And then there were three

This past week, two of the candidates for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party dropped out, leaving only three candidates. I don’t know which one of the three will win the nomination, but I’ll be voting for whichever candidate it is.

Yesterday, Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee dropped out of the presidential race. Some pundits called Chafee’s candidacy “quixotic”, in part because, among other things, he called for the USA to adopt the metric system (only in the USA could that make a candidate seem weird). A former Republican, driven from his party by the radical right that now controls it, and little known outside his own state and region, his odds were always long.

Earlier last week, former US Senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, also dropped out. Webb says he’s considering an independent run—yeah, right. Spoiler alert: If he runs, he’ll absolutely lose. Based on the evidence, Webb seems to have a vastly overinflated opinion of himself, one clearly not shared by very many Americans: He only raised some $700,000, according to the AP story I linked to, and he polled at only 2% before he withdrew. It takes a huge ego for someone so unpopular and unsuccessful to think that he can somehow miraculously manage to win the presidency from the two main parties—when that hasn’t happened since Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election. Ain’t gonna happen.

Chafee and Webb were probably the most conservative of the Democratic candidates, and it puts Clinton and O’Malley as the most conservative now. Clinton has moved to the left in the past year or so, but O’Malley is trying to present himself as more liberal than Clinton and more “mainstream” (read: conservative) than Sanders. However, the truth is that all three remaining candidates have areas where they’re liberal, and areas where they aren’t. What matters most to me, as a progressive voter, is their overall theme and direction, what their priorities are, and how they plan to get there—and who can beat the eventual Republican nominee.

However, I can say with certainty that I’ll be voting for whichever one of them wins the Democratic Nomination, because I’d never even consider any of the Republican clowns candidates.

Meanwhile, McClatchy reports “Landscape shifts: Democrats could take control of Senate”. I certainly hope they’re right, because that is so very, very important.

Yesterday, there was still 1 year, 16 days until the US presidential election.