The Iowa caucuses are tomorrow. If this were like betting on sports — who are we fooling? it is — I'd pick John Edwards to win, by virtue of his stronger support in the rural counties. I'm hoping for a virtual three-way tie, the better to thwart the news media's primal (and self-defeating) urge to declare a winner on Jan 3.

Washington is a caucus state, with rules pretty much the same as in Iowa. That bit you hear about how supporters of a candidate who doesn't get enough support to be "viable" in the precinct have to switch to their second choice is part of the rules here, too.

As I've mentioned, when people ask me whom I support in the primaries, I generally say Bill Richardson, and it's because I assume he won't be viable anyway that I haven't bothered to examine him very carefully.

My support for Richardson, unlike my opinions of virtually all of the other Democrats, is based entirely upon his positions on political issues. (If the issues bore you, you can skip to the next subhead, happy in the knowledge that everything I intend to say about boring matters of government will be packed into this one section, and after that I'll get back to discussing airier fare.)

I keep thinking that some day I'll write my grand neoliberal manifesto and from then on I can just link to it, but it never seems to happen. To put it briefly: I believe the most important job of government is to promote economic prosperity, and the most effective means of achieving that are the free-market, free-trade, limited-government ideas that traditionally have been Republican positions. At the same time, I think it's essential that the economic prosperity is reasonably well distributed among the population, so I'm not satisfied with the narrow free-marketers who only care that the GDP (or worse, the stock market) goes up, regardless of whether the entire increase goes only to 10% of the citizenry. That's what I mean when I say "neoliberal": I appreciate the free market as a means, but I want the end to be prosperity for everyone. So I happily tolerate some compromise in economic growth for the sake of greater equality ("leveling", the old tories would say), and I'm not satisfied with candidates who are so individualist that they don't believe in the common wealth. As a result, I generally end up looking for whichever Democrat is the most "fiscally conservative".

Or to abbreviate still further: I always support whichever Democrat most strongly supports a balanced budget. That's not the only thing I'm looking for, but if you count my original first choice of candidate and not the one I ended up supporting later one when all the fringe candidates dropped out, I think that simple test holds for me in every election all the way back to 1984.

This year that guy is Bill Richardson. Or at least I think it is. Like I said, I haven't actually looked at him that carefully. If by some miracle he, or another of the also-ran candidates, becomes competitive I'll look more carefully. Otherwise he's just a formality until I'm obliged to pick my favorite from among the big three.

I do know that Richardson comes right out and calls for a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. You can't get much more clear than that. Do any of the other Democrats say that? I also know that he has a pretty strong pattern of following the neoliberal Clintonesque line on economic questions. I've read on liberal blogs that no matter who is the nominee we're going to end up with Robert Rubin style economics regardless. (They say that like it's a bad thing.) On free trade, Richardson falls back on the idea of "fair trade", insisting on various environmental and labor standards for the other countries. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I think such standards make perfect sense, but on the other hand I know that some politicians like to use them as cover for protectionism. But Richardson does come right out and say he likes NAFTA, GATT and the WTO, which distinguishes him from all the leading Democrats except Al Gore.

I've noticed that in this campaign it has been taken for granted — by those who love Ms Clinton and those who hate her — that she is the natural heir of Bill Clinton. I don't agree with that. In my opinion, the true heir of Bill Clinton is neither Hillary Clinton nor Al Gore, but Bill Richardson. And indeed that's a big part of why I support him. Do people truly disagree with me on this? Or do they just see that Bill and Hillary have the same last name and that Bill has endorsed Hillary (how could he not?) and just not think it through any further than that?

Both Richardson and Hillary have inherited most of Bill's policy positions (including ones I don't like, like his foreign policy). The big difference is in their personal style. Like Clinton, Richardson's main experience is as governor of a small state, and he launched himself from there. Like both Bill and Hillary (and Gore), he's a total policy wonk who genuinely loves to dig deep into the details of any issue. Like Bill and unlike Hillary, Richardson is naturally jolly and gregarious. Like Bill Clinton, Richardson is happy surrounding himself with advisers with a wide spectrum of views. In my discussion of Republicans, I used the word "promiscuity" to describe Bill Clinton in this regard. The double entendre was intentional. It's a certain personality type that has a great appetite for variety in all things. I don't know how Bill Richardson is with women (I do know he's that way with food...), but he's that way in his politics.

Hillary is not. She has sometimes been compared to Richard Nixon in her political style. That may be an exaggeration, but it points to what I think is the most significant difference between her and her husband. Hillary knows she's smart, so she trusts herself to know the best people to listen to. Bill knows he's smart, but he likes to listen to everyone, even if they're dumb. And I think that difference is at the heart of the one place where I think they part on policy. Hillary, it seems to me, leans a little more toward trusting government to find the right answers, whereas Bill leans a little more toward creating a system that allows the public to make its own choices. Even if they're stupid. I like Bill's way better.

The two issues that intrigue me most about Hillary's candidacy have both followed a strange path in the media consciousness. At first they were taboo, and you weren't supposed to even mention it because it would show how shallow and unfair you are. Then somehow they became commonplace and there was no point in bringing it up because that's already been talked to death and it's a non-issue now. In both cases, no one gives it much thought.

One of these is the dynasty. People mention it all the time — Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton — but does anyone really explore what this means? For me it's a really serious problem. Indeed, it's by far my main objection to voting for Hillary Clinton as president.

I've heard it said that everyone either hates Hillary or loves her. I don't get that. I don't hate her or love her. She's not my first choice, but I do think she'd make a decent president. Except that she's the wife of an ex-president.

Part of what makes our political system strong is that the electoral system creates a sort of meritocracy. Politicians who do a lousy job don't get re-elected. Obviously that's a crude generalization and there are plenty of flaws in it. Nonetheless, any time someone comes along with an automatic boost, you're giving up some of the power of the system. It's exactly how we went wrong with George W Bush. People assumed he'd be OK because his dad was OK. The common name made it too easy to overlook how terribly bad some of his past was. Say what you will about Barack Obama's resume, but he sure didn't get to where he is now thanks to his name and his family.

Now, I know, all my Democratic readers are saying, yeah, but Hillary really is good. She's been tested. But I don't think we know that. It's like a movie sequel. Hollywood makes sequels all the time because they know that while a new movie has to be good to succeed, a sequel really doesn't. It just has to be OK. And even if it's bad, it'll still do far better than an equally bad new movie.

The greatest part of what has gone wrong with politics in America in the past seven years is due to degradation of the system. I think it's a huge price to pay to further corrode our electoral system by electing a sequel for the second time in a row, even if she's the better candidate. Unless the only other choices are considerably worse — so much worse that 12 or 16 years under nepotistic presidents is the lesser evil — I think you have to look for someone else. If there are other options who are nearly as good (and there are) then I think you have to pick someone else.

To this some will now object (identifying with Hillary) that it's not her fault she's riding on her husband's name. It's not fair that she should lose her opportunity over something that isn't even her fault. Well, first of all, to a large extent it is her fault. But even more than that, so what? Hundreds of presidential aspirants have had to give up their dream due to petty reasons that aren't their fault — too short, looks bad on TV, born in the wrong country. Some of them might have been better presidents, too. Hillary can join the club. Or if she wants a more exclusive club, she can go cry about it with Jeb Bush, who might well make a president than any of the Republican candidates out there. (Certainly better than his brother.)

The other issue no one will talk about that I find fascinating is how female-dominated a Clinton White House would be. We're so used to female candidates now that one rarely hears it mentioned any more than Clinton would be the first woman president. And that's a good thing. Good that one hardly thinks about it anymore, I mean.

But that's not what I'm talking about. What fascinates me is how overwhelmingly female is her inner circle. Every president brings in his (or her) close cabal of loyal advisers from years past. Typically these aren't the ones who get cabinet posts. Rather they get the jobs closer to the president, or sometimes they get some mysterious title that doesn't mean much of anything except that it's the guy who has the president's ear. These are the Karl Roves, Andy Cards, and Alberto Gonzaleses.

Bill Clinton, interestingly enough, was the least cliquish president in my lifetime. Compared to Nixon, Carter, and Reagan, he didn't have much of an inner circle. Hillary — and again with the Nixon comparisons — promises to be unlike her husband in this respect. But in her case, her entire inner circle is made up of women. Recent male presidents have had a couple of women in their gang. Bush has Karen Hughes and Condi Rice. There are no men in Hillaryland. The closest is Mark Penn, but he's a political hack who will be let go once the campaign is over (if not sooner).

The others will stick around. The only questions about President Hillary's chief of staff is whether Maggie Williams or Hilda Solis Doyle will get the job officially, and what title will be given to the other. They'll both be near at hand. Cheryl Mills is a shoo-in for White House counsel. Ann Lewis will be lurking somewhere as a political adviser in Karl Rove mode, and Mandy Grunwald probably will, too. Huma Abedin and Melanne Verveer are going to be there somewhere.

The mysteriously omnipresent Ms Abedin, by the way, is the one that has become something of an icon among the sort of political junkies who also love to watch Project Runway. (Maybe it's just my lack of fashion sense, but I find Ms Solis Doyle much more attractive.) The wacko rumor-mongers have put it out that Ms Abedin is Hillary's secret lesbian lover. I guess they need to dream up something even more shocking than saying she's a Muslim because ... in fact, Ms Abedin is a Muslim. (Get ready for that in the general election....)

But I digress. I think it's a serious matter to wonder how it would affect government to have a White House culture which is female. It's not a trivial issue; it's been both observed and celebrated that the way groups of women work together is very different from how groups of men together. That, not Hillary's own sex, is what is going to make her presidency different, possibly very different. Possibly it will be better. I know some of my women friends will think so, and will support Hillary on that basis. Me, I'm agnostic on the question. I'd love to see it explored more, but aside from Camille Paglia, what writer in the mainstream media is going to take on that question?

And I'd feel better about it if her group weren't so insulated and secretive.

This is as far as I'm going to get tonight. I've already stayed up way too late as it is. Obama and the others will have to wait till after Iowa.

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