If it's true, as it appears to be, that Sen. Bob Dole now has a cakewalk to the Republican presidential nomination, then it's also true Americans will be badly served by the politics of another presidential election year.
It's happening again in a flawed nominating process in which most voting Americans - regardless of party - have no voice at all and the nation ends up choosing between next-best mediocrities.After sweeping to victory in eight primary states in a single day - none of those or seven earlier primary states major population areas - Dole has driven all but two principal rivals out of the contest and been conceded the winner's trophy.
President Clinton, with the assets of incumbency, was not even challenged for renomination, not by a single Democrat among legions who disagree and disapprove of him, his politics and everything they see he stands for.
So in early March, long before the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the great presidential contest of 1996 shapes up as a worse-than-usual yawner and, quite likely, another record-breaker of Americans in various stages of disgust and dismay staying away from the polls.