Political prognostications for 2008
by Thomas Lindaman
Borderfire Report

By the time you read this column, we will be close to one year out from the 2008 Presidential elections. And that means two things. One, we’ll be bombarded with political ads for the next year. And two, we’ll have people trying to play Carnac the Magnificent and predicting who will win the nominations for the two major parties. I’ve always found these exercises in speculation to either be an exercise in wishful thinking or a rehashing of the screamingly obvious so that the person doing the predicting looks like he/she has a clue. It’s pointless, ridiculous, and nothing more than an ego stroke.

Which is precisely why I’m doing it.

So, allow me to throw my rhinestone-studded turban into the ring and give you Tarmac the Magnificent’s Utterly Awesome and Quite Possibly Utterly Inaccurate Political Predictions for 2008!

Democrat Candidate for President: Hillary Clinton. It’s Hillary’s race to lose. Her opposition ranges from the absurd (Joe Biden) to the out there (Dennis Kucinich) to the inexperienced (Barack Obama) to the uninspiring (Bill Richardson) to the unknown (Mike Gravel). Unless Hillary really messes up at the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary, she’s the candidate to beat. And even if she does pull a Howard Dean, she might still have enough pull within the Democratic National Committee that she could get the nomination anyway. But she’s doing it…for the children!

Democrat Candidate for Vice-President: John Edwards. A lot of people are saying Obama’s the one vying to be Hillary’s Robin to her Batman, but I don’t think the two of them can co-exist on the campaign trail together. Instead, Hillary will be going for someone with the qualifications she’s looking for in a VP: dishonest, unscrupulous, legally slippery, greedy, and easily cowed by a woman. Hel-LOOOOOOOOOO! If that’s not John Edwards, I don’t know what is!

Wild Card: Al Gore. With a Best Documentary Oscar in one hand, a Nobel Prize around his neck, and a free hand to take big donations from Buddhist monks who have sworn an oath of poverty, Gore has the ability and the groundswell of support to make a run at Hillary for the Democrat nomination if he so chooses. With his global warming movie getting him at least some level of personal validation, he may be ready to run again in spite of his protests to the contrary. After all, if Gore can take credit for the taking the initiative in the creation of something that was already in existence before he was elected to the House of Representatives, he might be playing fast and loose with his plans to run.

Republican Candidate for President: Rudy Giuliani. Yeah, yeah, Rudy’s as much like Ronald Reagan as Jimmy Carter was, but he has more of an upside than strategists think. Sure, he has multiple marriages and that whole odd habit of crossdressing for “the religious rightâ€