That's the way it looks now, but never underestimate the Dems' ability to shoot themselves in the foot and eke out a come-from-ahead defeat for themselves.

A Dem victory might look nigh-inevitable now, but I trust they will find new and innovative ways of screwing it up.

At any rate, when Bush Senior lost to Bill Clinton in '92, it looked much the same in reverse at this stage in the pre-primary race -- only in that case it was a sitting president facing off against a passel of lightweights, and then the nominee ends up being this bubba from Arkansas who nobody had ever heard of....

Nothing is written.  Not yet.

I agree that the next president very likely will be a Democrat (in fact, if the nominee is Obama, I think we're looking at landslide territory).
But as far as the Republican nomination goes, Thompson might well end up being the consensus candidate.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde

The immigration reform bill is showing the deep rift between the nationalist voters and the pro-corporate politicians who are 100% in thrall to the corporate world. It was going to happen eventually, and it's a gigantic problem for the republicans. Same goes for the alliance with religious folk who are either feeling that Bush hasn't implemented the fundie agenda well enough or (on the more liberal side) that perhaps Bush isn't exactly engaging in behavior that jesus would approve of. The right wing base is a bizarre coalition that doesn't look like it can hold together much longer.

you are the media you consume.