Two more down...

Well, having lost Fred Thompson the other day (no real loss there), we’re now ready to see Dennis Kucinich drop out of the presidential race. The loss of Mr Kucinich is a real loss, his being the last Democratic candidate who was saying something different.

He also leaves us with no one remaining who has executive experience (Congressman Kucinich was mayor of Cleveland, some 30 years ago). In fact, all three of the serious candidates who are left (when Mike Gravel drops out, the general reaction will likely be, “Who’s he? He was running?”) have relatively little public-sector experience, and it’s all as senators — Hillary Clinton is at the beginning of her second term, Barak Obama is in the middle of his first, and John Edwards served one term that ended in 2004.

That’s not actually bad, though — all three are quite qualified for the job — and this will likely be the first time since 1960 that we’ve elected a senator as president.

I also think of the 1960 election when I see things such as what The Ridger points out to us: advertisements by the candidates that crow about how “Christian” they are. The examples that she gives have explanations: Senator Obama is trying to battle false rumours that he’s secretly a radical Muslim (he’s not); Governor Romney is trying to assure people that, while he’s a Mormon, that makes him a Christian too. Still, it’s scary that we’re so focused on that, and it makes me wonder what the “Christian Right”, had it existed as a major force in 1960, would have done with a choice between a Quaker candidate and an Irish Catholic one.

Anyway, this leaves me as I haven’t been in any election since I’ve been eligible to vote: undecided. I have problems with all three of the Democratic senators — different problems with each — and I just don’t know what I’ll do in the New York primary election.

On the Republican side, actor — oh, yes, and former senator — Thompson’s retreat leaves a somewhat more crowded field of five, along with their version of Mr Gravel, Duncan Hunter (see update below). Of the five serious contenders, there’s plenty of executive experience: two governors and a mayor. While the governors, Huckabee and Romney, try to out-Christian each other, the mayor, Giuliani, is flailing about and dropping consistently in the polls. Senator McCain seems still to be on solid ground, and, well, we’re never really sure where the mystifying and up-and-down Congressman Ron Paul is going — a Libertarian running as a Republican (and one has to wonder whether he’ll do an independent bid when he loses the Republican nomination).

And speaking of independents: there’s still talk of current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg running as an independent, though Mayor Bloomberg still won’t say.

In any case, who’ll be next to say “Sayonara”?
 

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Update, 28 Jan: Oops... when I wrote this, I’d missed that Duncan Hunter dropped out several days earlier, on 19 Jan. Shows how hard this stuff can be to keep track of!

 

Update, 30 Jan, 2 p.m.: Ha! It looks like Lidija comes in ahead of {inw} by a hair (in the comments). Mr Giuliani and Mr Edwards were both expected to call it quits today, but the latter announced first, at about 1:30 today. As of this writing, Rudy still hasn't made his speech.

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