Watching the Republican debates, I can't get over the parallels to the Democrats in 2008. There's no question that Mitt Romney is trying to portray that same sense of inevitability that Hillary Clinton's camp employed. Maybe he'll have better luck with that strategy.
I've felt for some time now that Newt Gingrich is the Joe Biden of this race-the intellectual, senior statesman who started with promise, stumbled out of the gate and forced his way back in through a combination of will and talent. In the end, John Edwards blocked Biden's path in Iowa, but the finances of Clinton and Obama proved too daunting for us and everyone else in the long run.
By that measure, Rick Perry is the Barack Obama of this race but I think more of Edwards when I look at Perry, all neat and tidy and smiley and ideological. Of course, the Herman Cain-Barack Obama comparison is easy given both of their successful outsider bids. What is becoming more interesting is Cain's staying power, which also surprised a lot of people when Senator Obama hung in there last time. The only thing Cain is missing is the Obama-Perry type bank account but that could come with success. We'll see if his foreign policy non-answers affect his standing any more than his scandalous revelations did.
Continuing on...Michelle Bachman is an easy twin to Dennis Kucinich as is Jon Huntsman to Bill Richardson and Rick Santorum to Chris Dodd. Although at the outset, the Pennsylvanian was more Biden while Chris and Newt could have been separated at birth. I guess that leaves Ron Paul playing the part of Mike Gravel. Paul could end up playing the part of John Edwards as a politically successful ideologue in Iowa which could leave Governor Perry playing the role of Gravel. Given his, uh, performance thus far, that comparison may not be too far off.
At the moment however, no one is really playing the role candidate Obama did. That may leave the President with another establishment figure to run at. That's one fight he should know how to win.
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