When it comes to picking the next president, my friends fear an loathe me. I've not picked wrong since Carter/Regan, and that was lapse of judgement brought about by youthful idealism. Now I make my $20 bets, earnestly hoping that I might loose, but I never do.
I'm not ready to make a final pronouncement as yet, but my money is on a Republican candidate taking the cake.
What is my fool-proof formula?
I am sorry to say that my formula is a bit of an anticlimax and really rather tawdry. The first part of the formula is a simple prioritized breakdown of urges that drive the voter: fear and greed.
Sadly, the Republicans are much more adept at manipulating these two base drives than Democrats. They also have a really good understanding of voter ignorance and use this knowledge to great effect.
The only upset to my formula is the strange attraction that voting citizens occasionally have for messianic candidates; Clinton was one of these. Fortunately I had it pegged and won my bets.
Who is not going to win? Seasoned politicians with buffon hairdo's. This is almost exclusively a Democratic signature.
Politicians with droopy eyes. Democrats throw these presidential candidates up by the score.
Women candidates that get the Right frothing at the mouth. It's a no starter.
A black guy? You've got to be kidding. This is the US. He's got to be REALLY messianic.
Since there does not seem to be enough data to make an accurate call yet, allow me to indulge in what I would like to see in a presidential candidate's political platform:
My presidential candidates top priority will be to regain the moral high ground for my country. Roll back institutionalized torture. Vigorously prosecute all those who partook in this shameful chapter in US history. Restore and invigorate the drive for Human Rights.
As a European net friend wrote me, "The US? Face it. Now you're just another sleazy capitalist country"
Ferociously purge the CIA. Hundreds of billions of dollars devoured by this arm of the government and they can't even tell us that Iraq doesn't have WMD's? Four years of war in the Middle East and they still don't have enough translators to evaluate incoming data? It's laughable. The CIA hierarchy consists of a bunch of ineffective Good Ol' Boys - and they need to go. (I'd also want my presidential candidate to have really good security.)
Other planks of my presidential candidates platform? Oh, I don't know. A space elevator? An accelerated program to understand self-sufficient bio systems that Humans can live in? We might need that. Soon.
Bottom line? I don't see a Democratic candidate that is gong to make president at this point in time.