If a presidential candidate breaks an appendage...should we shoot them?

While watching an entire news segment on what the wife of a junior senator supposedly said about a female presidential candidate, that followed what the wife of a former Senator, hedge fund icon said about a right-wing wacko that only the most radical and deranged human beings even thinks is a real person...I expected the next story to be about the heat wave of '08 or the summer olympics.

Then it hit me. It's still 2007. The election is well over a year away.

I changed the channel, settled on my favorite spot on the directv remote and I started hearing about a two-year-old that just won an allowance race at Saratoga in his first start. Apparently he showed the making of a Derby winner. Okay, maybe it's not November '08, but it has to be March or April '08 if we're talking about a Kentucky Derby (presented by Yum! Brands), right? Nope. Still 2007.

You know...while political pundits often use the term "horse race" to describe presidential politics, there really are a lot of similarities.

1) The ridiculous advance hype is nothing more than fodder for talk shows and drunken debate. Whether Obama gets the endorsement of an immigrant grocer in April 2007 has ZERO impact on the 2008 presidential election. Likewise, a horse's maiden win at Saratoga tells us virtually nothing about the horse's long-term potential. Many Derby winners don't even win their last start before the Derby.

2) There is inevitably an early favorite for the big event that crashes and burns before the big day, whether due to injury (RIP Merv Griffin...may vowels be discounted for you in the great beyond) or due to complete lunacy.

3) There is always one contender who keeps everyone wondering, tongues-wagging over whether or not they will enter the race. And uniformly they wouldn't have a shot anyway. But that doesn't cease speculation or the tired stories about the "Trophy Wife" or the colt vs. fillies

4) There is excessive gambling on both.

5) Each season, there is a horse or a candidate that performs excessively well in a prep for their big moment. They weren't really a factor for the last year or 15 years, but one race over a fluke track or one surprisingly "unsucky" debate or meaningless partisan straw poll and suddenly, their zero percent chance of victory increases exponentially. Of course they always lose. Badly.

6) Both are really "sports" for true blue-bloods. Sure there are examples of lower-class citizens making serious runs at the winner's circle and the White House, but it is those with the best bloodlines and that are insured for the most that are the real contenders.

7) Regardless of what those inside the beltway and the folk between the twin spires say, both are still dominated by men.

8) Perhaps the most glaring and unexplained is the tendency for also-rans to go from the proverbial penthouse to the outhouse. Every year, there are several favorites for the Derby. The day of, there are usually several staunch camps who are convinced their horse is going to win based on supreme past performance, pedigree and workouts. And every year, only one camp is correct. But how many times does a horse go from one of those favorites in the Derby to an allowance grass race or bringing up the rear in the Ohio Derby? How could they have possibly been that good leading up to the Derby that they are one of the favorites to win the most celebrated race in the equine world...yet post-race, they're barely worth the hay they eat? Now...re-read that and replace Derby with Presidency, horses with candidates, workouts with debates and the Ohio Derby with obscure, reclusive Massachusetts senator.

Think about it.