Just to suppress any reader interest, I'll note that I'm voting for the Nader & Gonzalez ticket. I might've considered voting for the Green ticket, but the Presidential candidate strikes me as a bit of a paranoid and the Veep candidate took the opportunity of her nomination to hype her new recording project (still no more irresponsible than Biden nor Palin). Wish I shared McCain's rhetorical conviction that Obama was likely to be the most leftist President we've ever seen, but I foresee an insufficient improvement upon the Nixonian Clinton Admin. But almost everything should be an improvement over the current Kleptocrat regime.
Two things that have occurred to me over the last month or so...first that a rather impressive number of our Presidents and the "major" aspirants to the job have had miserable relations with their fathers. Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and going back a ways. Certainly Nixon.
Second, and I might just be tired enough to forget seeing others' citation of this, but a military record seems to be the New Short in presidential politics...the guy with the most prominent military record tends to lose, both in the primaries and particularly, if he survives, in the general election. See, certainly: McCain, most likely, Kerry, Gore (although by any reasonable standard, of course, Gore won and gave up), Dole, senior Bush, Carter (at least vs. Reagan), McGovern.