Hillama versus McAbee?

Wow, we're falling down on the job here at Curmudgeon HQ. Last night we went to see a screening of one of AOL founder Ted Leonsis's "filmanthropy" projects, "Nanking," at Georgetown University. An excellent documentary so long as you don't mind nearly two hours of depressingly gruesome stories.

But that caused us to miss all kinds of other stories of our modern era. Hillary was right here in Arlington, speaking at Washington-Lee High School, where the young Curmudgeons will go if they manage to make it our of middle school. We missed it, but judging from the emails we're getting from both campaigns, Virginia is a real battleground between Clinton and Obama for the next few days.

Indeed, Virginia Democrats timed their Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Richmond perfectly--who knew the race would still be in issue by this point--so that attendees this weekend will get the full treatment from both Hillary and Barack. Friends of ours are going--we're jealous.

Then, of course, Romney dropped out yesterday. A shrewd move on his part--shows the calculating businessman in him. He had no shot at this point, but he's still relatively young (certainly compared to McCain) and has built himself a good base in the Republican Party, so he cuts his losses and lives to fight another day.

We predict Huckabee will go one more round--through next Tuesday--then also graciously drop out (unless conservatives somehow rally around him--we doubt it--and he sweeps the Saturday and Tuesday contests).

We spent our post-movie evening last night debating the merits of Hillary versus Obama. Spiritedly debating, we might add. Too bad we broke down along predictable lines: the wives were for Hillary; the men-folk for Obama (although respectful of Hillary--we do like her).

With McCain as the GOP nominee, Democrats need the strongest ticket possible. We think that's Hillary and Obama, or Hillama. The remaining primaries are not going to decide this contest--it's too close and with proportional delegate allocation, neither candidate can get a real leg up. So pretty soon it's going to be time for party elders (not Bill) to get the candidates in a room and have a good, mature discussion about it.

Meantime, who's McCain going to pick as his veep? Having gotten the nomination on about a 35% plurality of the party, he has a lot of mollifying to do. It certainly won't be someone like Joe "been there, done that" Lieberman. It could be Fred Thompson, although we doubt he's interested--better to go back to television than be a figurehead veep.

Someone who would be interested is Mike "I don't have a job after this" Huckabee. That would certainly help with a significant segment of the evangelical community. Call it the McAbee ticket. But conservatives decided--pretty unfairly--to label Huckabee a "liberal" (that nastiest of all Republican sobriquets) early on, and they would see McAbee as far too centrist for their tastes.

So does McCain go with someone hard right? And if so, who? Kansas Senator Sam Brownback could fit that bill--bringing home evangelicals along with conservatives. There are others, of course. The problem is that many of the more vocal, bomb-throwing conservatives will never be mollified, no matter who McCain picks as his veep, so he may decide "hey, why bother."

We're not making any forecasts, at least not yet.

Heck, we're still trying to decide who to vote for on Tuesday. Probably Obama, despite Mrs. Curmudgeon's protestations. As Virginians, we'd love to see an Obama/Kaine ticket, really putting the state into play in November, but we're not going to bet any real money on that one.

And don't forget tomorrow's contests in Washington, Louisiana, Kansas (GOP only), Nebraska (Dem only) and the Virgin Islands (Dem).