Bring It On

Let's see, McCain still has no money, but his campaign has taken on the thrilling tint of an heroic insurgency, which should be good for a few more months. 'Matinee' Mitt Romney told everyone to 'lighten up' about 9/11, and Rudy had a pretty serene month. Democrat Joe Biden (who was once famously busted for nicking an autobiographical speech off Neil Kinnock, of all people) has been answering inquiries as to whether he's kinda just running for Secretary of State really. He said "HELL no!" He means yes. But the REAL news of the campaigns this weekend is actually about the news itself: this Clinton/Obama hooha has legs. Like a cockroach, it has survived the news cycle for 7 days. Oh it's ON now.

Let's see if we can get the order right: At the youtube """'debate""", Obama said that he would absolutely meet with foreign dictators, without condition. Clinton said that the President wasn't supposed to do dumb things like that. After the debate, Hillary made the mistake of doing a little victory shuffle, saying that Obama's answer had been 'irresponsible and naive.' This was a dig too many for Obama, who went straight for the jugular, for the first time addressing Clinton's vote for the Iraq war. This is significant for a couple of reasons. Until now, Obama has left Clinton to flounder about in her own mess with that now-infamous pro-war vote. Why dig where she's obviously weakest? It only makes you look like a bully. Now Clinton's done some playground-pushing, however, there's no way Obama's going to lie down and take it, but, since that was Obama's Foreign Policy trump card, his people must have seen this as a crucial moment for their candidate. What worried them so much?

Then Obama said that Hillary was 'Bush Lite', to which Clinton snorted 'Whatever happened to the Politics of Hope?' She had a point; while the Republicans are expected to hop about calling each other perverts, we like a wussier approach in our Democrats, if you please. Blah blah blah, Obama said something, blah blah Clinton released an interview with Obama which provedish that Obama had contradicted himself, blah Obama said that ACTUALLY it totally didn't contradict anything, anyway. Ad Nauseam.

Now that Obama and Clinton have taken it out of the canteen and onto the playing fields, and the media have circled like junior classmen chanting 'fight, fight, fight fight fightfightfight', we need the old Coach to come out of his office, charge right in there and separate the panting candidates, reminding them that only they can take the team to the playoffs tonight. Unfortunately, there is no coach. There's Chris Dodd, but he's more of a retired neighbour. Once campaigning goes negative, it's darn hard to go back.

In the wake of her recent spat with the Pentagon, Clinton is beginning to look like a woman who can't quite get this whole 'foreign policy' thing down. One more slanging match and it'll look like she's running around picking fights with boys about war. Meanwhile John Edwards has quietly sucked up all the support Hillary and Obama have discarded in the last week. One newspaper suggests that this boosts him to the very top of the 'second tier' candidates, but the Monocle has always seen Edwards as the third top-tier Democrat in this race. His healthcare and poverty templates are the best of the bunch, and he's already an experienced campaigner. How he uses August will be crucial. Since Kennedy used the first televised debates to squish apparent favourite Richard Nixon, television has heralded great changes in electoral races. It's Happening. Again.