I'm only interested in the 2008 candidates' New Years resolutions for one reason: It's the promise they're most likely to break, the goal that will elude them the most.
You've been there. You plan to lose weight and soon enough you're gorging yourself on Valentine's Day chocolates. You promise to spend more time with your spouse and corporate down-sizing has you working two people's jobs. You say you'll quit smoking but the stress of quitting brings you up to a pack a day. Why participate in this exercise of futility? Perhaps we all need pipe dreams to get by, and that illusion of progress even when we're in the midst of a tailspin.
Given the worst-case-scenario type outcome of these things, let's take a look at the Democrats' actual New Years resolutions... and what will most likely happen...
Joe Biden: Remember his personal history and how things can change, treat everyone in his life well.
Prediction?: He falls down the stairs, develops amnesia and forgets that he's running for President, therefore missing all his deadlines to get on state ballots. (I frown in dismay.)
Hillary Rodham Clinton: Spend time with her family, exercise, do the best job she can in the campaign, rebuild the optimism of the American people, run a campaign people can get behind, go into the White House ready to serve.
Prediction?: She sends Bill the opposite way stumping for her to maintain her aura of independence. Her only exercise is her jaw, since she's frequently pitted with the decision: to sleep or to work out? -- and her advisers recommend sleep. Then she kills our confidence as more reporters remind us what she's promised versus accomplished as senator.
Chris Dodd: See the country regain optimism and moral authority, spend time with his family, hope that people in Iowa "caucus and you caucus correctly."
Prediction?: This one's a no-brainer. Iowa's a disastrous mess of voters turned home, mysteriously malfunctioning machinery, incompetent poll workers, misleading ballots and crappy counters.
John Edwards: Remember that some people in the country are hungry, without health care and losing their jobs; remember what is at stake in the election.
Prediction?: Edwards is at home with a hangover feeling sorry for himself about being in third place. To feel better, he reminds himself "We'll all be just fine (with our mansions, senator salaries and celebrity status) once this election thing is over..." and he'll be unable to shake that idea from his mind for months.
Barack Obama: Be a better father and husband, remind himself that the campaign isn't about him and why his personal sacrifices are worth it for the difference he can make.
Prediction?: Oprah reminds him that it's all about his charisma, he sees himself on the cover of a magazine as one of America's Sexiest Men, and he reconsiders going for a career in modeling or acting, rather than politics. Or maybe he can make a record with Usher. Hey, a man's always got to have a back-up plan, right?
Bill Richardson: Lose weight, wish that Congress and the president improve their relationship and address issues productively, he and other Democratic candidates continue to stay positive.
Prediction?: Bill can't get over his newfound love for Graziano Brothers sausages and Iowa potatoes. Congress fails to impeach Cheney. Bill finds himself destructively banging his head against a wall... next to Bob Wexler and Dennis Kucinich.
