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Hernando Today

Who Would Have Thought?

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By DONALD J. MYERS

Special to Hernando Today

Published: February 1, 2008

Since the ups and downs in the college football polls gave us such pleasure and suspense during the season, we are now being treated to the same in the political arena.
Upsets by political underdogs in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now Florida have provided suspense in the presidential race. Rudy Giuliani chose to ignore the earlier primaries and placed all his effort in Florida. After finishing a dismal third and withdrawing from the race, I guess that he learned that being quiet for the first few state primaries was not a good strategy.
Super Tuesday is less than a week away and for all intents and purposes the Democrats have a race between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, while the Republicans have a race between Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain. It seems like the "country club Republicans" and establishment group have gained the upper hand in the Republican race. Conservatives continue to ignore Sen. McCain, but he is getting his support from "moderates" and liberals. In his victory speech, Sen. McCain referred to former President Ronald Reagan and how he was one of the foot soldiers for Reagan.
He went on to talk about how conservative that he remains, but it does not ring true. He tried to push through the immigration bill with Sen. Kennedy, he was co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that gave birth to the 527s and brought even more uncontrolled money into political campaigns while restricting free speech, and he was one of only two Republican senators who voted against President Bush's tax cuts. That is only a few of the incidents that could cause a conservative voter to wonder. Add to that his usual maverick approach to Republican causes that are praised by the mainstream media.
How then does he continue to win? Up until Florida, independents and Democrats could vote in Republican primaries in most of the earlier states, and they accounted for the majority of his votes. In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez both gave their endorsements to Sen. McCain at the last moment and from polls, which caused many Floridians to vote for him. Many mainstream media have endorsed him for president, but I will wager that if he becomes the Republican candidate, there will not be any who support him over a Democrat.
On the democratic side, it is fascinating to watch how the Clinton campaign has used race and gender to attack Sen. Obama. What is more fascinating is that there is little outrage from the usual suspects such as Jesse Jackson, the NAACP, CORE or the other black organizations. Sen. Kennedy has endorsed Sen. Obama with glowing terms while ignoring the Clintons. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, wrote an editorial endorsing Sen. Obama. She wrote about how she had been told by many people of how her father as president had inspired them. She went on to write that no president in her lifetime has done that and that she knew that a President Obama would be the one to do that.
Think about that. We have had a President Johnson, Carter and Clinton and they did not inspire or uplift her? Could it be that even the Democrats do not want to be subjected to another four years of a soap opera and scandals in the White House?

Col. Donald J. Myers, a retired United State Marine Corps colonel, is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill.

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