Calling It Like I See It

It's something I dread to see.

It's something I hardly dare to say.

But from here, the view looks fairly certain that next January, we will be calling Barack Obama "Mr. President."

The fact that neither Reverend Wright, nor Hillary Clinton's new-found populism have been able to sink Barack Obama is a pretty good indicator that nothing else will, either. The baggage of having a "liberation-theology" preacher was handled by Barak's suddenly emergent disgust that pastor's message. Hillary Clinton's blue-collarism was beaten with more bromides about hope and change. If Obama is producing wins despite the dogpile of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, just wait until after the nomination. The Clintons will switch sides, sing Obama's praises and John McCain will be the man under the dogpile.

Despite the fact that Hillary hasn't acknowledged it yet, the general election race has already begun. And, despite some polls showing otherwise, it doesn't look good for John McCain. Two special elections for solidly Republican Congressional Districts, (one of them former Speaker Denny Hastert's) have gone Democrat. In many primary states, more people have actually cast votes for Barack Obama than voted for all the Republican candidates combined. In some of those states, Democrat primary voters outnumbered Republicans by margins as large as two to one!

In spite of this, the Senator from Arizona seems to be running a campaign that is largely incoherent and lacking any defining passion (excepting the Iraq War). He is campaigning, but not innovating. He is speaking, but says things no one cares about. He is going places, but moving nowhere. Add to this, the strange way that McCain is reduced to using public campaign financing. McCain is one of the richest Senators in Congress. No one is talking about the fact that although McCain has hundreds of millions at his disposal, he is not spending any of it on his last chance at the White House.

Republicans are not united. McCain is not uniting them. He continues to run to the left of the base in the party, hoping desparately to be able to capture the middle. The only problem is that the uncommitted middle tends to vote for the candidate that they like the best. McCain is not winning that front.

The weight of history is against Republicans. That weight could be countered. Unfortunately, the weight of current events and current campaigns seems to be against us, as well. It doesn't look like those weights will be countered by anything but an Obama implosion.

Since the Jeremiah Wright flap and Hillary Clinton combined haven't caused that implosion, I'm not sure anything will at this point. Having confidence in an Almighty God is looking better and better.....because from where I'm seeing it, nothing else is even looking good. I'm just calling it like I see it.