HispanicVista Columnists

The endless presidential debates continue 14 months before Election Day. Besides being boring and uninformative, they are generally useless; they really aren’t debates in the Lincoln-Douglas tradition.

At Dartmouth College we saw every Democrat running for President stick big feet into their mouths and display, for all to see, people who really aren’t qualified to be Chief Executive and Commander in Chief of the United States.

There are only four real candidates -- Senator Hillary Clinton, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former senator John Edwards and Senator Barack Obama -- to consider.

Edwards campaign coffers are full of trial lawyer illegal donations. His 26-million dollar mansion is a negative. His wife has a big mouth. He begs for public funding. Ambulance chaser Edwards doesn’t stand a chance of becoming President.

Neither does Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. Under orders from his scandal-plagued boss, President Clinton, he hired the totally unqualified Monica Lewinsky to his United Nations staff. Additionally, his one-hour appearance on Meet the Press was a disaster; he is too dumb to be President.

Senator Barack Obama has organized a fine effort nationally to raise money and supporters. His most glaring defect is his claim of having presidential views on the issues of the day, particularly on America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the coming confrontation with Iran.

In a phrase, Barack Obama is a mile-wide and an inch-deep on real substance. His opposition to the Iraq war is juvenile and demonstrates a total lack of foreign affairs knowledge. He wishes to be Commander-in-Chief without ever having a thought of serving the United States of America in any military or federal capacity before he beat the mighty Alan Keyes for the senate.

When he talks of casualties and the war’s length, this young man has no clue that Democratic Presidential icon Harry Truman sent ten times as many Americans to their deaths in Korea in half the time of this war. He is ignorant of what Truman did to contain Communist China with the sacrifice of 36,000 Americans. Obama means juvenile exuberance with no experience. He has no chance.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, at least has some experience.

She supported NAFTA, perhaps her husband’s greatest achievement, even as her national health plan flunked the test. She has flip-flopped and is now negative on her husband’s NAFTA.

What she didn’t do, because her husband didn’t reach out to Iran, was to henpeck him to do what she now claims we should do – talk to Iran in an effort to keep them from developing nuclear weapons. President Clinton never approached Iran.

Today she castigates President Bush for not talking to Iran, something her naïve husband never did. That’s why Iran has a nuclear program today. She will probably be the Democratic nominee.

On the Republican side, we find Rudy Giuliani with 27.2% in the RealClearPolitics.com polling averages, Fred Thompson 22.6%, Mitt Romney9% and Senator John McCain 14%. The others running waste time and space.

McCain was the original front runner but he has run behind for months. He has a chance because of his position on the War; he strongly supports the war in Iraq and the larger War on Terror – in that, he mirrors most Republican thought especially if the war continues to improve for the U.S.

Least likely to win is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Republicans are rare in Massachusetts, despite that he did a fine job. However, his Mormon religion is weighing heavily against him with Christians. The fact that of his five adult sons, not a single one has seen fit to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States combined with Romney’s non-service is the nail in his coffin.

Fred Thompson hasn’t made much of an impact and will likely fade from the scene as we get into serious campaigning. We must also consider that the only photos of Thompson in an American military uniform come by way of his play acting a naval officer in the film "Hunt for Red October."

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City Mayor, brings his strong law and order history as an U.S. Attorney, as an Associate Attorney General and as a Mafia-buster to the campaign. Adding to his tough persona are his anti-terror positions. He has led the pack for a year and leads into the big time Super primaries of California, Florida, New York and New Jersey. His federal law enforcement service serves him well.

He will explode out of those important primary states with the most convention delegates. Giuliani has led the Republican pack in the polls for a year. Will he win the nomination? No one knows, Quien Sabe? The country will suffer if he doesn’t.

Contreras’ books, THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA?? and, A HISPANIC VIEW OF AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION are available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com