[ Posted Thursday, January 17th, 2008 – 16:21 UTC ]
So. The question is: will Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama stand up for Dodd? Will they filibuster right alongside him? Will they show leadership within their own party (all the players except Bush in this fight are Democrats)? Or will they wait until they see which way the political winds are blowing and sneak in during the last minutes of a roll call to cast a "safe" vote? Hillary? Do you support telecom immunity for illegally wiretapping American citizens? How about you, Barack? Do you support this? You are both still in the Senate.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 – 15:57 UTC ]
Think about it -- the issue is that King needed Johnson's help in getting a law passed. Well, why did he need this help? Why couldn't King's "dream" become a "reality" without Johnson's help? Because in the 1960s there is no possibility whatsoever that a black man could have been president. Again, think about it -- if King had been president himself, he sure wouldn't have needed LBJ's help.
This is historical fact. We've come a long way since those days. But nobody is pointing out that it is now 2008, and not 1964. The big difference (as it relates to this argument) between then and now is that now we have a black man who has a very good chance at actually becoming president on his own.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 – 08:05 UTC ]
Immediately after being sworn in for his first term as president, Bush got into his limousine for the inaugural parade from the Capitol to the White House. This is traditionally a triumphant event, complete with cheering crowds. Some presidents even walk the route, since it is not that great a distance. But in January of 2001, the sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue were lined with 20,000 protesters who were angry with the outcome of the election. Even from within his speeding limo, Bush doubtlessly heard people screaming at him and saw the obscene gestures made... and he could not have failed to notice that at least one person hit his vehicle with a well-thrown egg.
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[ Posted Monday, January 14th, 2008 – 16:13 UTC ]
After last week's fiasco, some political pundits are shying away from predicting primary races. But not me!
I began this series of publishing my "picks" knowing there was a chance it would just showcase my foolishness, and now that that's happened once I see no reason not to provide you, the reader, with further amusement at my expense.
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[ Posted Friday, January 11th, 2008 – 16:01 UTC ]
Now, you may think me delusional for suggesting this, but perhaps Hillary Clinton's advisers are fans of this column. Maybe she herself was browsing Huffington Post last Friday. You be the judge. The following is the advice I offered Hillary in last week's column:
The whole inevitability thing didn't work out the way it was supposed to. Likewise the electability thing. "Change" may gain ground, now that it's the official buzzword of '08, but the change Clinton really needs to make is in her style. The campaign is now about emotion, and Hillary needs to get back to the point where she was earlier in the contest, when she was actually showing a decent amount of emotion and connecting with her crowds on a personal level. The wonky "I'll be ready on day one," and reciting lists of reasons why she should be nominated needs to change to actually connecting with people emotionally in the final stretch.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 10th, 2008 – 17:33 UTC ]
In the wake of the New Hampshire primary opinion polling fiasco, everyone is focusing on various reasons the pollsters "got it wrong." In the midst of all this media breastbeating, one fact seems to be escaping a lot of people -- it was the undecided voters who carried the day for Hillary Clinton.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 – 15:47 UTC ]
[ Posted Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 – 00:44 UTC ]
Now, normally I do my fair share of condemning the mainstream media for their stupefyingly obtuse and superficial behavior (to be honest, they make it really easy for me to do so). But on this one, I've got to take the heat with the rest of them. I, too, blew it. I saw the polls, and (while not believing in any single one of them) I did believe in the trend. I thought Barack Obama had it sewn up. Until the results started coming in. As Mark Twain (or maybe it was Disraeli) once said: "There are three types of lie: a lie, a damned lie, and statistics."
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 – 14:52 UTC ]
Sorry for the short column today, but since New Hampshire is the center of the political universe today, nobody's really paying attention to anything else anyway. If you want something fun to do while watching the returns come in tonight, head over to the McClatchy news site, where they're having a cartoon caption contest.
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[ Posted Monday, January 7th, 2008 – 15:17 UTC ]
On the Democratic side, I had Edwards out front by at least 4-5 points, and Obama narrowly squeaking out second from Hillary (essentially a tie for second). Well, I got the names wrong but predicted the race dynamics pretty well. That's my story and I'm sticking to it....
Total for Democratic picks so far: 1 for 3 (I correctly put Hillary in third, at least).
On the Republican side, I did a little better. I had Huckabee by five to ten points, followed by Romney and then McCain far back in third. I almost swept this one, but in the end Thompson edged out McCain for the third place spot. I still called the margins of victory pretty accurately, though, so I feel good about that.
Total for Republican picks so far: 2 for 3.
Total overall picks: 3 for 6.
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