Winning The Race

This next Presidential election is very unique in our time period. It's very unusual not to have a heir of the sitting President to take over for him after he leaves office. Vice President Dick Cheney should be the presumptive heir of the W legacy. This time, it is not to be. We have seen this down the ages with Roosevelt giving us Truman (granted Roosevelt died but he did have an heir nevertheless), Eisenhower giving us Nixon (granted he didn't take power until 8 years after he lost to JFK), Nixon giving us Ford (granted he took over after Nixon forfeited his office), Reagan giving us Bush (no exceptions here) and finally Clinton giving us grief, uh, I mean Gore. The 2000 Presidential election apparently was a curve ball of epic proportions as the country was thrown into a turmoil after Al Gore insisted that he won. I'll grant you it was a darned close election in which either candidate could have taken the purple. Its just that Bush outsmarted Gore by relying on the Federal Supreme Court and not on a State Supreme Court to decide his future! The rest they say is history.

Now, in 2008, we have another unusual election. No presumptive heirs are in the offering for the Republicans. Each Republican must make his own stand on his own merits. No coattails here to propel one forward to the White House. As Steve Chapman's article makes clear the flow of history is against every single candidate in the Republican primary election save one: Huckabee from Arkansas. For good or for ill this seems to be the historical trend taking shape before us. However, I would like to add that history does have a tendency of turning back on itself and returning where it left off. In this case, it's quite possible that one of these Republican candidates could break the cycle of history in this election and become the Presidential candidate for the Republican nomination defying the iron hand of past election trends.

Ironically, it's the Democrats who actually have a presumptive heir to their last President's legacy in the person of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Queen of Narnia. There is nothing to prove here as far is she is concerned. Her credentials are impeccable in her mind's eye and the only merit she needs to prove is that leftwing history has bequeathed her the crown and has given it to no one else. She merely needs to wave her royal hand and ride the gilded carriage to power! Her regent, Bill Clinton the Duke of Little Rock, has as much at stake as Hillary in securing the purple for himself. His return to the Oval Office, albeit in his capacity as the royal concubine, portends great things for the Left in general and the Democrats in particular. Imagine all the wonderful things in store for America where he can wield his power behind the scenes instead of in front of it. Now that's a nightmare before Christmas if ever there was one.

It is impossible to divine the will of the American people. We will see in the coming weeks who is on top and who is out. Which strategy worked the best and which candidate was able to prove himself worthy of the title of President of the United States of America.