Frontrunner Always Running

It's my opinion that there were three types of Americans yesterday: those interested in Mardi Gras beads, those interested in Super Tuesday delegate counts, and those living in caves.

Watching caucus and primary results last night brought back a long-forgotten memory.

In Fall of 1996, I read a book that cemented my absolutist position concerning the First Amendment. At the beginning of the book, the author made an interesting observation: it's easy to support the First Amendment if the speech in question is of the variety you support; an advocate of the First Amendment even tolerates speech that is disagreeable. Only a true believer of the First Amendment will defend speech of the truly abhorent nature. A true defender, he wrote, will seek out an event featuring speech he absolutely disagrees with and support the advocates of that speech.

A few months later, I accepted an invitation to join the Travis County Democratic Party's Watch Party at the Driskill.

As it was a foregone conclusion that Dole was going to lose to Clinton, I had already accepted defeat but remained unrealistically hopeful of an upset. Bonnie and Mark, on the other hand, eagerly anticipated a second term. Good friends that they are, they promised not to let anybody else know I am a Republican and I promised not to wear my tie with an elephant motif.

We got to the ballroom and anchored ourselves in front of the television to watch early returns. Revelers came up to us to ask, How are we doing?.

Not as good as I hoped, was my reply.

Anyway, as Bonnie, Mark, and I drove to Austin that November 1996 evening, we talked about what political junkies all across the country were already talking about - who was going to run in 2000.

Conventional wisdom centered on two people: Governor Bush and Senator McCain.

I quickly dismissed McCain. My reasoning - he was still too closely associated with the Keating Five. Advantage Bush. Turned out I was correct but for the wrong reasons.

In 2008, I wonder if anybody remembers who Keating is and if anybody cares McCain always will.

And Happy Birthday, Ronnie. Many people this morning wish you could come back and hit the campaign trail as a candidate.