Calendar Girl

After Mike Huckabee's victory speech, Thursday late, the PA system blared background music, that kind which survives looping, ad infinitum.

It's become routine. As the candidates walk around and shake hands and soak up the love in the room for what only seems like forever, something like "You're Still the One" or "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" plays and plays until they leave the room.

Somebody with an excellent sense of humor (intentionally or otherwise) in the Huckabee camp chose John Philip Sousa's march, "Liberty Bell." Chorus after refrain after tension after release. The masterful addition of diminished sevenths just before the dominant resolves to the tonic. I could go on.

More important to the point of the story is that this is the theme music for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Every forty seconds or so, the march goes back to letter "A." At 38 seconds in, the band played the notes as Sousa intended, but you just knew that the foot and sound effect belonged there.

It was a double dare from the comedy gods not to think of Mike Huckabee as the nominee he would make, about to venture beyond the comfort zone of home-schoolers and Amway^® reps. But then the foot descends from the heavens. Thppppt! He is crushed in two/four time. Repeat from letter "A."

Huckabee's salvation, if the odds stacked against him pan out, might be a vice-presidential run alongside John McCain. He ran interference on Romney superbly in Iowa. Now we're on to the neighboring state of Romney's old haunt, where the local paper couldn't even offer an endorsement.

Romney's facade (along with his pomade) might well crumble shortly thereafter.

Thus rises John McCain. Should electability be the watch word going into super Tuesday, February 5,  something to rally around, not some old snake oil nor newfangled voodoo, will be just the ticket. Who but John McCain can make Republicans proud to feel as though they don't need to have their noses rubbed in George W. Bush's mess?

McCain is the most authentic at trumpeting the parts of Dubbya's tenure that help him look more qualified than the field, even as he shows ex post facto stones about parts of the administration which have been retired to most folks' long term memory. (Senator, my cats are against Rumsfeld's policies. Or as the kids say, "Rum who?")

If he is the standard bearer of his party, a person could rightfully wonder what deals with what devils have brought us this once supposed maverick, acting as his party's standard bearer?

On the Democratic side, Iowans weighed in overwhelmingly. Thinking back to the earliest debates when Hillary Clinton scolded others for their lack of realism, you have to wonder if she were taking the eventual McCain tack as some devil's advocate (don't go there) in order to highlight Obama's and Edwards's supposed naïveté. In round one, Thursday, that positioning ran third to hope and blue collar issues.

She will cling to whatever solace comes from knowing that the eventual contest will not be between hope and garage band chestnuts from the eighties. Most all can agree there. They will re-tool, the Clinton camp. They haven't yet torn Dubbya a new one for fear of Obama's ability to put Hillary near the scene of those crimes.

Thankfully, the lexicon was happy to stop with theatrical agent, express agent, telegraph agent, estate agent and travel agent. It had no need of a change agent. Neither, evidently, did Democratic and independent Iowans.

What she brings to the table, one mustn't forget, is Terry McAuliffe, Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and husband Bill, acting dangerously close to his parodies.

First, this tightly packed go-round of primaries. Then, the nominees will be set in stone for eight months. Obama has been whipping crowds up to a frenzy with his message of hope. Hope vs. whatever politics as usual the Republicans decide on, to me, makes an eight month stretch seem doable.

How convincing is Hillary's case that she would be ready on day one, when John McCain's been part-way up Dubbya's yin/yang for the better part of his eight year term? He's ready to just pop out and measure for drapes right where he lands. Hillary's going to take her argument into the general election? I don't guess it succeeds.

No, I'm thinking hope and change might be the only things which can survive the eight month test. Yes, it's appalling, to be sure, that so much time is allotted between primaries and conventions, by the powers that determine these things, but it's the same for both sides.

As at the prize fight, there should be a bikini-clad calendar girl starting off each month with a reminder of how far from November it is. Oh look. It's Ms. April. Stay hopeful until next month.

Bush is gone, when?

Next week: Martin

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