t win outright and, even if he does, he won’t win South Carolina, otherwise known as the state next door to his own. And with that, out of money and with the party leadership probably pressuring him to get out, I predict that John Edwards will say good bye.

What will be interesting is where the Edwards voters go and where, if anywhere, he tells them to go. I personally hope that he will enthusiastically endorse Barack Obama. The idea of a white southern politician who grew up in the segregated south endorsing a black man for president has definite appeal and would reflect well on how far we have come as a country.

Although, realistically Edwards will probably hold off on endorsing anyone to ensure himself some political capital with the eventual nominee.

Finally, I doubt that either Hillary or Obama will consider Edwards as a viable V.P. candidate due to him not being able to deliver a single southern state for John Kerry and his less-than-impressive debate performance against Dick Cheney in 2004. However, after 8 years of corrupt and inept leadership at the Justice Department, “Attorney General John Edwards” has a very nice ring to it.

Meanwhile at the Legion of Doom . . .

Getting lost in all the hullaballoo over the democratic nomination, with its always entertaining test of whether you are a racist, a sexist or both, there’s a perfectly scintillating contest going on to see who’s going to take over the reigns of the just-about-to-explode-but-is-still-pretty-evil death star that is the republican party.

Many in politics are saying that this is the year when the boys in red finally wake up with each other only to discover that the promises that were made in the bar at 2 am don’t necessarily ring true in the cold morning light of a centrist nation where putting your socks and creeping out the door may not be as easy as you had hoped.

Politics has been conspiring to make these strange bedfellows ever since Ralph Reed did his unholy dance to get George H. Bush elected in 1988 and even though Ralph had moved on by then, the same formula held true when George II beat the hapless John Kerry in 2004 when almost all of us (except for Karl Rove who is Solomon Grundy – “Karl Rove smash you!”) thought that his fois gras was cooked.

But, while George the II was a perfect combination of big money corporate interests and snake-handling wing nut, there has not arisen another ‘uniter’ to take his party forward and to keep his party in power for another 4 years. This is not to say that the GOP is sunk because no one and I mean NO ONE can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like the democrats can, but it is looking like the check is now due on issues like abortion, gay marriage and school prayer. And all those votes that ol Solomon Grundy got on that dark Ohio night in 2004 look like they may eventually cost the party this year’s election.

But, since lists are fun, let’s do a quick breakdown of the relevant GOP candidates, including a few words about them and who they would be in the Hall of Doom.

Mitt Romney – Leaving out the bit about the magic rocks in the hat (Wikipedia: Mormons.) Mitt Romney is the Hillary Clinton of the GOP primary race in that he will say anything and adopt any position as long as it gets him into the White House. Boy are those values voters going to be pissed come October when Mitt agrees in a debate that maybe an assault weapons ban is a pretty reasonable idea and if a couple of gay guys want to get married then who is he to stop them. Because he is megalomaniacal and because of the eyebrows, Mitt Romney has to be Gorilla Grodd.

Mike Huckabee – Just plain crazy. What can you say about a guy who went on national tv and not only told denied millions of years of fossil record but then told everyone that it would be great for the economy if everything were 23% more expensive. Wikipedia says that the Riddler “used riddles to taunt and confuse adversaries with while committing crimes.” Well Huck, I am definitely taunted and confused.

Rudy Guiliani – The human drinking game. Joe Biden should have won the presidency just with his line about every sentence that Rudy says “has a noun, a verb and 9-11.” So basically, Rudy, you’re using possibly the worst day in American history to scare everyone so we will vote for you. Rudy(n) is(v) the(a) Scarecrow . . . (wait for it) . . .9-11!

John McCain – Or as I like to call him “my ace in the hole just in case the democrats screw this up.” McCain is a legitimate war hero and one of the few politicians you will ever hear who will own up to a mistake. I once heard him say that his neglecting to call for South Carolina to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the state house lawn was “an act of cowardice” which he regretted. That is integrity (I’m looking at you Mitt and Hillary). BUT he was utterly kneecapped in 2000 by George Bush’s attack dogs and the fact that he could not only shake hands with George II after that but also stay in the party AND campaign for GW in 2004 is something I will never understand. John McCain is Bizarro.

And finally we have the guy who basically looks exactly like what republican presidents are supposed to look like, Fred Thompson. Apparently Fred thought that this was going to be enough to get him the nomination because frankly I think I  have made more campaign speeches than he has and I am not even  running. Of course, Fred’s wife is hotter. Anyway,  I am not sure if it is the hair or the total state of denial that he keeps getting his ass kicked but Fred gets to be Lex Luthor – he’s rich, he’s bald, and you can tell that he knows even if he loses he can always call the Hall of Doom to take him back to his hot wife and his sweet tv gig.

Its unclear whether or not the Legion can rise out of the swamp one more time to hold us all hostage their death ray, but 2 things are sure:

1. The Hall of Doom is always hovering, waiting to beam up our GOP friends before they can get indicted and

2. somewhere Rudy Guiliani just mentioned 9-11.

Kerry endorses Obama.

Ok, so let me get this straight, John Kerry came out today and endorsed Barack Obama for president. Sure, fine it’s his right and probably a wise move. But, doesn’t anyone else think that he looks a bit disingenuous since John Edwards (you know, the guy that Kerry picked over all his other choices to be his vice-presidential running mate) is still in the race?

Doesn’t choosing someone to be your VP candidate kind of say, “this is the person who I think would be the best president if, God forbid, something ever happened to me.” Isn’t that kind of the purest presidential endorsement you can get? And, why isn’t anyone asking John Kerry this rather obvious yet awkward question?

Another very relevant question would be to ask what Kerry thinks happened to John Edwards in the last 4 years that has changed his “one heart beat away” status. Is there something about Edwards that Kerry has since learned or is he still eminently qualified to be president just not as qualified since Obama came around?

Wow, I am just blown away that the GOP was so able to portray this guy as a flip flopper.

Who are ‘they?’

You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. – Barack Obama, Iowa Jan. 3, 2008.

One question, Barack – who are ‘they?’ Sure in your next paragraph you call them ‘the cynics’ but that’s really just what ‘they’ are, not who ‘they’ are. So who are these people, you know the dastardly ones who have been holding us up from enjoying the sweet sweet sunshine and flowery goodness that we really should have been experiencing all along? Clearly a lot of stuff is their fault, I mean, dividing and disillusioning an entire country – these are obviously bad people. So who are ‘they?’

For John Edwards, ‘they’ are all the greedy corporations and the fat cat lobbyists that apparently own every senator and congressman in Washington D.C. (except for him.)

For Hillary, well she doesn’t say so but I’m pretty sure she’d tell you that ‘they’ is whomever the hell you, dear voter, want them to be as long as it gets her enough votes to beat the crap out of John and Barack come Tuesday, Feb. 5th. (Is it just me or is she the blonde Henry Kissinger?)

Well, I think I know who ‘they’ is and I think I have some bad news because ‘they’ are not OPEC. ‘They’ are not Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri (although the sooner we stake both their wretched heads on pikes at the entrance to New York harbor the better off we’ll all be).

And, sorry Mitt and Huck but ‘they’ are also definitely not a bunch of Mexican busboys working twice as hard as everyone else in this country just so that they can buy food for their kids. I am also pretty sure that they are most certainly not two people who love each other and just want to be left alone to get married.

‘They’ are us. That’s right – us. We are the ones who are gleefully celebrating our 401K s going up up up because they are fat with investments in John’s greedy corporations. These would be the same corporations that need to keep their stock price up so that we will invest in them and they won’t have to layoff their employees (you know, employees like us).

We are the ones driving the cars that sent oil to $100 a barrel yesterday. And we are the ones who let people like Dick Cheney stick around just because he’s really good at scaring the crap out of 50% of the country. Ok, he actually scares the crap out of the other 50% but for different reasons.

And while we are at it, we are also the ones who are getting fatter and older and demanding that medical science prioritize our erections and our self-inflicted diabetes over the easy cheap stuff like pre-natal care for poor women.

So John, Barack and Hillary (ok, maybe not you Hillary, you are just too far gone) why don’t you guys stop pandering to us and start telling us that the country is in a mess, it’s going to get worse and that the only way to fix it is for all of us to start making sacrifices and to stop letting our fears make our choices for us. This may not be your best strategy for winning the presidency but, if you want your campaign and your presidency to mean anything, then trying to stop the country from getting fatter, lazier and stoopider would be an amazing legacy.

John, Mitt, Mike and Rudy well, you guys need to just stop hating people because of who they sleep with or where they were born. Let’s just start there.

As the turnout numbers from Iowa showed last night, this might be the first election that the AARP, the NRA, the UAW or the Southern Baptist Convention (pick your favorite villain, odds are that you or someone you know gives them money – it’s us that we are talking about after all) can’t just go ahead and rig the election at the expense of the rest of the country. It would be a shame if who ever wins does it by dividing, demonizing and coddling a select few while the folks who weren’t on the winning side got to look forward to 4 more years of picking up the tab.