With less than nine months to go, Ralph Nader is weighing his options and looking at his hat. He thinks that his hat would look better in the ring, but really… it should stay on his head for another four years.
The same could be said about Hillary Clinton, who should stick to her own 2008 plan. If you have the resources and the resolve, you should run for any office you wish. Of course. But 2004 is not just any year and this is not just any contest. Dean is a victim of severe mismanagement, Sharpton is the Republican dream-candidate and Kucinich just needs to go home and chill out with some DS9 reruns. (The man is a Romulan. Really.)
So it comes down to Kerry and Edwards, and Kerry — as equine as he still appears to me — will secure the nomination. If he’s smart, he’ll pick up Edwards (or perhaps Clark) as a running mate. Then the fun begins as he meets George Bush and his rough gang of neo-cons. This will be the dirtiest presidential campaign that any of us have ever seen, as emailed accusations fly out to supporters by the millions for pennies instead of the dollars that would’ve previously been spent on television adverts.
The last thing we need is a maverick in green to distract the electorate and hit the replay button on November 2000.
