Choosing a horse

It's very early yet in the '08 presidential campaign and in fact, today's front runners may not even be in the race a year from now. So I feel no particular pressure to pick a candidate to support just yet.

I suspect that Obama, Biden and Edwards will be out of the running pretty early on, and the race for the nomination will come down to Comrade Hillary and (wait for it!)...Al Gore. Yes, that single biggest contributor to anthropogenic global warming by virtue of his own hot air, Gore will enter the race. I'll go out on a limb now and predict that he'll get the nomination. Remember you heard it here first.

But none of that matters to me in making my own choice, because unless Joe Lieberman enters the race, I'm not backing any Democrat. Wait...he's not even a Democrat any more. Never mind.

So that leaves the Republican candidates. Since my abortion position is decidedly wishy-washy, a candidate's position on that topic is mostly immaterial to me. Health care? I think I can trust any of the Republican candidates not to nationalize it. Gun control? Well. Here's where Giuliani worries me a little bit. In a TV interview I saw not long after he announced, Rudy said that he favors bans on handguns in urban areas. Seems to me that's where they're the most useful to a law-abiding citizen. The main take-away is that I found his whole openness to strict gun control troubling. If he comes out and says that he won't back gun control legislation, I might reconsider.

So in the current crop, that leaves John McCain and Mitt Romney. I find nothing particularly objectionable about either one. McCain's rather broad and loose definition of torture is easily forgiven in light of his personal history, and I don't really think it would dilute his zeal in fighting Islamism. Romney to me is largely an unknown, but his position on the issues laid out at his campaign web site seem perfectly reasonable.

So for now, it's between McCain and Romney for my choice. For now.