I've decided I'm grateful for the drawn out Democratic Primaries.

See, they've begun to show the DNC candidates as what they are. As Obama began amassing a lead in delegates and popular votes, the shrew in Hillary came out. At this point, I'm doubting there's anyone to the right of Mao who will vote for her. After all, they'll have Ralph Nader, who has FAR more respect among the left than Hillary EVER will. For that matter, he has more respect among the right and independents, for while we don't agree with all of his platform, Nader falls in the category of "true believer"; he is what he says he is, and that is pretty much the same as he has been for the last 30-40 years.

The problem is, with all of the attention focusing on Hillary, Obama quickly became the party's wunderkind, an all-things-to-all-people candidate whose accomplishments are topped only by the great Brian Boitano (if you can't get a good SP reference, I feel for you. I really do). Obama was going to singlehandedly end the mortgage crisis, put Americans back to work, and bring us to the land of milk and honey. Our modern day Moses was bulletproof, or so it seemed.

Even when his pastor and close friend was shown to be a racist on the level of Louis Farrakhan and David Duke, his shining armor deflected the arrows of the media. No, Obama was not to be undone by mere association.

Obama's Achilles heel, however, appeared to be exposed when he placed his foot firmly in his mouth and made a crack about the people of the heartland turning to religion and guns.

While it may soon be feasibly possible to win a presidential election without winning a single vote in the heartland, such is not currently the case. These same people that Obama wishes to write off as ignorant hicks clinging with one hand to the cross and the other to their Winchester happen to vote. And they vote in a greater percentage than the general population.

We are seeing a side of each of these candidates that we would never have seen had the primary election been quick and clean. Hillary Rodham Clinton will do more to SET BACK the cause of women's rights in America (think she'll appoint a number of women cabinet posts? Think again. She'll not want to be sharing that spotlight) by proving herself to be a manipulative, shrewd woman who is satisfied only by power. And Barak Obama is so out of touch with middle America that he will almost certainly have a sharply divided Congress, even among some of the members of his own party.

This election year more than any, I mourn the death of the great Frank Zappa. Somehow, I'm thinking he could have won this thing!