With the NC primary next week I’ve gotten more and more depressed about the candidates.  Here’s my hopeful thoughts from 2004:

My controlling question is this — what’s best for the United States and the world over the next 4, 8, 12, 16 years? If Kerry wins then he’s the incumbent candidate in 2008 with Edwards as the Veep again, which puts Edwards as the candidate in 2012. If Bush wins then he’s done after this term, and with Cheney’s age & record & health we’re looking at a fresh Republican candidate in 2008 along with a fresh Democratic candidate (Edwards or Barack or Bayh, just please not Hillary). That at least creates the opportunity for both parties (or at least either party) to advance a centrist candidate that I can get excited about voting for. Imagine that - a Presidential candidate I can get excited about supporting!

What a disappointment.  I hoped for fresh candidates and instead got McCain 2008 (a party-line retread unrelated to the “Straight Talk Express” of McCain 2000), Hillary 2008 (shrill and divisive and with none of the hope and optimism of Clinton 1992), and Barack 2008 (how does he seem so stale and caricatured already? wasn’t he the fresh face at the convention in 2004 and the candidate of “Yes We Can!” just a couple months ago?).

We’ve had a Bush or Clinton in the White House since I was in kindergarten, and that’s unAmerican.  We don’t do dynasties.  I’ve given up hope of having a fresh candidate, but I’ll at least settle for having fresh names in the White House.  As long as we don’t have Hillary on the Dem ticket (as President or Veep) then I can at least cling to that (and I’d feel the same way about Jeb Bush if he were running on the Republican side).

So I’m voting for Obama in next Tuesday’s primary.

But I don’t know who I’ll vote for in November.  If Hillary is on the Dem ticket then I’m voting for McCain.  If the Dem ticket is Clinton-free then my vote is up for grabs.