It's primary time throughout the nation, and big-name presidential candidates have begun dropping like flies. For those of us who witnessed our first and second choices go down without even a blaze of glory (I swear Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were competing for "Laziest Campaign in Presidential History"), this time of year has become very disheartening.
Conservatives all over the country are looking at the remaining Republican candidates, mouths ajar, eyes glazed over, mumbling, "What happened?" and trying their best to not become yet another apathetic, disenchanted non-voter.
The cream of the crop does not appear to be rising.
For those of you unaware of the current situation playing out on the Republican side, it's down to four men. Truth be told, it's really only down to two (neither Mike Huckabee nor Ron Paul stand a chance).
After all this time, all these debates, all those mailers and all that money, two candidates still have a legitimate shot at winning the Republican nomination: John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Looks like I'll get a practice round of "vote for the lesser of two evils" before this November's general election.
McCain is a lot of things: a maverick, an occasional liberal, an ex-prisoner of war who may or may not still suffer from the psychological stresses resulting from his time imprisoned and an aging old man. He takes pride in his "straight talk," and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it isn't a redeeming quality when his straight talk about the economy boils down to "I don't know much about it."
His liberal record on certain legislation speaks to his true nature and should be quite alarming to the base of the Republican Party - almost as alarming as the fact that so many major newspapers noted for their liberal leanings (The Des Moines Register and The New York Times, for example) have offered their endorsement of him.
McCain's strongest conservative leanings arguably lie in the sphere of defense and foreign policy. For a lot of the country, and deservedly so I might add, this earns him a lot of respect. His career and record in this regard (aside from his amnesty bill for illegal immigrants) are commendable. But for every vote McCain earns, every time he tells us about the troops he talks to that "just want to win this war," he probably loses 10 times as many votes when he comes out and says we'll be in Iraq for another 100 years.
I don't necessarily disagree with him about his "100 years" comment (another column, another day), but that's the kind of straight talk that could serve as kindling for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head presidential debate. Five years in Iraq has been a national nightmare; the voting public will not look kindly on a candidate endorsing 100 more.
And of course there's simply the matter of age. Just imagine Obama versus McCain. It'd be like the first fight between Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang in Rocky 3. "Young vs. Ancient" in a time when "change" and "hope" are the most publicized political platitudes of the day?
That's not a good matchup if your political uniform has elephants on it.
The bottom line is that McCain is not the best candidate for the Republican Party in the upcoming election. He is far too often a Democrat in a Republican's clothes, and in the event that Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination (or Hillary wins and selects Obama as her vice presidential running mate), I can't imagine how Republicans will retain the White House for the next four years.
The only way I see McCain winning the general election is if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination and doesn't take on Obama as her running mate, McCain picks one heck of a running mate, and the debates suffer all-time ratings lows.
That's a lot of '"ifs" for the GOP to be counting on just to put a maverick politician like McCain in office.
The best course of action for Republicans right now is to give Mitt Romney the nomination. Fred Thompson should have been our man, but he had all the energy of a neutered house cat and what's done is done. Time to play with the cards we've been dealt.
Yes, Romney is a Mormon. And yes, he's flip-flopped on some pretty big conservative issues. He is a "new and improved" Republican version of John Kerry.
Four months ago, he was dead last on my list of Republican candidates.
But he has consistently down-played the role of his religion throughout this campaign (and because a sucker is born every minute, I believe him). And when one considers he was a politician in the liberal state of Massachusetts, it is no surprise that he had to appeal to the left in order to retain power.
Beyond that, the shallow truth of the matter is that Romney seems exponentially more Presidential than McCain. What can I say? Height never hurt anybody.
If you're a Republican and you plan on voting in the upcoming primary, just plug your nose and fill in the bubble for Mitt Romney as the "lesser of two evils." Take your sticker, leave some pride, but know that you've done your part to help the country.
Come November, you'll get to do it all over again.
Dan Halverson is a senior political science major. Reach him at danhalverson@dailynebraskan.com.
