Connecticut Democratic primary

Wow, our votes may matter.

I’m in the awkward position of liking most everyone in the race, though I worry that John Edwards is too flimsy for the job. Obama and Clinton are terrific speakers and embody something drastically different and better even if they say nothing at all.

Bill Richardson is great. I trust that whoever wins the nomination will snatch him up as the vice presidential candidate.

I can’t decide who to vote for, though, because they’re all good. Or maybe it’s just that after seven years of Bush, anyone looks terrific.

The Connecticut primary, Republican edition

I keep imaging a group of Republican business leaders sitting around in Washington trying to figure out which of these candidates angling for the GOP nomination could possibly be worth investing in.  They’re all seemingly decent — except for Rudy, of course — but they seem so lightweight and doomed. The bigshots must be beside themselves that nobody has emerged who could possibly win.

Personally, I like John McCain, even though I disagree with him about the war, social issues and more. He has heft and experience. But the Republican base hates him.

The rest of the GOP presidential contenders just seem like so much confetti, sometimes pretty but useless.

So what to do on primary day? Who you going to vote for? How come?

Movin’ on up the primary date

I can’t see any real downside to holding Connecticut’s presidential primary on Feb. 5 instead of waiting more than a month, when the decisions are likely already made.

But I do wonder about the overall wisdom of having the system so frontloaded that candidates are selected almost immediately, with voters having little chance to see if they falter over time. It’s hard to take the measure of a man, or a woman, in a matter of days, yet that’s what we’re gearing up to do.

It probably opens the door to more successful third party runs if the Republicans and Democrats are locked in so early. Both of their candidates, after all, will seem entirely too familiar by Election Day.

Still, I don’t mind joining so many other states for the mass midwinter primary.

It just seems stupid that we have created this crazy system to pick the leader of the free world.