The Field Narrows

So far it has only the third-tier candidates who dropped out of the presidential race - people who never stood a chance and whose runs bordered on an exercise in vanity. Today the race lost its two second-tier candidates - people who seemed to stand a chance but were not winning primaries. I'll miss both of them but for different reasons.

I will miss Edwards for purely partisan reasons. The longer it takes for a party to establish a clear front-runner the worse it does in the November election. The shortened primary cycle was mainly designed to allow Hillary to wrap up the nomination quickly and get on with organizing her national campaign. As soon as she or Obama gets enough delegates to clinch the nomination the primary race is essentially over. The candidate can start solidifying support and move to the center. Edwards wasn't winning but he was taking delegates which slowed the eventual winner's progress.

It is no mystery why Edwards never got any traction. He came in a poor second to Kerry in 2004. At the time he seemed fresh and his "two Americas" theme resonated with many Democrats. Four years later he is no longer fresh. He has a new message but could not articulate it as well. Plus he has been tarnished by his association with Kerry. He would probably have done better to turn Kerry down in 2004.

On the other side, I will miss Rudy Giuliani. He had a lot of strengths as a candidate. He is a moderate, possibly even liberal, on some social issues but he has solid credentials as an administrator (New York City is larger than 41 states) and as a tax cutter. In 2006 Democrats ran as solid fiscal managers. He could have taken that issue back from them. He also ran well in traditional Democrat strongholds. He had a lot of personal baggage but, unlike Hillary, he didn't have his biggest piece of baggage campaigning for him.

Six months ago Rudy was the front-runner but that seems to have been largely based on name recognition. I saw one analysis that pointed out that the more voters saw of him the less they liked him. I suspect that most people find New Yorkers slightly grating and that this did him as much harm as anything. I wonder if Mayor Bloomberg has figured this out yet?

So where does that leave us? I suspect that Hillary's insider connections will eventually get her the nomination. Obama supporters will be outraged and stay home in November.

McCain seems to be on a roll. With Hillary (and Obama) so far to the left, he has the middle all to himself in a general election. I worry that he will move too far to the left. He has always been unpredictable. Given the choice, I prefer Romney although neither would be my first pick. Both should prove themselves electable in a general election against Hillary. Obama, on the other hand, has youth and charisma. With the newest set of endorsements he is evoking a president who was killed the year before Obama was born.