YES HE DID!

Obama vs. McCain

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly will officially concede on Saturday and endorse Barack Obama. For the first time in it's history, the United States will have an African-American major party presidential candidate in the November election. Not that race matters or anything...

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!

One of the first orders of business--try to figure out the best running mate. Of course, the obvious choice for Obama would be Clinton since together they would be able to out-fundraise and outspend McCain and his running mate probably by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Clinton could solidify Obama's support with women and white working class voters and she could lend the ticket needed gravitas. Of course, the main flaw in that slaw is that both of them have big egos and each of them threw more than their fair share of mud at the other during the long, grueling and expensive campaign. And of course, this being the Democratic Party, doing whatever makes the most sense will almost certainly not be what the Dems do.

As for McCain, he might be tempted to seek out Condoleeza Rice as his running mate (call it fighting black with black). This would be a mistake, since Rice doesn't have a very high likeability factor, has her role as one of the key architects of the Iraq War and occupation hanging squarely around her neck and--high IQ and poise notwithstanding--Rice does not dazzle on the campaign trail. My suspicion is that McCain was all set to go with Mitt Romney until the whole Texas fundamentalist LDS scandal broke. Although Romney couldn't possibly be farther removed from those freaks, shared faith notwithstanding, this is America, land of the generalizations and home of the sterotypes and the stakes are too high for McCain to risk it. The Grand Old Senator has plenty of time to figure it out, but whoever his number two will be he--or she--will probably come from a key swing state and be under the age of 45. Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, step right up.

I hope the candidates get back to talking about issues and defining where they stand on the recession, Iraq and gas prices just to name three hot button issues. It's a lot to hope for, but a guy can dream, can't he?

Braydon's B-ing Nasty

Cousin Braydon is back and he's got his own blog! I wouldn't exactly bend over backwards to seek it out, but if you're bored, curious, scared or sociopathically inclined, you can check him out at http://braydonmania24.blogspot.com. Wish him well...he's got two strikes.

Peace.