January 03, 2008
Well, today is the stupid date set by the Iowa legislature for the insane Iowa caucuses. The candidates have been campaigning for insane marathon closing periods. The most recent polling has Obama gaining momentum, Clinton losing it, and Edwards holding stead, but pretty much with the three of them in a statistical tie.
On the Republican side, there is a statistical tie between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, with John McCain and Ron Paul making strong late surges in the battle for third place.
Edwards needs a win to stay alive, and McCain needs Romney to lose in order to stay alive. More about the caucus process in the extended for those that care.
Since the news media will never explain the process by which the Iowa caucuses change voters into delegates, I think that I will right here. The caucuses care up Iowa into a bunch of little voting districts.
Based on the previous presidential caucuses turnout at that district, not the actual population of that district, the state parties assign a number of delegates to each district.
Then voters show up. Iowa has same day motor voter and same day party registration. So, on site, you declare party affiliation and they release you into an appropriate room.
Then, the people in the room arrange themselves into packs centered around each candidate. The packs that have too few people to assign a delegate have their candidates declared 'not viable,' and the individuals caucusing for them are then required to either abstain or to find a new candidate, often with a lot of cajoling on the part of the local precinct captains for the other campaigns.
The process is insane, difficult to predict, and typically only has a turnout of something like 15%, thanks to the long amount of time that it takes to do and the fact that there is no absentee voting whatsoever. Skilled local precinct captains (Edwards is considered to have the edge here) alone can add 1.5% to your delegate count over the entrance poll.
Regardless, expect the winner to get a big boost from this. If Obama or Clinton wins, they will jump out way in front in New Hampshire as well as nationally, and sweeping NH and IA will be difficult to recover from.
If Edwards wins, we repeat this insanity in New Hampshire, and we get a crazy three way race.
YOu can see a similar dynamic on the republican side, with the added complication that Huckabee isn't really competing in New Hampshire, and McCain/Guliani aren't reall competing in Iowa.
Am I happy or sad that an evangelical nutball who is patently disrespectful of the founding principles of religious freedom and church-state separation may be the Republican nominee?
Huckabee scares me. He'll be a strong general election candidate. Though he certainly has his weaknesses. That rape pardon of his makes Willie Horton look like a joke.
I am not really a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I do think a lot of the criticism of her is ridiculous. In particular, the harsh negative reaction to this is absurd. (answer to the question: "how do you do it?")
To me, that's the first time that she hasn't seemed like a robot spouting statistics, and actually seems to care about something. That clip actually made me like Ms. Clinton
Thanks for sharing that clip. I hadn't heard that she had been taking criticism for anything recently, and hadn't seen that clip. After viewing, I have still have no idea why there is criticism. I thought it was a great response.
NC:
John Edwards, being a jackass:
Edwards, speaking at a press availability in Laconia, New Hampshire, offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to bring into question Clinton’s ability to endure the stresses of the presidency. Edwards responded, “I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business.”
Also: Can You Count on Voting Machines? - looks like this serious problem may finally be getting some traction. Hopefully it's not too late.
Don't let the door hit ya on the way out, Mitt. Romney still has a bunch of money, but he was pretty dependent on getting a bunch of early state momentum.
Now it's down to McCain/Huckabee in South Carolina. Will Romney's collapse help Guliani or McCain in Michigan?
And Clinton wins in New Hampshire, or at least, as of right now, by my calculations, last 30% of New Hampshire has to favor Obama over her by 11%. This is astounding. I guess the narrative about Obama sailing to the nomination was premature, to say the least
I'm still amazed that Clinton made up so much ground in one day, during which the free press called her things like "Ed Muskie in a pants suit."
Is it the Bradley Effect? If so, wouldn't you expect the voters to swing to Edwards, the only white man on the ballot, and not to Clinton?
Sorry for the endless posting on this, but a boring campaign season has finally become really dynamic, with both the Republicans and democrats--there is a nonzero chance that the Republican nomination race could actually be decided at the convention.
If by 'dynamic' you mean 'has veered off the tracks in to the kind of petty morning show crap that sickeningly derails the political process', then yup.
I know it's a lot more fun doing journalism when it's a paint-by-numbers: "Kerry is robotic" "Thompson is Old" "Gore is a Munchausen" "Clinton is a harridan -- oh wait sorry, it's Clinton is unstable -- ah if you voted for her that means -- Clinton is a powerful woman who has manic mondays just like me". But it's a terrible way to choose a leader.
Ok, clearly I agree with that. But if we had an honest process that selected the candidates with the requisite experience to be President and issue positions representative of the average democratic voter, we'd be discussing the relative merits of Al Gore and Russ Feingold right now (if Feingold were running this year, I would be just getting back from working in his Iowa field office). But the dream of ever seeing a primary season like that evaporated around the time that I saw Bill Bradley's candidacy evaporate. It's probably been absent ever since the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
By 'dynamic' I mostly meant 'not easily predictible using polling, without a predetermined outcome.' Seeing the massive (10% to 20%) post-Iowa bump for Obama evaporate completely in a day is at least interesting, as is seeing all the sexist bullshit that has been circling around Clinton backfire horribly. Our process is stupid. The media covering it is even more stupid. But this year, Super Tuesday will matter in both parties. Hell, on the republican side, every primary will probaably matter.
If Obama had won New Hampshire by the margin that the polling I woke up to this morning said that he would, he probably would have sailed to the nomination without a second question. I still probably prefer Obama over Clinton, but a coronation of one of them after 1% of the delegates are decided makes me sick. Edwards even still has a longshot shot at the nomination if he wins Nevada, where there has inexplicably been no polling since December third
I think I may agree with what he said. Clinton was a terrible president. So was Reagan. (I haven't given higher than a C since Lyndon Johnson got a B- in my class, on the strength of his final project "Everything good I've done Kennedy will get credit for").
Obama didn't, as the simplistic title suggested, say that he preferred Reagan to Clinton. He said Reagan did something right that Clinton failed to do, and I agree. He didn't say he agreed with the course change that Reagan made, only that Reagan led the country in a direction that the majority of people wanted. Ford, Carter, Bush I, Clinton just kinda drifted. (Bush II has, of course, also set a course and led the country purposefully, in the same way that Hazelwood steered the Valdez and Queeg led the USS Caine.)
Now, was he couching this in terms that would be conciliatory to conservatives, in a way that stirs the conscience? Yes, and yes, but no more than any of the politicians do. (McCain probably engages in the least of this oleagenous equivocation but we've seen him kowtow and toady with the rest.) I feel strongly, though, that the two largest problems facing our country are corruption and discord -- the undue influence of special interests, enabled by the fact that the Limbaughs, Roves, CNNs and Frankens have pushed everyone out of the center and to the extremes.
We're polarized to where any position of compromise -- any effort to understand the other's opinion or to reach out -- is seen as weakness. Every issue becomes a simplistic matter of red and blue, and the regurgitated pablum spewed by flacks from each side replaces principled consideration (I don't mean what the media feeds us -- I mean what all of us, myself included, consume). Then the corporations, lobbyists and pacs buy laws just as easily and just as corruptly as they do in the shadiest of banana republics, except their bagmen act in the wide, unfettered open.
So I'm fine with a little Reaganist toadying if it means that the country can be led back towards the middle, and if it means that the worst examples of our corrupt political system -- Clinton, Romney, Thompson, stand near the top -- don't oil their way in to office.
The Democrats have been railing against the extremes since Clinton won the nomination in '92. It has just cause the Republicans to get crazier and crazier, which, in response, has made the democrats drift farther and farther to the center.
On almost every issue, starting with Gingrich's Contract with America, to impeachment, to the war vote, the Democrats have treated the Republicans like they were negotiating in good faith, only to be undercut. We've seen 'centrist' democrats like Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller and Ben Nelson. Look at the voting rates in Congress--people like to contrast those three against Arlen Spector and McCain, but one really should look at their voting records--the right-wing dems are just way closer to the republican rank-and file than the left wing reps are to the democratic rank and file. Franken thought that Clinton was brilliant, and endorsed Gore over Bradley. Another example of the fact that the Republicans are the polarizers: polling consistently shows independents as having the exact same electoral preferences as democrats.
The toadying to Reagan bothers me because it builds the legend of St. Ron, who "saved" us from Carter's malaise, welfare queens and COMMUNISM. He could have made that point using FDR just as easily. Instead, he chose the guy who led us down our current road to disaster.
The Democrats have been trying this 'nonpartisan' approach for my entire adult lifetime, and it has done nothing but produce an increasingly right wing society. I don't think Obama will be a bad President, but I also don't think he's going to transform anything--he will govern almost identically to Bill Clinton, who so ably used his charisma to navigate the middle of the aisle while accomplishing very little. He's been raising and spending every bit as aggressively as Clinton. Eschewing PAC contributions says nothing about accepting bundled contributions from individuals, which have quite a corporate tint.
What I really mean is that Obama, to me, sounds almost identical to Bill Clinton, as he declared the 'era of big government' to be over, signed the defense of marriage act, issued his 'don't ask, don't tell' order that everyone hated, ended welfare as we knew it, and generally undermined every Democrat but himself in an effort to make it seem like he was 'getting things done.'
Right now, all I want is to keep Guliani and Huckabee out of the white house.
I think most of it comes down to this -- I feel that Obama is the best choice because he plans to (and I, the naif, believe he will) engage the other side in principled negotiation; and that this will recenter the process and move past the failures of imagination that lie within these conflicts. This you see as Neville Chaimberlain pollyannaism (which I understand, and admit as a legitimate concern). I believe that principled negotiation is vastly more powerful than an adversarial strategy; I think that approach has been tried and failed and that it is sabotaging our country. BClinton never pursued it and probably couldn't pick it out of a lineup; HRC will never even have the choice, as she inspires so much spite and rage in the opposition. Hopefully the one of us that is right wins.
Beyond that, I think I'm hearing that you (from that last comment) and drfeeljay (private correspondence) both see Obama implementing dangerously anti-progressive policies that I'm not aware of. As an honest question -- you have invested a lot more research in the matter and I want to take these into account -- are there specific matters in which you feel Obama drifts treacherously rightward?
Set aside the above meta-issue of promoting comity vs. taking back ground: assume he is able to effectively set policy. Also account for the fact that you and even I (who seem to be emerging as the conservative wing of our party) are closer to Kucinich than to any of the current candidates. What do you fear Obama will do along the lines of countenancing Rwanda and tearing down the welfare system?
On another note (but related to campaign stuff: Submitted without comment (thx GMcD).
Also: I /don't/ think the democrats have negotiated in good faith on a lot of the issues you cite. Start with Bush v. Gore: if the dems had stood firm on "We must recount every vote, it's what's fair and right" they would have prevailed and Gore would have won. Instead they staked out an adversarial strategy which the Supreme court spit 5-4 between the two evils.
I consistently see Reid and Pelosi trying to score points in a hamfisted and ultimately destructive way -- see, for instance, the fiasco following 'Betray-us'. The dems caught Limbaugh in some similarly irrelevant solecism, and censured him. Limbaugh smiled and put the censure document up on eBay; the thousands of dollars from that auction went to some repugnant "charity." Those guys keep playing checkers while Rove et al play chess. In Obama I see someone who, finally, can not only sit at the same table with them but who will also have the moral standing to expose the ugly cheats that are coaching their team.
There are a few things that Obama has done that have given me pause--this speech about Reagan is not the first thing he's done. Nothing is outright explicit, and with each incident, his approach seems pretty reasonable (I really do think, if elected, he would closely mirror Bill Clinton in how he would govern--not bad, but also not great--I don't hate Obama so much as I don't trust him). The main thing is that he seems to be copying Bill Clinton's Sister Souljah strategy. One of the first incidents was when he campaigned alongside ex-gay minister/Christian pop singer Donnie McClurkin in South Carolina, over a series of angry protests on behalf of pretty much the entire queer community. It was only after the whole thing was over that he issued a statement saying that he disagreed with McClurkin's opinions on homosexuality, and the goals of the ex-gay movement in general.
Then, there was his speech to the National Education Association, where he called out teachers for opposing No Child Left Behind out of principle, saying that accountability in schools is important, and advocated for merit pay for teachers, along with a series of things that any teachers' union deeply opposes. He used an appearnace before the UAW to accuse union workers of being too greedy with their demands, and so on. On all of these things (aside from the ex-gay minister), there are arguments to be made, but probably not directly in front of the hurting groups themselves. And it also seems that he is spending a lot of energy chastising liberal groups, and at the same time, making entreaties to the right.
Perhaps you're right in arguing that the establishment dems are out to score political points, but are just doing so ineptly. But the whole Betray-us incident brings to light the question of why the hell even allowed that thing to come to a vote, and why they allowed so many dems to vote to condemn Moveon in the first place. But a lot of it really does seem like they're just taking the Republicans at their word, or are at least acting just out of fear of being criticized by the Republicans. Those two things are really the only excuse for the war vote.
The end of the problem is, that there is no principled negotiation with vipers. Perhaps we can peel off Arlen Specter and the Maine Senators on a few issues, but the central tenet of the Rove doctrine is to negotiate on nothing. It was the central tenet of Gingrich as well. McConnell seems to indicate that he's not willing to budge on much (in half of a session, the Republicans have broken the all-time record for fillibusters in a single session), and is not as stupid as Frist or Lott.
If Reagan is to be praised for anything, it is that he was willing to face reality on some issues--his 1981 tax cuts were insane, an he brought them back to a less insane level, while signing the Social Security bill; Intermediate range ballistic missiles had no security value and raised tensions.
This is a bit disjointed, but so are my feelings on Obama. I'd pick him in a heartbeat over any of the Republicans, but I just don't really see him as different enough from Clinton to make much of a difference to me, espcially considering Clinton having a greater policy background, being way more battle tested on campaign trails, and being established enough that her negatives won't really go up when the republicans go on attack. Like I said above, I'm voting to sabotage the Republican primary.
Another concern I have with Obama is that he has a tendency to either miss or abastain from floor votes that can be interepreted as contraversial. I believe that he refused to vote on the Betray-us condemnation (which I can live with), and on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which was meant to be part of the groundwork for a war with Iran (which Clinton actually voted for, so at least Obama didn't do that)
That's part of the sword of having no record, though--we're stuck doing tea leaf scrying to figure out what a president Obama would be like--sometimes it seems to me that Obama really is a Rorschach test for what you think the democratic party will do.
Accountability in schools is important, and the teachers unions are largely on the wrong side of this battle. If they would fight for things that are important -- better aligninment of the tests with rational standards, more freedom in curriculum -- and give up on the things they're wrong about (merit pay, accountability, a systems analysis approach) we'd be better off.
Please explain the republican voting thing: who, why and should the rest of us be considering it too?
I'm still registered in Missouri. Missouri has open primary laws, meaning that anyone who wants to can vote in either primary. It is nice, especially in years where one of the primaries is non-contested. In 2000, Bill Bradley was dead long before super tuesday (and they gerrymandered every republican in the st louis area into my congressional district), so I happily went and voted in the republican primary for McCain. It's nice this year, too, because I really do think that Clinton and Obama offer packages that, to me, are really close to each other.
Most states have laws that allow you to declare party affiliation and change it pretty fluidly. If you wanted to caucus (Texas is a caucus state) in the republican primary, you could certainly go and change your registration with the county clerk (and then change it back the day after the caucus), but I'm not sure about the dates involved--I'm sure the deadline to register to vote, and to caucus has passed, but I"m not sure how late you can change party affiliation ahead of the caucus. I'm pretty sure it's not same day (like Iowa), but I'm also not certain.
and, really, my main point isn't about the content of any particular incident that Obama has engaged in--just that he seems to yell at leftist groups, and reach out to conservatives. It gives me pause because it really does remind me of Bill Clinton's electoral strategy, and I really don't want to see more of that style of governing.
But our alternative is now his wife.
I'm really frustrated with how this primary turned out. I was really hoping that Richardson or Edwards would actually get some traction.
Here's something that Obama (or Clinton, for that matter) could do to earn some trust with me: oppose retroactive immunity for the telecoms, when he comes to town for the state of the union on monday.
If Obama stands with Dodd and Feingold on Monday when the cloture vote comes to the floor, then he'll have done a lot to dispel my skepticism.
They're both going back to DC to vote 'no' on cloture. Score one for the fourth amendment.
Soooo, but it's going to pass anyway, right? Time to go back to my no-politics hidey hole.
It's doubtful. Bush is acting like a crybaby about it, threatening to veto a 30 day extension of the current law, w/o immunity. Dodd and Feingold are not backing down on their fillibuster threats. Some Republicans are voting no on cloture. They're debating right now, but the debate has to end before the State of the Union at eight eastern.
This just yet might get blocked. The Republicans are being unreasonable enough on this that Reid might be forced to pull the bill, which would revert us to the 1977 FISA bill in the first week of February.
Holy shit, the first cloture motion just failed. Now we're off to the races.
I wish I had a current events for dummies resource -- like Reviews of Modern Physics for world events. Just give me a Neutral Point of View backgrounder on the big things, enough that I can keep tabs or jump in to the affray if I like.
The Economist comes close, I guess, but is $$$^2. Anything else?
I gotta say, I love the earmarks thing.
I think that brings the total to "one". And I know it's all politics, and probably has something to do with reducing the power of congress as the dems are about to take it. But still: it's the right thing to do.
the man who should be running explains FISA.
Oh, and bye bye to Rudy. We dodged a decent bullet there.
As for what you're looking for in terms of world events, flip, I'm a bit at a loss, honestly. The Econimist isn't bad. The Guardian also isn't horrible (and I guess the two balance out on persepective). The Atlantic runs some really good articles, but they're not really a general info magazine, either.
A more academic place to look would be Foreign Affairs, which was once a must read for the foreign policy crowd--probably closer to what Science or Nature would be for the international relations crowd, but that is a much more theoryish type place to look.
It's interesting, and kinda worrisome, that the GOP nomination -- which initially was so scattershot that balloting at the convention was a real possibility -- now looks like a McCain coronation. (Next Tuesday could prove me wrong.) The Dem's nomination, however, is becoming more fractured and more fractious. If I understand correctly, since the superdelegates are largely party operatives and will support the 'establishment' candidate (HRC), there's a possibility Obama could win more delegates from votes but lose the nomination.
Edwards dropping out makes this much less likely. Through Florida, Edwards' delegates + Obama's delegates > 50%, and prjoections of the results on super tuesday using polling would have continued that trend. It would have been highly likely that there would be no majority of pledged (elected) delegates going into the convention.
Now, however, with most of the delegates still in play, there are only two candidates on the field, one of which will certainly earn a majority of the pledged delegates, and thanks to our horserace obsessed press, one will be cornoated the clear winner.
Also, as I have been trying to argue, Obama has significant establishment support, as the Kennedy endorsement should make even clearer. While Clinton currently holds an advantage amongst superdelegates that have endorsed, it's only something like a 100 delegate advantage (compared to the 1600 or so that'll be handed out on super tuesday), and this isn't counting the superdelegates that have endorsed Edwards that almost certainly will favor Obama over Clinton. She certainly might be able to rally her supporters, but I doubt she'll be able to overcome a huge disadvantage in the delegate count, especially since superdelegates will be well aware how bad it would look to overturn the results of the primary process. It's certainly possible, but I don't see it as particularly likely.
The republican race, however, might still go crazy. McCain probably has a 70%-80% chance at the nomination, but the Republican establishment hates him, even though he's a lot more conserative than Romney or Huckabee in many ways. If those two can stay alive until the convention, then they might be able to pick up enough delegates (unlike the dem process, most of the republican delegates are won on a state-by-state, winner take all system) on super tuesday to block a majority (as of now, McCain does not have a majority of delegates).
Whoooo -- this got testy. Mitt Romney claims that he "doesn't have lobbyists running his campaign". Nearby laptop-jockey is unable to sit on his hands, calls Romney a liar (apparently accurately, to judge by his subsequent tergiversation). Wonder if he'll still have a seat on the reporter's plane?
If you skip ahead, make sure to enjoy the last part, where he gets dressed down by Romney's press secretary and then a bystanding grandma.
Monday is the last day to register in the Texas primary/caucus. Apparently, my confusion about how the texas delegation is chosen was justified. From Wikipedia:
Texas holds primary election and begins caucusing at the precinct conventions immediately after primary elections close. Any person casting a vote in the party primary is eligible to caucus at their precinct location at 7:15 pm of election night. Allocation of delegates between primary and caucus varies among political parties. According to Texas Democratic Party rules, District Level delegates are allocated based on primary elections. At-Large delegates are allocated based on state convention delegate sign-ins after caucusing at the precinct and district/county levels.
Anyway, register tomorrow if you want to vote in the primaries.
Chris Bowers agrees that it will problably come down to superdelegates. Thanks to Obama's recent surge, he's probably right.
A "vote for obama" kid knocked on my door on Saturday. I wasn't quite sure who I was going to vote for on Tuesday, but I can say that Obama lost a few points for bothering me on a Saturday.
For the apathetic among us, myself included: Superdelegates.
shit. Sorry nate.
Here's the real issue I'm worried about and how I broke it down last night waiting to drift off to nighty-night land:
This race is shaping up to be a disaster for political comedy writers. I think McCain on the Republican side is good for almost nothing (no vocal tics, rich patriotic military history, no hilariously outlandish ideas) when it comes to mockery. Huckabee is plainly a naturally mockable target for the Daily Shows of the world should he become president and though I know next to nothing about Romney he just looks like a guy ripe for parody for some reason.
On the side of the Dems, it is quite obvious that Hillary is a comedy writer's wet dream come true. In fact, the real challenge might be coming up with more comedic bits about her over and above what's already been played out for the last 15 years. I think Obama is much trickier because of the race issue. I do think he'll get some Bill Clinton style mockery on his excessive optimism (Audacity of Hope is the new The Man From Hope yadda yadda) but what else can you do there?
Anyway, the pickings seem pretty slim unless there are some obvious things I'm missing here. My prediction: no matter who gets elected we still get mostly Bush-centric jokes until late 2010.
Well, McCain's really, really old. So they'll have that. He also has a tendency to go off of the cuff a bit, so I'm sure they'd have some 'crazy maverick' jokes.
Obama will be exposed to what you said, and perhaps someone could go old school, and do the sort of take on him that Dan Ackroyd had on Jimmy Carter during the '76 election
Hhahahahahahaha. One less superdelegate to worry about mucking up the resutls
If I had known you were still on the fence I would have called to bother you and urge that you vote for Obama, soku.
So, also, for people's consideration--the chatter I heard, both on the blogs today, and on PBS last night, is that there will be a deal between McCain and Huckabee where the Huck agrees to drop out of the race at some future date in exchange for the VP slot on McCain's ticket. This makes a lot of sense for both parties because:
1)The Republican establishment hates both of them--McCain for his campaign finance bills and past opposition to the abolition of judicial fillibusters; Huckabee because he is anti-corporate and not virulently anti-immigrant enough.
2)The Huckster has no real path to the nomination--he hasn't shown any strenght outside of the South and the Midwest, and winning the south and splitting the Midwest with McCain isn't going to win you the nomination on the first ballot. As for later ballots, see 1). Thus, the VP slot is a nice consolation prize for him
3)This essentially ends the race and seals the nomination for McCain. He would be on the inside track regardless, but with Huckabee still alive in the South, and Romney self-financing enough to keep on campiagning in the northeast and the mountain states, there is still that outside chance that Mitt and Huckabee can pull enough support to force a brokered convention. If Huck drops out, game over.
4)McCain is pretty damn hated by the Limbaugh super-conservative crowd (linked article cites Limbaugh saying he'd vote for H. Clinton over McCain). If he teams up with a southern evangelical preacher, he shores up a ton of his base that was otherwise skeptical of him (despite the fact that McCain is actually very conservative on social issues, that's not the perception).
As for the Democrats, things look pretty damn even still. The rest of february favors the hell out of Obama, who did a very impressive job in splitting the Clinton-favorable super tuesday states (using superior caucus organization) evenly. Clinton is now shutting down everywhere but Virginia until Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio (Texas favors Clinton b/c of the older, more Hispanic population, RI because of the endorsments she's picked up, Ohio will be a big toss-up) go on March 4th. Oh, and the running rumor is that Clinton is out of money and is now self-financing. If Obama can win big the rest of this month, win Ohio, and split Texas, that's pretty much a knockout blow. Otherwise, this thing keeps on going.
Oh, and the NYT has a pretty sweet running delegate count chart, though they seem to be really exacting about totals--none of the super tuesday caucus states are included in the totals yet (which means that Clinton will be ahead by less than the 200 delegate total they claim as soon as the caucuses all announce final delegate totals).
Limbaugh and Coulter are better businessmen than conservatives, if they really cast their votes for HRC.
Huckabee is worryingly charismatic -- he's just /killed/ all the times I've seen him on Colbert, etc. And we know from Quayle that a loony VP (or, say, one who doesn't believe in evolution and wants us to become a Christian nation) is no real impediment.
HOly shit, that is exactly what I am talking about valatan. He has that stiff look about him that makes me think that humor-wise he'd get Bob Dole'd as a president.
Regarding Huckabee - McCain deal: is it still on even though Romney has suspended his campaign?
Haven't heard anything new. McCain certainly doesn't need Huckabee for the purposes of shoring up the nomination, so it's less likely now. McCain might be better off picking someone like Trent Lott, who can be an attack dog, is apeshit crazy conservative, and has a bunch of insider connections. We'll see, though. It'll probably be a few more months before we hear anything.
Also, in the context of the current banking contest, there is a part of the Republican frontrunner's record that the press will be loathe to mention: his ties to Charles Keating, the primary defendant during the 1989 S&L crisis, which ended in an extremely expensive government bailout, and surprisingly little media attention.
It's admittedly a very old story, but it's also very telling, I think, especially considering how little people know about it, considering that it got overshadowed by Iran-Contra on one end and Desert Shield on the other, with the gradual collapse of communism sprinkled throughout.
And a big night for Obama. He was supposed to win these races, but not like this. We'll see what the delegate counts are, but Clinton really needs to at least tie Wisconsin now, as well as wins in Texas and Ohio.
That goddamn spying bill passed.
Passed the senate. Now it goes back to the house. The original house version did not include retroactive immunity, so there is hope that the new reconciled house version will not, and there is hope that the conference committee version will not. There will likely be another fillibuster attempt by Dodd when it goes back to the Senate. Harry Reid needs to be fucking removed from the Majority Leader position ASAP. He has done nothing but mismanage since he took over. This entire thing is his fault.
If you are registered in Austin, it might be worthwhile to call Lloyd Doggett about this, as he's a pretty friendly ear for us on most things. I'll update when I see action items on this somewhere.
Dr. Feeljay sends his regards, and this analysis of the TX voting:
Hello everybody,
We were talking about the primaries (and caucuses) coming up, and I was
asked to send an email with a short explanation of the Texas Democratic
primaries/caucuses (they also asked me to post it on Alkaline Earth but
that's just crazy talk).Basically, on March 4th Texas Democrats will have both a primary and a
caucus. The way it works is that you first need to vote in the Democratic
primary, which is open, meaning that anyone who's registered to vote can
(officially this makes you a Democrat). Roughly two thirds of Texas's
pledged delegates are allocated by the primary. Fifteen minutes after
polls close there is a precinct caucus (they're really called conventions,
but this is confusing enough without new terms). You can only participate
in the caucus if you voted in the primary. Based on the caucus, delegates
are allocated for a county caucus. At the county caucus delegates are
selected for the state caucus, and finally at the state caucus the
remaining pledged national delegates (the only ones anyone really cares
about) are chosen.The short of it is, if you want to have the most impact, you need to vote
in the primary and then show up for the caucus when the polls close.For more details, the Burnt Orange Report (an Austin based political blog)
has a run down
(http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4877).In case you think "Man the Democrats in Texas are crazy, maybe the
Republicans are more sane.", here's a link the 2006 Republican platform
(http://www.texasgop.org/site/PageServer?pagename=library_platform). Among
the better bits,"We affirm that the public acknowledgement of God is undeniable in our
history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity and strength as a nation.
We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of
the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church and
state.""We believe it is in the best interest of the citizens of the United States
that we immediately rescind our membership in, as well as all financial and
military contributions to, the United Nations.""The Federal Government has no constitutional jurisdiction over education.
We call for the abolition of the U. S. Department of Education and the
prohibition of the transfer of any of its functions to any other federal
agency.""The Internal Revenue Service is unacceptable to U. S. taxpayers! We urge
that the IRS be abolished and the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution be repealed."One last thing, it turns out that it is now legal to by a sex toy in Texas
(http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/02/14/0214sextoys.html).
Somewhere Molly Ivins is smiling
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYXUUsDGxkU).Happy Valentine's Day.
Phil
Some links for voting information:
- If you know your precinct number (on your voter registration card), find your polling location here (for voting and precinct convention/caucus on March 4).
- If you don't know your precinct number, you can look it up here.
- If you want to vote early, here's a PDF with the list of early voting locations (early voting Feb 19-29).
- There's more info about the precinct convention/caucus events here and here.
Clinton's in big trouble. It's not even that she's losing these primaries, which is somewhat expected. It's that she's starting to lose them big. Wisconsin is a bad sign for her--demographically, it was not particularly favorable to Obama (aside from the open primary rule--they split the Democrats, but Obama slaughtered Clinton with Indies and Republicans).
Her lead in Texas is evaporating. If the momentum from last night carries over to Ohio, too, March 4th could pretty much be a knockout blow. And McCain is already attacking Obama like he's the presumptive nominee (no link, b/c I heard it on the BBC radio).
You people and your fads.
Defective Yeti has a helpful Clip n' Save shitlist.
And for those o fyou aching for more political information in this day where the Dem nomination might be decided, here in texas, here is a great breakdown of exit poll data to this point. A snippet: Clinton actually narrowly won self-identified Democrats, according to exit polling.
Holy living fuck. This motherfucking FISA bill is the the T-2000 of legislation
Dammit, Clinton does just well enough to stay in the race.
FISA update and hello all from Boston.
how the Democratic nomination campaign can end. This sounds really plausible to me. I hope the entire DNC is working on how to avoid a clusterfuck like this in the future.
Now the question is who Obama picks as his Vice President. It might be our best indicator as to how he will govern. It was a great indicator in 1992 when the enigmatic Bill Clinton chose another moderate Southerner as his veep, and was even more indicative when the even more enigmatic one-term governor of Texas chose the hard right, pro-Apartheid Dick Cheney as his VP nominee.
MyDD has their pollwatcher up now (look at the upper right and left corners). This is one of my favorite little tools for keeping track of the race--it aggregates state by state polling to create a prediction of where the electoral vote stands today, and you can flip states at a whim to see what effect it would have.
I am not happy to see either of those predictions. Eek.
Edwards as VP has never made much sense to me, but Edwards as AG I'd be excited about.
This reminds me of the old daily show bit by A. Whitney Brown entitled "Things that have come and gone since Strom Thurmond was in high school," where he'd go and do a retrospective on Soviet Communism.
"75,000 people - CNN gave the helpful headline, 'Massive Obama rally draws thousands.' I ignored the article because Obama drawing thousands is hardly news. But 75,000 people is 5% of the total voters in Oregon." [via]
The NYT says that the superdelegate count is at 272 to 303.5, 181.5 undecided. If Obama gets 50% of the remaining, he's at 393.5. Putting rough numbers into the Slate delegate calculator, even if the remaining states fall 60-40 and Florida and Michigan are seated at full strength and fall 60-40 Obama will win.
So why are they still reporting this like it's in doubt?
It's over. Clinton still has a chance, but that chance is pretty much Obama getting caught with a dead girl of a live boy (as the saying goes), and the large scale delegate defections that would result. She might as well suspend her campaign and wait to see if Obama majorly screws up somehow.
But Obama is the nominee, and I think that he's being pretty clear that he considers himself the nominee--he gave his post election speech from Iowa, not Oregon, for example.
and it's probably a good thing that the press still considers the primaries to still be happening. Things'll start to get really stupid once they consider it to be McCain vs. Obama
You think that Joe Lieberman wants to be vice president?
a map of the world as seen by the American M$M. Talk given by the President of PRI.
And just, in case there was any doubt left, it is officially over today. Obama wins Montana, and picks up a wave of supers large enough to assure him victory even with MI and FL included at full strength.
Why did so many superdelegates stay undeclared so long? - a look at one person's experience.
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Obama and Huckabee it is. If Obama holds on in NH, he'll be tough to beat. The Republican race has now officially moved into crazy land.
posted by Valatan at 09:22PM CST on January 03