Uncertainty on Both Sides of the Presidential Election

This is certainly shaping up to be an uncertain political season.

Despite the Republican presidential nominee being "chosen" early on, and a long-raging hard-fought war between the two Democrat contenders, it remains difficult to guess how things will play out in November.

Because there were initially several conservative-to-fairly-conservative Republican candidates, and conservative support was divided among these, the best choices in the Republican field ended up flaming out early, leaving "moderate" John McCain as the defacto winner.

Since McCain has so frequently embraced liberals and liberal policies, and thumbed his nose at his own party so many times, many Republicans are having a very hard time getting behind their party's nominee.

NewsMax today reports an ominously high number of Republicans who are unsatisfied or "very unsatisfied" with their choice of candidates.

In what could spell bad news for the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, an overwhelming 86 percent of self-described “very conservative” voters said they are displeased with the current presidential candidates, and 65 percent of these voters said they are very unsatisfied.

The vast majority of conservatives (76 percent) and Republicans (76 percent) also expressed significant dissatisfaction with the current candidates, as did more than half of political independents (55 percent).

Meanwhile, 82% of Democrats say they are satisfied.

When you factor in the candidates from other parties on the Right side of the aisle, things look even more bleak for McCain. The Constitution Party has chosen the popular columnist and talk show host Chuck Baldwin as their nominee, and Libertarians are expected to choose former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Both of these candidates, while a longshot to win, will undoubtedly siphon off conservative votes when McCain desperately needs every one.

Consider also that even in the face of such incredibly high Republican dissatisfaction, McCain is still spitting in the faces of the conservative base by embracing liberal global warming fantasies and stating he'll ask Democrats to serve in his cabinet. I'm sure Baldwin and Barr are looking pretty good to a fair number of conservatives, right now.

But then the Democrats have their problems, too. Barack Obama has been pretty much coronated the winner of the Democrat primary, but Hillary Clinton is fighting on, causing additional strife in the party.

This bitterness in the Democrat Party has lead nearly 1/3 of Democrats to say they'll abandon their party if Obama is their nominee.

Obama is a flashy package that contains little when you open him up. "Hope" and "change" may satisfy the intellectually feeble, but after even minimally thinking people have a chance to consider his ideas and his ability to carry them out, Obama will come up short.

McCain may be many things unpalatable to conservatives, but he's pretty good in a debate. Obama, on the other hand, has shown that when he gets off-script, he fumbles for coherency. McCain is likely to clean his clock in a debate or town hall format.

The prospects for a substance-filled campaign from either side are about as firm and appealing as a warm bucket of spit. Given the dissatisfaction in the opposing party, either party should have a cake walk in 2008...if either party had a solid nominee.

Neither does, which should make an otherwise pathetic campaign season interesting on at least some level.