The Continuing Decline of Mr. McCain...
Seems like dear John McCain continues his downfall. Ever since he lost the primaries in 2000 against a much better organized Bush campaign... he is retreating and regressing on many fronts.
His "maverick" status came from his willingness to defy his party every once in a while (although he's always been staunchly conservative). Lately, in the last couple years though, he has been seen pandering to the religious right. His pandering to the Jerry Falwell crowd as well as other religious rights groups is sort of sad. His view on creationism being taught in science classrooms is fairly indicative of this as well.
Not only that, this man is too old to be President. He'll be 72 years old if he takes office. 72! That means if he has an 8 year run, he'll be 80.
I understand that politics are about pandering. You can't expect to win if you don't appeal to your crowd. But he's focusing too much energy on the religious right. There are plenty of conservatives as well as liberals that would have voted for him. Ultimately though, I think many people (especially liberals who love him) are completely unaware of how conservative the guy has always been. He may have been willing to in the past fight his party on certain things but ultimately, the guy is very conservative.
I guess it's a bit sad because even though there were many things I disagreed with the guy on, ultimately, I always thought his willingness to go against the grain of his party was his biggest strength. It shows character and shows he's not a puppet. Unfortunately, he no longer has this with him.
The next year will be an interesting year with all the folks involved. While I still hope that Obama makes it, my gut feeling is that he won't because of too many things people will focus on.
Edwards
The more I read about John Edwards, the more I like him. Here is what I wish would happen (a realistic wish, that is):
Obama agrees to be the vice president, with either Hillary or Edwards as the Presidential candidate. Right now, I think I am leaning more towards Edwards, since Hillary seems more of a politician to me (slick, greasy, poll-driven), but I would really like to get away from the white-male presidents and have a woman and/or minority. So I would support either one.
Anyway, having Obama as the VP makes sense long term because he is so young and inexperienced. Assuming the presidential nominee can hold for 8 years, Obama could then run (he'd still be pretty young), giving democrats control of the white house for (up to) 16 years. That's practically a lifetime. Obama could basically intern for 8 years in the white house, then take charge. All he would need to do is retain even a fraction of his popularity, which shouldn't be too difficult to do, especially since he wouldn't have any voting history to attack.
Minor Addendum
McCain lost the Republican nomination when the ultra-conservative elements of the Republican party changed the primary voting rules in several key states weeks (and in some cases days I believe) before the Republican primary.
I agree though, that his creationalism stance (which he has been defending since last summer, I saw him on the Something-Rose show on PBS) is rather disappointing.