Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee for President and Rudy Giuliani is going to be the Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential election. There is no changing that, it is fated, it undeniable, it is inevitable. Or so the mainstream media and political pundits have been telling us seemingly forever.

The thing is, it’s not so. Nothing in life, and especially in politics, is inevitable. There is always a wild card in the game, be it an unexpected challenger, a faux pas by the presumptive nominee, or as is most often the case, the will of the voting public.

That is why the seemingly safe candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are facing some serious challenges as we stand mere months from choosing our nominees and eventually a new Commander in Chief. Both of these candidates are finding out that what the media says doesn’t matter, what your spin doctors say doesn’t mean a thing, and why what pundits say can’t be taken as gospel.

Take the “Smartest Woman in the World” for example. Since Hillary won a seat in the Senate from New York just as she and Mr. Clinton were defacing public property on the way out of the White House, we have been treated to endless stories on how she is fated to be the first female President of the United States. The media and the Democratic Party waited with bated breath for Mrs. Clinton to acknowledge what they all knew was going to happen, and when the glorious moment came they were in complete awe of Mrs. Clinton and her political prowess. Her announcement meant that the Democratic Party, the country, hell the entire world was about to be saved from the evil clutches of the Republican Party by the Great Lady. Hillary of Ark(ansas) was going to lead the Democratic Party back to complete power again, and vanquish the forces of Republican EEEVVILLL!! All that was needed was the proper coronation of Queen Hillary the First during the Democratic primaries, and finding a fitting second banana to Her Highness.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Queen’s coronation…the people let it be known that they were not quite so taken with the once and future Queen as the media led people to believe. And before you know it, people sick of the idea of yet another Clinton co-presidency began to cast their wandering eyes to a relative unknown freshman Senator from Illinois. Barak “The Magic Negro” Obama decided that he had as much right to a Presidential nomination as the Queen, and let it be known that he would be actually running for the nomination…not just acting as a placeholder on the Democratic side of the ticket. He has run a pretty good campaign, and while his message is the basic Democrat/Liberal/Progressive boilerplate message of larger government, more taxes, and class warfare…mixed with the usual platitudes about the “rights” of all sorts of special interest groups…he has managed to do more than gain traction. Barak Obama has become just what the subjects of the Queen did not want; he became a voice that has drawn intense interest from all of the Democrat’s various constituencies, and has garnered some seriously high profile supporters. Let’s just be honest, getting Oprah Winfrey to stump for you, when she has generally been loathe to inject herself publicly into politics is nothing to shake a stick at! Suddenly, the Queen’s ascension to the throne is in serious jeopardy, all because those pesky voters wanted to hear a new voice…even if it is saying the same old things.

On the GOP side, we have been told since before the race began that Rudy Giuliani was the only hope for the GOP to retain the White House. We were told that he was this great leader, that he had the foreign policy ideas we need in this new world we are facing, and that above all he was the only Republican out there who could beat Hillary Clinton in a Presidential race. Therefore, he was touted and pushed as the frontrunner for the Democrat…er, REPUBLICAN nomination.

But when conservatives within the GOP began to look at Rudy and his policy stances, the natives got very restless. There was a serious reconsideration of the inevitability of Rudy as the nominee, and it became obvious that most of Rudy’s “qualifications” were not that great; yes, he was a stabilizing influence after 9/11, and yes he did great things with cleaning up NYC’s crime problems while he was in office. However, a closer inspection showed that beyond those narrow circumstances, Rudy was the living embodiment of what we used to call RINOs. This was a man who backed some of the most openly liberal activist judges in the country for spots on the bench in NYC, who decreed that NYC was to be a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants, who barred the police from even inquiring about the immigration status of criminals, who supported gun control laws that basically invalidated the 2^nd Amendment for NYC residents, who used public funds to protect his mistress while he was screwing around with her, who is a vocal supporter of the gay rights movement, and who supported people like Mario Cuomo and Michael Bloomberg in their political aspirations.

It seems that the only real reason that so many supported him in the first place, and continue to support him (Sean Hannity) is because they feel that he is “electable” in a race with Hillary Clinton. Imagine that: Rudy was seen as the inevitable GOP candidate for President based on the supposed inevitability of Queen Hillary gaining the Democrat nomination!

The problem for Rudy is that conservatives have put the word out on him, and it is costing him dearly. Voters are starting to look at Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as more viable candidates for President than Rudy, because even with the obvious flaws and weaknesses of Mitt & Mike they have more in common with the voters than Rudy! The dreaded voters strike again!

One of these days the power brokers of the Democratic Party and the GOP will start to realize that standing around in their echo chambers aren’t profiting them anything. They listen to their insider buddies tell them what they want to hear, and then stand in shock as a Romney, Huckabee, or Obama steals the thunder of their anointed nominee. If they would just get out and talk to actual voters…and listen to what they are saying, both parties would be in much better positions. If they did that the GOP would realize how much their base despises them for trying to be Democrat Junior, and the Democrats would realize that they are bleeding support the more they turn their fringe elements into their base.

Those are all presumably smart people working in the higher reaches of the parties, and if they don’t quickly figure out what their constituents really want they will continue to run both parties into the ground.

And that much I’m willing to say is inevitable.