Lost Causes

I took one of those on-line polls, I can't find the link now, that asks a series of questions, and then matches you with a candidate. It seems my preference for bringing the troops home from Iraq immediately, giving amnesty to all the illegals already here, and having a universal health care system, matches me up best with these three guys in this order - Mike Gravel (sounds like a character in a Mikey Spillane novel), Dennis Kucinich (wasn't he an extra in the Wizard of Oz?) and John Edwards (didn't Bill Clinton once say John was such a smooth talker he could talk a squirrel out of a tree?).

I don't really think any of these three has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the Democratic nomination. My preference is still Obama, but I recently heard a little of the NPR debate in Iowa, and frankly all of the candidates in the Democratic field sound reasonable and intelligent to me. Now wouldn't that be a refreshing change?

Anway, got me thinking, I've not always been the best at picking winners. My absolute favorite all time candidates in no particular order - Jerry Brown (Mike Royko dubbed him Governor Moonbeam), Eugene McCarthy (the great insurgent!), Robert Kennedy (gunned down), and George McGovern (lost in a landslide!).

Three of those guys wanted to end the war in Vietnam. If they'd been elected, most likely, thousands of lives would have been saved...but of course McGovern actually lost to the all time CREEP, Hunter S. Thompson's doppelganger, Richard Nixon! Early on, I realized my politics was kind of inspired by Saint Jude. Saint Jude, of course was the saint of lost causes and hopeless cases.