Part Two: Covering the Uncoverable; Council Bluffs Likes Fred Thompson

ACCORDING TO CONVENTIONAL wisdom the 2008 presidential race is already widely considered to be a “very interesting” contest. The ostensible reason for that is that the actual winner, not only of the general election but of the respective nomination processes, will not be known long before 250 million people have two long years of their lives wasted through a relentless barrage of meaningless, masturbatory, spirit-sucking campaign muck. The press corps will therefore be relieved this time around to have something like real suspense attached to the dreary assignment of finding meaning/drama in all of this vacuous bullshit; instead of having to invent controversies and scandals out of thin air, people like me will have real ones (real at least in the context of the campaign) that they can sit back and confidently misreport as they come.

Looking at the field now, it appears that in the end the horse race will come down to three viable candidates on each side – Giuliani, Thompson and Romney on the Republican docket and Hillary, Obama and the tireless John Edwards among the Democrats. Perhaps also squeezing their way into the viewfinder before this is over will be a smattering of minor figures not yet mathematically eliminated, in particular the Christian bassist Mike Huckabee lurking behind the Republican field and, who knows, maybe Bill Richardson on the other side. (more…)