Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney, Huckabee, McCain

Quote of the day:
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."
--H.G. Wells

There are final actual results in the Presidential election campaign. It’s a fairly slow news time, so there is seemingly unending reporting, analysis, punditry and prognostication about it.

Is there anything about the candidates, campaigns, processes and polls we haven’t heard about? Is there any “expert” who hasn’t given his or her opinion?

We are ten months away from the election and already the candidates have had more exposure than most presidential candidates in our history.

I won’t repeat the oft-heard complaint “is there anything about them we don’t already know?” There actually is a lot about the individual candidates we don’t know.

This is an especially interesting election year, for a number of reasons. One is that California and New York will vote earlier, and it looks like our votes will count for something this year.

In coverage of the campaign, what we mostly hear are variations on narrow weekly themes. Right now the themes are:

1. Horse race. Huckabee and Obama leading coming out of the gate. Can Romney/McCain and Clinton/Edwards catch up before the first turn?

2. What tactics will each of them use to win the race?

3. Are voters more interested in change/inspiration, or experience/pragmatism?

This is not a week about issues, plans, policy or programs. The differences among candidates in each party is fairly small. So most of the issues reporting so far has focused on small differences in positions.

Is the primary campaign going to effectively end on February 5th, when 22 states vote? That would leave nine months of general campaigning.

For a four-year job. Yikes.