Unlike Ted Kennedy or Marcia Pappas, if I recommend any candidate it won't make the news. That's fine with me: I don't want to deal with reporters.

Still, this has to be one of the better campaigns. We've had freepers going batty over Fred Thompson, who acted as if he was as excited about becoming president as a sane person, the reappearance of Bill Clinton all over my TV, and a surprising appearance by the reclusive Carolyn Kennedy. Instead of the more usual "gain momentum in the first couple states and waltz to the convention," we've had real races going on in both of the major parties.

Neither of which I belong to, but that's another matter.

I have nothing to back this up, no facts or research or data or anything, but I get the impression from most partisans I talk with that they see the American public, politically, as falling into a dumbbell curve. Their side is large, and the other side is equally substantial and is, for all reasonable people, worthy of only disdain. These partisans look at the political landscape as a battlefield, something I don't agree with.

I've met a grand total of two politicians in my life, but that's not including Dwight Eisenhower who I saw riding in a big car at a Rose Parade. Still, from what I've seen on TV, I have to say that they're all pretty likable. I guess they have to be,  but more than that, I don't see any of them as being the personification of evil. I seriously doubt that any of them wake up thinking of ways to further injure the world or move a step or two closer to world domination. They often have plans and ideas that I disagree with, but I don't think those stem from malice.

Similar to religious beliefs, I can like people with whom I politically disagree. I don't have much use for our current president, but I bet if I spent some time with him that I'd enjoy it. We just wouldn't talk politics.

I'm a bit concerned about what I hear from political scientists and pundits, however. If they're right, many women, especially older women, are voting with their tits this year and backing Hillary. I'm not a woman, and I don't claim to understand them, but I have to shake my head when I hear how so many of them are voting for her because "She's a woman, and we should have a woman president."  That sort of thinking, that any woman will do, runs against my grain.

It's true that I've been enamored with Obama since last August or so. It has nothing to do with his policies, about which I'm mostly ignorant, I just think he's what I want in a president. I can listen to him without wincing and even get inspired on occasion, and I'm one of those who thinks that nothing political ever lasts very long. It seems to me that half the work of any administration is undoing the work of the last one, especially if the other side held the office.

I guess voting for a woman because you're one makes sense, but only if you think the two genders are at war, maybe the same war you fight against the opposing party.