The dynamics of the McCain candidacy are going to enhance the already superb chances of a Democratic winner in November. He hasn't won his own party's approval - Huckabee's near sweep of this past weekend's Repug races is a gauntlet thrown squarely in front of McCain. A candidate usually secures the base before moving more to the center to try to pick up the less partisan folks. In this case, McCain has drawn whatever liberal, moderate, centrist, less dogmatic voters his party has, plus a number of independents. To gain votes from the Republican base he will need to make a series of deals with the devil, and he's already started with Karl Rove. As he moves to the right and trots out their talking points, tells the world how many more Robertses, Alitos and Scalias the country needs, how stem cell research ain't so great, after all, we'll all have better suntans as the earth warms, maybe a little, teensy bit of torture, so long as only three people are tortured THIS time....he's going to slide down a very slippery slope to the worst that Bush-Cheney have tunneled us to - to wheedle the absolutely BASE to support him.

It will be the Democratic Party's race to shovel away. Hillary Clinton will bring out the BASE to whisk McCain into the driver's seat. Her "35 years of experience" haven't been carefully examined by the press, but they will be by the Republican machine. The Bangor newspaper, in suggesting that Maine voters take a hard look at the candidates, note that most of her experience has been on the periphery of governing. That's a very good way of putting it. She doesn't have what she has been touting, and just that basic distortion is enough to give one pause in voting for her. Her record in the Senate is not one of standing up against George Bush - why the hell didn't she ever call for impeachment, LEAD the Senate to make W accountable after November, 2006?

But we're in a country that is desperately hungry for an honest search for solutions, for bringing the country together. With the best will in the world and with any creditable plans for progressive programs to address the country's ills, we would have four more fatiguing years of brawling over personality. The Dems have not been able to stand up for anything for the past seven years, they will continue to behave like a bunch of farts under a skirt for the four years till the Repugs retake the White House in 2012, if Clinton is elected.

Obama, if the Dems allow him to be nominated, will take the Presidency, and he will start without the level of anti-Clinton noise and divisiveness that Hillary and Bill cannot dispel. He will do well in many red states because he will be perceived as a more moral person than the Clintons and as an antidote to the Bush-Cheney regime that has hurt rural families. He will start with a clean slate on the world stage and foreign governments will be relieved to have a new face without a ton of baggage to deal with. And, I believe, he will have coattails that will increase the Dem majority in Congress in 2009.

I would love to see an Obama-Webb ticket! It would mute McCain's perceived defense strength, and it would scream youth and change without having to bring up the subject. With Patrick Fitzgerald as Attorney General and John Edwards as Secretary of State to mend our fences at home and abroad.

The day after the election the American people should demand a commission to examine the Bush-Cheney excesses, bring charges as appropriate, recommend legislative changes as needed, and put the country on the path to accountability and respectability once again.

I have hope, also.

Chris Matthews also remarked on that broadcast that John McCain hasn't had to change his message rightward to win - totally overlooking McCain's refusal to outlaw torture last week. The media MUST look more sharply at McCain and not give him the pass they've given W for 7 years and counting.

should lead to a re-examination of the Keating Five scandal - McCain is running as a man of virtue - and, yes, he cheated on and dumped his first wife, and apparently had a less-than-virtuous relationship with this lobbyist (although he's quick to campaign against "special interests"), and scammed a bank and the taxpayers to cover campaign debts. What else is in that closet?

The Repugs will coalesce around him - they're probably relieved that it's an affair with a woman in this instance and not another toe-tapping Larry Craig. Plus, he's all they've got. They've not only tolerated, but supported, Duh-bya's subversion of the U.S. Constitution for more than 7 years. It will be amusing to read about the outrage over the NYT story from the right-wingers who voted to impeach Bill Clinton over a relationship which apparently concerned only personal, rather than political, favors.

This kind of revelation probably win't help Hillary a whole lot, either, as Dems remember the bimbo eruptions during her husband's administration - and who knows what dirt the Repugs will toss out there about him to take some of the heat off McCain?

I wish there was as much controversy raised about the Bush onslaught on civil liberties, torture, treaty-breaking, and mismanaged wars as there is when public figures' sex lives are peeled open.