Captain's Quarters -

Most voters don't want to hear one thing about the presidential election - not until late next year. Do you blame them?

I'll bet you voters can tell you what all of those candidates' positions on immigration is. If voters don't know or remember a person's positions on abortion or global warming, it's simply because no one but pundits and the media *care* about those issues. We keep being told we should care, and the same questions keep being asked over and over because someone some place thinks they're important ... but as is noted here, on all the tree-huggey issues voter's eyes simply glaze over.

Voters never cared about Clinton's indiscretions with Monica, either. It was the media and the Washington in-group that insisted on dragging that out, focusing on it, and impeaching a sitting President. Every politician who participated in that impeachment process was summarily voted out at the every next election as a reward for ignoring their constituency's wishes. Too bad we couldn't vote the media and *their* headstrong bosses out, also.

Cap'n Ed -

Six months ago it was doubtful that McCain could ever get the Republican nomination. Now it is an ABSOLUTE certainty that he cannot. Take it to the bank.

The view on Newt Gingrich is simply that he has no chance of winning the general election. Conservatives love Newt's brain, but recognize that as Speaker he was "fingernails on the blackboard" to independents and conservative Democrats, and even a lot of moderate Republicans.

This is totally irrelevant to the 2008 presidential election. Here's what is set to happen:

No matter who wins the Republican nomination, a third-party candidate will emerge out of nowhere to split the Republican vote. Hillary will skate in with a plurality of the vote.

It's all in the bag, folks.

'voters never cared about Clinton's indiscretions with Monica'

Well, neither did Clinton's wife or her pals in National Organization of Women.

That 's when I started question just a tad bit that perhaps my sisterhood was full of lying, manipulative power-hungry feminists who were BSing me about a lot of things. Since then I've been rather disgusted with my gender and frankly want nothing to do with whinning victims who created their victimhood in their own ugly little minds.

This current campaign is a remnant of the legacy of the Clinton years.

We voters don't want a permanent campaign. In some European countries the campaigns are limited to a few short weeks. That sounds better and better to me.

And all this crap about moving up the primaries .. damn. Start them in June, maybe May, but February .. give me a break.

Perhaps we should prohibit fund raising until April (of the election year) have the primaries in July and August, the conventions in Septemeber, and the election in November. In the period between November (of an election year) and April (of the next election year), anyone caught fund raising should be put in "stocks" (where I can come and throw tomatoes and old eggs at them).

People are paying attention probably because the debate formats themselves are a farce: ten candidates playing what looks like an extended version of Jeopardy? Please, spare me. Lincoln and Douglas are probably laughing in disbelief.

Interest will rise when it's down to 2-3 serious candidates who can challenge each other during the debates. My guess is the three will be Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney.

Fred!'s doing well in part because people are grateful that he's not bugging them, yet.

For people not registered with either political party the debates are only of marginal interest. For me the Republican debates are less on the candidate and more on the general direction of the party. On the Democrats side it looks like a lock by Clinton, how she deals with the left in the party is of some interest. There is a lot of doom and gloom on the Republican side but I still think that a Conservative candidate that is serious about fiscal responsibility and shows some independence from the social conservatives could win the election. At least for a [insert favorite derogatory term here] centrist like myself that would be an appealing candidate. When I comment on left and right websites I say this to both sides [admittedly without much effect] the name calling makes you look like juveniles, and centrists don’t take juveniles seriously.

syn said

"'voters never cared about Clinton's indiscretions with Monica' "

Well...that's not completely true. Clinton was a lame duck when it happened, so he didn't really have to worry about what the "voters" thought.

But it is interesting to note that while he retained his job approval numbers-which in retrospect could have been aided by rigged polls over-sampling Democrats, as is regularly done today-at the same time his "personal approval" numbers were much lower. And a few years later when he left office, the majority of Americans polled said he'd only be remembered for scandals, not for anything he had "accomplished" while in the Oral Office running the "most ethical Administration in history".

If a Republican President had done the same thing Clinton did with Monica, NOW would have demanded that he be taken out behind the barn and shot, preferably in the crotch.

As for NOW giving Clinton a pass on his engaging in an exploitative sexual relationship with a subordinate Federal employee (talk about "ethical"!), that just shows their arrogance and utter hypocrisy. I don't know if you remember the story, but at the time one reporter or writer (I can't remember her name) gushed that she would happily give Clinton oral sex-just because he kept abortion legal.