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I've wanted to write a little about the 2008 campaign for a while, so here are some ramblings on the subject. Most of my readers will agree with nothing I say here, but that's okay, because everyone needs a token right-winger in their life somewhere.

Republican Candidates

Rudy Giuliani – Anti-gun? True. Sordid personal history? Absolutely. Leadership credentials? Possibly the best in whole field. As mayor of NYC, he actually got results, something very few candidates in either party can truthfully claim about anything.

Tommy Thompson – My old editor’s favorite Republican, there really isn’t much to attract anyone to vote for him. His Iraq plan (to basically turn Iraq into a small United States) sounds too optimistic to me.

Sam Brownback – When the most memorable thing about a candidate is that he hates pornography, you know he has problems.

Mike Huckabee – Someone said that he is the most “Republican” of all the candidates, an accurate description I think. This also means that he is sturdy but unexciting.

John McCain – The mean old man of the Republican campaign. The strong point of his personality is his devotion to the so-called War on Terror, although that may or may not be a virtue depending on who is casting the ballot. His immigration scheme was a complete disaster and drained a lot of my faith in McCain. And if it were up to him there would be no more gun shows, and I really enjoy those things. Also, my father (a former USAF flight surgeon) says that he’d rather vote for a communist than a pilot, and we pretty much think the same about everybody.

Mitt Romney – I met the Catcher’s Mitt at a campaign event a few months ago. I asked him about gun control, and basically told me that he loved guns and was devoted to making sure people couldn’t have them. A gun nut who hates guns, apparently. He says “I get tired of people who are holier-than-thou just because they’re been pro-life longer than I have.” If he had switched positions 20 years ago this statement might be relevant, as opposed to the 6 months ago that he actually did. My least favorite Republican by far.

Ron Paul – I hate to be one of those smug jerks, but I’ve known who Ron Paul was since high school, and I’ve always liked him. He has consistently voted against government waste and constitutional infringements throughout his career. Although I don’t agree with his position on Iraq (leave now!), it certainly has its charm. Unfortunately, I agree with a former aide of his who said that Paul would rather fall on his own sword than win. I’d be thrilled to see a man like him president, but it ain’t gonna be him.

Tom Tancredo – Although Tancredo mentioned Jack Bauer during one of the debates, this guy just ain’t clicking with me the way I had hoped. He got his place in the spotlight through vigorous campaigning against illegal immigration, although he has surprisingly failed to grab attention with this issue during the debates. He has had occasional flashes of belligerence (see his comments on health care and Mecca) that I’ve found enjoyable. A big negative: when elected to congress he pledged to only serve a couple of terms, but then claimed that God told him he could break the pledge. Can we bring an end to Republicans claiming that God directly spoke to them because they’re so cool?

About the Republican debates - Can we have just ONE Republican debate not run by a Democratic operative? Is that so much to ask? Pretty much every moderator they've had has been downright hostile.


Democratic Candidates

Barack Obama – You know why there was a lot of shine on Obama at the start of this campaign? Because he hadn’t done anything yet! There was nothing (or at least little) mud to sling at him because he’d yet to get his hands dirty. I watched as he smugly proclaimed that he always opposed the war, neglecting to mention that when the war started no one outside of a certain section of Illinois had ever heard of him. So I take Schadenfreude in seeing Obama proclaim that kindergartners need more sex education and that we should withdraw from Iraq to invade Pakistan. The Obama supporters I’ve talked to usually think that by supporting Obama they announce themselves as sensitive and worldly, when really they’ve just been suckered by his ridiculous hype machine.

Hillary Clinton – Those who have talked about the Clinton’s with me after I’ve had a few know that my opinion of them hovers somewhere between that of George Clooney and Pol Pot. I hate what they’ve done to politics in this country and that I spent my whole childhood with them in the White House. So it’s saying a lot when I confess that she is my favorite of the Democratic frontrunners. Really, I’ll be stunned if she doesn’t end up being the next president. Nothing I’ve seen indicates that anything short of God himself is taking the Clinton’s down.

John Edwards – He is doing it for the poor but lives in a palace. He hates Wal-Mart but shops there. He demands that Hillary return her Murdoch contributions and yet makes money off of Murdoch corporations. He made his money suing doctors into oblivion, but I assume that he utilizes their services to help his wife. I don’t know how much more I can say about John Edwards without using language that my favorite professor would lightly scold me over, but rest assured it isn’t positive.

Bill Richardson – One of the best records on guns of any candidate in either party, I used to kind of like this guy. But his campaign has came across to me as a flop. His language is commonly vitriolic (even by primary standards) and his grasp of the issues appears weak to me. Perhaps he’d make a good vice-presidential candidate.

Joe Biden – He captured my attention when he was the only Democratic candidate who gave an answer regarding Iraq that seemed halfway honest and not something cooked up for what George Costanza might call the “bonehead mass audience.” Browsing through his record, I see very little that I actually like, but I’d like to at least fantasize that there is a Democratic candidate I can mildly respect.

Chris Dodd – This guy could put a rampaging dinosaur to sleep. Possibly the greatest waste of debate time since Carol Moseley Braun.

Dennis Kucinich – The favorite of university professors and pipe store owners everywhere. At least he is honest about his embrace of socialism, as opposed to desperately trying to conceal it like his colleagues. Possibly the least presidential of all the candidates, both sides.

On education - Did anyone watch that pathetic YouTube debate? There was a question about which Democrats sent their kids to private school. Candidates from Clinton to Obama to Biden fumbled to explain why they sent their kids to private school in the same way a seriel killer would try to explain just why he needed to rape and hack up all those middle schoolers. This raises the obvious question of why so many politicans on the left insist that everyone should have to send their kids to a public school, be it good or a death trap, while their kids can go to private school?

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Ever since I entered this glorious and rewardng world of film criticism, I have occasionally been asked why I rate the films with a 5 star scale. Having spent the whole day in a hotel room watching one Walker, Texas Ranger after another, I've had a lot of time to think about things like that. Here are some critiques of other film ratings systems that will hopefully illustrate why I choose not to use them:

4 Stars - The most famous system, employed by Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, and about a billion other critics. The weakness here is that the smaller number of stars make the rating more about the quality of the type of movie, not the movie itself. Ebert once answered a question about his 3 star review of a silly comedy, explaning that a 3 star comedy is different from a 3 star drama. Thus, a 4 star score for a film like The Bourne Ultimatum (which was given by USA Today's Claudia Puig) is about the genre, not the overall greatness of the film. By contrast, a 5 star system allows me to reserve the 4.5 and 5 scores for truly great films, not just great actioneers or comedies.

A - F - Just like they give in school, and in Entertainment Weekly. This system suffers from a similar problem as the 4 star one. An "A" action movie might be a 3.5 star film. Also, it gets harder to express displeasure via score. Does a D- represent a really lousy movie or an unfunny comedy? If my goal were to make a right-wing documentary about abortion, would my movie deserve an "A" just for making a decent argument with good editing?

100-0% - Why not give movies a percent score? Simple: because if I did that, one day I'd jerk the wheel into a goddamn bridge abutment. Can you imagine the thought process? Well, I really enjoyed My Super Sweet Sixteen The Movie, but does it deserve a 97%, or a 98%?

No Scoring System - This one holds some appeal. I've talked to several people who have seen ever score I've assigned, but never read a word I've written. There are plenty of good critics who don't give out scores, but you can still tell how they felt. But as of now, I've nowhere near the confidence in my skills to feel certain that all of my readers are getting the point. The 5 star system allows me to offically endorse or reject whatever the NI or my dad paid for me to see.