They say that history repeats itself. We just experienced Hollywood's self-congratulatory evening with the presentation of the 80th anniversary of the Oscars. Even tinseltown would not present a presidential campaign so similar to another campaign as the 2008 edition is to the one held forty years ago. It is obviously too early to predict the final outcome, but to this point, this year's presidential race has eery similarities to 1968.
On the Republican side, we have John McCain playing the role of Richard Nixon. Like Nixon, McCain was vanquished eight years earlier. The Checkers incident was part of Nixon's checkered past; and John McCain was part of the Keating Five. While Nixon leaned on his "conservative" credentials as an anti-communist, he did things for which a Democrat would have been impeached had he not been a registered Republican. Despite taking a half dozen stands anathema to conservatives, McCain consistently refers to himself as a "conservative."
Playing the role of the "Happy Warrior" Hubert Humphrey is Hillary Clinton. Utilizing the political license usually only reserved for fiction writers and Hollywood, this year's "happy warrior" is played by a woman. Hubert Humphrey found himself in the surprising and uncomfortable position of being the "establishment candidate" in 1968. He had one of the most liberal records in the United States Senate before becoming vice-president. Yet, because of a war back then, too, he was placed in the position of apologist for the Vietnam War. Moving forward forty years, Hillary Clinton finds herself in a similar position today, only this was due to her own efforts. Thinking the nomination was hers for the taking, she started a couple years ago trying to position herself as the "moderate," expecting to run against Rudy Giuliani in November, 2008.
Once again using Hollywood political license, Barack Obama is playing the role of Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. Both Kennedy and McCarthy took stands early in the political season to be 100% anti-war. Barack Obama has done the same thing. Sticking close to the Hollywood script, Barack has two last names that are both memorable--Hussein and Obama (or as Teddy Kennedy first introduced him a few years ago: Osama).
The stage is set for two campaigns. First, the Young Turks of the Democrat Party (in this case played by one man with two names) running against the Old Guard who claims to have 35 years of experience. Then, the winner will face a runoff against the person who would be the oldest first term president in U.S. history.
All we need is a mayor from Chicago named Richard Daley, and we would have the stage set for the wildest convention since 1968. Amazing as it seems, we do have a man named Richard Daley as the mayor of Chicago. Can we expect riots in Denver in August?
Déjà vu all over again.
Richard Geno has a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and also has a master's degree and Ph.D. He is a life coach, the author of the books, "The Balanced Life Experience: A Roadmap to Having It All," and "Running Around the World: an MDRT Member's Journal of Balance." He is president of the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, whose website is: