The right to abortion

For those interested, I will be making my choice for president public next week.  The candidates, we now know, are Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the Democrats and John McCain and Sarah Palin for the Republicans. My choice will be made next week, so nothing I write here should be perceived as an endorsement of either ticket.

The newly announced vice presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, is at this point the only unknown personality. If McCain wins the election on November 4th, his choice of Palin will be praised as a stroke of genius. However, if he loses, he will be viewed as a dope who shot himself in the foot by selecting Palin and assured his own defeat.

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Obama's mistake

Last week, I wrote of the recent successes of Senator Barack Obama -- his trip abroad to Iraq and Europe and his reception in Germany where 200,000 people came to hear him speak and cheer him. I compared Obama with Julius Caesar, evoking Caesar's boast of "Veni, Vidi, Vici."

But Caesar also made his share of mistakes. This week, I'm writing about a gaffe by Senator Obama, in which he appeared to be playing what has come to be known as "the race card."

On August 1st The New York Times summed up the situation: "Senator John McCain's campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing 'the race card,' citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he 'doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.'" The Times went on to state, "The exchange injected racial politics front and center into the general election campaign for the first time, after it became a subtext in the primary between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton."

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Afraid of a fair fight

When opponents want to bring down a political candidate - as many Democrats and Republicans would like to do with Hillary Clinton - they examine every word he/she utters, knowing there is always the possibility of finding a quote that will embarrass the candidate and add fuel to the fire.

Many Obama supporters and other political operatives want Hillary to drop out of the Democratic primaries so that Senator Obama can be anointed the Democratic candidate who will face the Republican, John McCain, in November.

During an interview with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper in South Dakota, Hillary discussed the calls for her to drop out of the race. She said, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it."

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How far is Obama prepared to go?

Senator Barack Obama won the North Carolina primary by 14 percentage points. Senator Hillary Clinton won the Indiana primary by a narrower margin of two percent. Neither candidate scored a knockout punch, but Obama came out ahead.

Clearly Senator Obama who had the most to lose - it would have been considered a huge loss if Indiana went big for Hillary - also had the most to gain. The race goes on and will go on until a decision is made at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The fat lady here is Hillary, and she won't sing. I'm part of her primary campaign until she wins or withdraws. I simply do not trust Senator Obama's judgment.

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Two types of failure

I am dumbfounded that there has been no drop in Barack Obama's standing in the polls following revelations that he sat in Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years and did nothing, publicly or privately, to voice disagreement with Wright's hate speech. Indeed, Obama's poll numbers are going up. The most recent CNN national poll shows Obama with 50 percent and Hillary with 40 percent of likely Democratic voters.

One reason for the up tick in Obama's popularity may be that Hillary Clinton has had to explain her out-and-out falsehood of having been under sniper fire years ago in Bosnia. Her account of landing in Bosnia amidst sniper fire was totally demolished by a video clip taken at the time and now flashed all over tv showing her strolling across the tarmac with Chelsea to receive flowers and kisses from a waiting child.

The questions asked about Obama

Barack Obama's speech last week addressing his 20-year relationship with his radical pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was very well done, yet unconvincing.

Obama sought to explain that relationship and why he could not end this close association, despite the minister's hate-filled rhetoric. He said, "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Rev. Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"

Yes, those are the questions that people are asking.

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The final three

The three remaining serious candidates for president - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain - are all qualified for the job. The fourth candidate - Mike Huckabee, who flip-flops on accepting the theory of evolution - is not. How, in the modern age, can we have a president who wavers on basic biology?

So, the ultimate choice will be between three widely different candidates. Hillary claims experience and a steady hand with moderate balanced solutions to the myriad of problems facing the US Barack claims energy, vision for a new beginning, and the ability to reach out to others. McCain, a moderate conservative, claims a lock on straight talk, war hero status and willingness to seek a military victory in Iraq. He understands the perils we face worldwide.

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