The American Mind

The #1 winner in Gallup’s latest Presidential poll is “Don’t Know.” James Joyner makes a cleaver quip about AlGore changing his name. But seriously it shouldn’t be a surprise since the 2008 race will be the most wide-open in decades. President Bush can’t run for re-election and Vice President Dick Cheney isn’t running. Judging by the number of candidates we might even elect our first Senator since President Kennedy in 1960.

On the Republican side Sen. John McCain polled the highest trailing Sen. Hillary Clinton. Rudy Giuliani was way back, and Gov. Mitt Romney isn’t even on the radar screen (both losing to “A Republican”). Hillary is the top Democrat with Sen. Barack Obama trailing. Here’s an interesting bit from the Gallup summary (emphasis mine):

Asked in a separate question if they would like to see a list of candidates run for president, McCain and Giuliani are the only two candidates who get a “yes” answer from more than half of Americans. Clinton tops the list among Democrats, over three-quarters of whom would like to see her run, but the majority of independents and Republicans say they would not like to see her run.

That piece of data might be weighing on Markos Moulitas‘ very, very early declaration that “it’s hard to see how Barack Obama loses the nomination barring scandal or the mother-of-all gaffes.”

John Hawkins discounts Obama’s chances in a general election:

Put the liberalism, his inexperience, and the racist Democrats all together and I think Barack Hussein Obama jr. would have an extremely difficult time becoming President unless the Republican candidate would completely melt down and essentially hand it to him on a silver platter.

Let me add that Obama hasn’t been put through the fire on a national stage. We really don’t know much about him. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass gives a taste of what the Illinois junior Senator could face. It involves a land deal (what’s with Democrats and land deals?) between Obama and an indicted Chicago political player Tony Rezko:

The fact is the Obamas and the Rezkos bought property in a fashionable South Side neighborhood next to each other on the same day, from the same lot, and the Obamas came out the winners.

Obama bought his home at a $300,000 discount. Rezko bought the adjoining lot from the same sellers at full price. One got a juicy bargain. The other overpaid. Legend has it that Rezko never paid full price for anything in his life, so he starts with Obama?

“I don’t recall exactly what our conversations were or where I first learned, and I am not clear what the circumstances were where [Rezko] made a decision that he was interested in the property,” Obama told the Tribune.

“I may have mentioned to him the name of [a developer and] he may at that point have contacted that person. I’m not clear about that.”

I’m not clear about that either.

Later, it occurs to the senator that he’d like a slice of Rezko’s acreage to enlarge his estate. Obama’s appraiser told him the fair market value of that slice was $40,500.

Since that’s one-sixth of the Rezko side, it means Rezko paid $625,000 for property that was actually worth $243,000. That would make Rezko a complete fool. But he’s no fool.

Obama then offers to pay more than $100,000 for a slice of land that wasn’t worth that much, because he wanted to be fair to Rezko.

Hmm.

That would just be the start. Obama’s past would be deeply examined, if not by reporters then by Presidential opponents. Stuff will come up. The nation would find out, to use Kass’ words, “He might not walk on water after all.”

“‘Don’t Know’ Leads for President in 2008″