Let the Games Begin!

You read around how this is the first election in a long time that we haven't had an incumbent or Vice President to choose from for President. That's true but also not true.

Incumbents campaign as name brands. People then have the advantage of choosing a known quantity. They like that. Trying new things is uncomfortable. Many people fear it. Hillary is running pretty much as an incumbent this time around. She isn't asking people to support her, so much, as a re-continuation of the Clinton administration, after a hiatus of eight years. This is much more true today than in 2000, when Al Gore separated himself from the President, in a spate of moral superiority. As we know, that didn't work. Mitt Romney has positioned himself in the incumbent category on the Republican side, kind of like a Mark II George Bush, this time with a normal IQ and the ability to speak. Probably the less said about that the better.

Will Hillary's bid for the Presidency succeed? Maybe not. The first time around, the Clintons were seen as young, pragmatic and willing to do what was necessary to make things work and indeed they were. When big health care proved unworkable, they were able to move on seamlessly, to other issues that were. They got as much mileage out of that as if it had been a success. Now Hillary is back pushing the very same packages that proved unworkable in the last Clinton administration, rather than emphasizing the flexibility that made them so successful. She and Bill aren't young anymore. They aren't hip. They are entrenched and condescending, exactly the opposite of what they were sixteen years ago. It isn't really working out for them.

I think people are going to go for the change candidate. McCain has been a maverick all his political life, willing to work across the aisle to get the things he feels are important done. He has gotten things done but they aren't often things the Republican hierarchy likes. Huckabee is a pure populist values voter play, with all the neocon and fiscal conservative platform planks stripped out. Obama is the handsome prince with a fairy story background, seemingly springing from nowhere to champion the cause of the young and disillusioned.