Grazing Rites

He’s been playing us for fools, the party isn’t divided, it’s been Blitzer all along. In the last debate before Super Tuesday he did everything he could to get the candidates to attack each other. On at least two separate occasions he tried to characterize Obama’s neutral or positive comments as a “swipe” at Clinton.

Neither were having any of it. The second time he tried it Hillary said “Is it?” while Obama said “Nice try, Wolf” then the audience started to boo, loudly and heckle Blitzer by echoing Obama’s comments. Neither candidate sunk to his level and it seems Blitzer pissed off the Hollywood democratic elite, I hope someone holds him accountable.

Mark my words within the next 7 days Jon Stewart will shake his fist and say “damn you, Blitzer!“. And rightly so.

The rancor in politics came straight from the media tonight. Absolutely shameless. Even with the entire crowd against him Wolf wouldn’t let it go. Can we get Larry King to host the next debate in Ohio if it happens? Anderson Cooper even. Is Shaw still alive? How about Brian Williams. Giant head or no that’d be sweet.

The fact is while Blitzer was making a pathetic attempt at a ratings grab Hillary was finally behaving herself and being a bit of a moderate such that she actually made some good points. She still complains more than she prescribes, has catch phrases you see a mile down the road, and dodges tough questions. Obama on the other hand rarely complains, his zingers are unexpected and make you think in serious ways, and his eagerness to answer hard questions is palpable.

Despite all that, Hillary actually scores some points with me in this debate. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want her to win the nomination but I think I might just be able to accept her as VP without swallowing my tongue.

Now I had done some digging on Obama’s policies and actually found one I disagree with. He wants to decriminalize pot which I disagree with - it’s one issue I’m pretty consistently conservative about. It’s not enough to shake my confidence in the man, if anything it makes him more human. He’s no longer completely perfect. Call it 99.6% perfect now.

But he knocked it out of the park so many times in the debate but I want to share with you what was the single most important sign of a leader. He said “I want to surround myself with people who have the strength to stand up to me…because I’m not going to be right about absolutely every policy decision“. Frame it. If this gets the appropriate media coverage it could single-handed get him the nomination, the office, and forever change the political landscape and how we define our leaders in the mainstream.

Needless to say I don’t think the importance of this quote can be over stated. It could cure cancer and reverse global warming. Don’t believe me? Give it 4 to 8 years.

So now that an Obama/Clinton ticket isn’t completely offensive to me it becomes a serious possibility. When Blitzer suggested it Bradley Whitford went nuts. This is a strong endorsement in my universe. But I will only tolerate it if Edwards doesn’t want it.

He might not. He may be able to do more as AG or even chief of staff or important cabinet position.

I was disappointed by The Huffington Post when they posted an article about the State Of The Union written completely in the past tense 2 hours before the speech began. The article not only doesn’t specify that it was actually written before the speech based on released excerpts and a lot of supposition but it seems to go out of it’s way to convince the reader otherwise. For example talking about what wasn’t said and reaction.

I understand the drive for a scoop but even if you had the complete text in advance or came from the future it’s irresponsible reporting and I for one am disappointed.

But there’s still good news out the such as the Kennedy trio’s support of Obama. In case you missed Caroline Kennedy’s wonderfully well written op-ed or Ted and Patrick’s press conference I recommend you check out the articles on it. I guess Hillary’s ‘you’re no JFK’ line suddenly lost it’s footing when almost all of his relatives come out in support of Obama. It’s just wonderful, I can call him a JFK for my generation without doing a shoulder check now.

Insiders are calling it almost a betrayal of Clinton who was close to the family and had actually received more donations from the family than Obama. Many are speculating Bill’s behaviour was the final nail in the coffin.

I mean, how wrong do you have to be to have Al Sharpton tell you to shut up and have the majority agree with the sentiment?

Bill’s done more damage than any of us thought. He’s upset female voters because he made it look like either Hillary couldn’t do it herself or couldn’t control him. He’s annoyed voters in general because they dislike the idea of co-presidents. He upset his supporters by sinking to tactics he himself spoke out against when he ran for office. He’s offended African Americans by making race an issue. He’s offended union leaders by claiming to be witness to strong-arming that Jon Stewart effectively argued was impossible for him to see and those involved on both sides said was inaccurate at best, untrue at worst.

Hold on. I just had idea. Bill’s no idiot. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that Bill actually preferred Obama over his wife for the nomination. If he came out publicly her career, their marriage, and perhaps his life would all end. What could he do? Go the other way and push too hard for his wife? Make ambiguous statements that would obviously bring up issues of race? Hillary play the race card? Come on. That’s a battle she;d lose and no one wants to see so they’d resent her just for bringing it up.

Could Bill be secretly sabotaging his wife’s candidacy?

I know I’m probably grasping at straws trying to reconcile the Clinton I believed in during the 90s and the assclown we’ve seen since Iowa.

Did Obama’s Iowa win piss Bill off enough to go on the offensive or did it show him his wife could be beat by a superior candidate?

Everyone but Bill in the Clinton camp including Hillary has commented on Bill hopefully reigning it in. I guess time will tell.

A poll the other day listed a democrat winning the White House as the number one fear in investors with regards to economic instability at 28% with international conflict a close second at 22%. The source was less than reputable but the story was picked up by The Daily Show and The Huffington Post so I thought it might be worth debunking.

For one thing a recession is at times a self-fulfilling prophecy. Follow the bouncing ball…

Fears of a recession caused by the media cause some investors to sell off some assets to build up their liquid reserves. This causes a slight drop in the markets which the media and pundits use to retroactively justify their comments and say the sky is falling. More people believe it, so more people sell. With reserves depleted and confidence and consumer confidence dropping businesses become hawkish, not risking new ventures and laying off staff. People fear for their jobs and sell off more stock and further restrict spending thus causing a general economic slowdown or recession.

I don’t think that’s the whole story here though. An incompetent president, the subprime mortage crisis, and an intractable immoral failure of a war is what most economists are pointing to as potential causes. In fact my previous theory about political uncertainty was at the time a little fringe. My prediction that having fewer candidates will help stabilize investor confidence remains.

It’s all about the future. If CNN tells you it’s bleak then you’re less likely to invest but if let’s say Obama looks like he’ll win with a solution to the mortage crisis, a stimulus package that makes sense (giving to the poorest knowing they’ll spend it right away generating economic activity), and a way out of Iraq one might be more optimistic about the future and choose to invest.

A big part of it are those pesky skittish day traders and investors. Instead of boring you with the USSR/Brazil story again I’ll share an eerily relevant Stewie quote “you can’t become a fiscal hermit every time the <market> undergoes a self correction“.

You know it’s ironic (I’d say ‘funny’ but it’s not), World War II got us out of The Great Depression leading to conventional wisdom being that a war could get one out of a recession (although if memory serves The Great Depression was actually the much more dreaded stagflation). Now ending a war could be the answer. Improve standing in the world opening up trading options, bolster the dollar, and reinvest the money thrown away in Iraq to more worthy causes like health care and rebuilding Afganistan.

Hold on, aren’t you trading one war for another? You may ask.

In point of fact I’m trading two wars for one. Iraq, largely thanks to Pakistan’s porous border, isn’t current winable. And Pakistan’s too destabilized to do anything about it. Afgahnistan on the other hand, with greater focus, is much more winnable. Once secure the opium trade can be dealt with and rebuilding can get into full swing creating jobs and a trading partner and ally.

Think about it. Obama has.

I would be very curious to see a statistical analysis of how much media attention Bill Clinton has received in the last 2 weeks versus Hillary, or better yet Edwards. My admittedly incomplete observations would seem to indicate the press is paying more attention to Bill than Edwards which isn’t right in my opinion. So I’m thinking about Bill’s disappointing recent behaviour when a song comes up in my playlist that sounds like a near perfect response from Obama…

It’s a repetitive song so I’ll give you the highlights…

“I heard it from my friends
about the things you said.

You know me better than that…

You know my weaknesses
I never tried to hide them.
You know my weaknesses
I never denied them…

How can a view become so twisted…

I’ve never felt so disappointed“

Not long after Nevada Obama came out to defend both his record and some comments at the debate. When asked about his greatest weakness he answered honestly while Edwards and Hillary gave that kind of answers that make the question meaningless, trying to spin it into a vacuous positive. Obama used humour to make his point quite effectively I thought.

In fact his delivery reminded me of Bill Cosby. Not the latter Cosby of television fame and shill for Jello, I mean old stand up Cosby whose greatest distribution was on vinyl. The Noah bit Cosby. Personally I thought it was great.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one. The week following that speech it seemed every candidate this side of Giuliani was trying their hand at comedy. Once again Obama’s message and methodology is stolen by others. He’s a trend setter with ideas so good candidates on both sides feel the need to take them on for themselves while opposing him and not giving him credit. Hopefully the American people are smart enough to know that.

This was definitely a mixed bag. It was good but didn’t quite live up to the hype. It answers few questions and seems to betray the viral marketing which implied that a Japanese mega-corporation was somehow involved. The performances were unremarkable but I suppose that could just be viewed as staying true to the format.

Ah, the format. There’s the rub. I’m all in favor of new and different storytelling methods but if the cost is making some people sick there may have been a better compromise between authenticity and polish. I mean it’s a monster movie for god’s sake, suspension of disbelief is a given. I say get the camera guy from 24 to shoot it and just add a quick line of dialogue about how the camera has some new kind of image stabilization. A behind the scenes picture seems to indicate the actors themselves held the camera for at least some of the movie.

The ending is somewhat dictated by the beginning which made me care a little less about the characters. The movie was either going to end with the majority of them dead or the camera falling out of a helicopter by virtue of it being found in Central Park. A nuclear strike was likewise ruled out as it would have wiped the SD card care of the resulting EMP.

The monster was almost a microcosym of the film itself with some good ideas, some stolen ideas, and some logic problems. The little monsters are Alien face-huggers, there’s just no denying it. The body of the main monster is very similar to the alien from Signs, only much larger and more annoyed.

The main monster has 2 logic problems not resolved in the movie. 1) If his lungs are outside his head like ears why is he so hard to kill? An interesting approach to alien design but it seems a glaring vulnerability to me. 2) Where do the fireballs come from? Is he a fire-breathing monster? Why don’t we see him do so if that’s the case? How can a fire-breathing lifeform exist and/or sustain itself?

A plot point that annoyed my partner was when they removed the spike from Beth but I may be able to clear this up. The spike was actually a part of the building’s broken support structure, attached to an enormous block of concrete. Yes what they did was medically unsound but the only alternative was to leave her there to die as medical services were not coming and they lacked the cutting tools to free the spike.

Of course a line or two of dialogue could have established this a bit better and save me from having to do so.

The name of the film is intriguing and a few theories have cropped up trying to explain it. The monster’s claw marks looking like clovers, the name of the street, the field Hud dies in. Personally I think it’s nothing more than a random word used to code classified DoD material like CIA Ops codenames and words.

One thing this movie does is cry out for a sequel. Personally I would abandon the format and do something more traditional or completely new. Like maybe show the whole film in the first-person as a character, like we see things from his eyes. But unfortunately it sounds like they might be married to the format saying there may have been other people with cameras that night. However they also said they want to explore the creature’s backstory which is something I’d be interested in seeing.

I would think a sequel likely, with a budget of $25 million it brought in $41 million the opening weekend ($35 from my group), a record for January beating out the Special Edition of Star Wars in 1997, which I also saw opening weekend. Judging from the crowds (it was so busy we had to switch theatres) and the margins the bean counters would probably go for it.

But I cannot stress enough that a sequel would probably do better with a more traditional format and ad campaign. Your gimmick got your fanbase, move on with some meat and potatoes now.

One thing that annoys me is how many reviewers seem to think this movie had something to do with 9/11. Something blows up in NYC and it would have been intellectually dishonest not to have at least one character pose the question of a possible attack. That line of thinking gets precisely 2 lines of dialogue and is dropped, acknowledging the white elephant but not making it about the elephant. Frankly I think they handled it well.

Some reviewers got really upset talking about the film allegedly evoking the imagery of 9/11 callously and without meaning. Frankly I think these people need therapy. I’m not joking. If this movie made you think of 9/11 for more than a few minutes to the point of making you upset I daresay you have unresolved issues about 9/11 and need to talk to someone about it. And given that so much time has passed I recommend whoever you talk to be a professional as whoever you’ve been chatting with thus far hasn’t helped you move on.

But rather than completely dismiss the notion out of hand let me ask this question: can no movie ever show anything bad happen in NYC ever again because of 9/11? If the answer is yes, tell me have the terrorists won by causing us to change how we live our lives as a direct result of their terror? If there’s one thing the current race for the presidency has shown is that we’ve evolved, simple fear-mongering answers aren’t good enough any more.

It annoys me that any idiot claiming everything is about 9/11 can hijack the debate so easily. But enough about Giuliani.

The other day after my partner had her first successful auction on eBay I decided to pull out my old hockey cards to see what they might fetch. In the process I decided to unpack one of the 3 remaining boxes left from my move a year ago. I found a newspaper in the box, a student union newspaper from UBC from 2000 with the headline: Election Still Too Close To Call. Editor: Jesus F*ck*ng Christ We Need A New Headline. I chuckled and put it into another box; I’d deal with it later.

Who knew it would be a harbinger of things to come?

The AP has crunched the numbers and it is mathematically impossible for any candidate in either party to lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday; Super Duper Tuesday my ass, perhaps now they’ll stop calling it by that insipid idiotic childish name. So it seems for the first time in recent memory states like Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania will actually, you know, matter when it comes to the primaries. Almost sounds like a democracy.

A political science professor at Duke University said it could take until the summer before we know who the nominees are, however he added “It is also possible for aliens from Mars to land tomorrow and interfere with the election.”

I can bet the first thing they’d say on the subject will be something along the lines of: how can you get things so hopelessly complicated when the nation-state to the north seems to have such a smooth, transparent, easily understood system?

I guess we know why Gorlok isn’t taking Stephen’s calls.

I have an epiphany if anyone is interested:
http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1377935786

Oh and the WGA and AMPTP have resumed negotiations as of yesterday. That story was heavily buried but I managed to dig it up. I guess the recession concerns and primary news buried it.

Speaking of which, apparently Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the presidential race to focus on his Congressional re-election. Good man, that Kucinich.

So it looks like the narrowing of the field is happening more-or-less as I predicted. Let’s take a look at who’s left…

Democrats: Obama, Hillary, Edwards, and Gravel. Gravel would drop out if he was well enough so it’s officially a 3-person race.

Republicans: Romney, McCain, Huckabee, Paul, and Giuliani. Giuliani will fall after Florida (he’s losing New York for Pete’s sake!) and Paul might just make it to Super Tuesday but not as a viable candidate.

So in a week it will be a 3-person race on both sides of the aisle is my prediction. So who do I want to win? For the democrats I’ve made my fondness of an Obama/Edwards ticket pretty clear and for the republicans I have to say a McCain/Huckabee ticket would be great. Now I would of course like to see the democrats win and having strong republican opposition makes that less likely however I can’t help but appreciate the process; frankly seeing those four go at it, respectfully of course, could only serve to increase the awareness of all concerned.

Update: Oh my God, Bush has a moral one-up on the Clintons. Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute had this to say recently “To the extent that George HW Bush got engaged it was to speak well of his son, He didn’t speak ill of his son’s primary opponents. What has caught the attention of many people is that President Bill Clinton has seemed to taken on the role of undermining Obama’s candidacy. That is what is catching the election of mainly disgruntled Democrats.” Bill’s given up the moral high ground to an ignorant warmonger, well done. I’ll say it again, shut up Bill. One small point in Bill’s defence is that he has stated he will support Obama if he wins the nomination but how can that not ring hollow after everything he’s said lately? The guy’s carving up the party like a roast and serving it on a platter to the Republicans.

I was inspired by the recent Huffington Post item on Hillary’s co-called 35 years of experience to take a look at her record for myself.

The Huffington Post did a great job looking at the 35 year thing so I won’t retrace those steps but there’s some other gems in her background.

For example she was on the board at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, known for paying women less than men, using bribe money to get around municipal laws, and selling the products of child labour. You’ll note these issues largely came to light long after she left the board. So either she was unaware (read: ignorant) of these issues or didn’t want to change them. Oh wait, there’s that magic buzzword of the year, change. Hmmm.

She has the dubious honour of having been the only First Lady ever to be subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. Well, I guess that technically IS change. Score one for Hillary.

Fun Fact: she was born in the state Obama represents.

In 1960 she discovered voter fraud against Nixon while supporting the Republican party.

I would like to point out that not all change is automatically good change.

Last night’s debate was interesting but I think I’ll comment on that later. For now I’ve come up with some fun campaign slogans for a potential Obama/Edwards ticket. Vote for your favorite or suggest your own (click for larger image).

I have to admit I’ve been a little less enthusiastic about following the primaries the last few days. Perhaps I just overdid it, maybe it’s all the negativity, or I suppose I should admit it might be the fact that my guy isn’t crushing the competition. But the question of who wins these contests has only become more important over the last few days. Concerns over a US recession are causing markets to drop world wide. Our own TSX dropped 500 points just recently and locally I hear it is causing employers to become rather hawkish about hiring new employees. Just weeks ago any idiot could get a job and employers were fighting to find staff, now the trend seems to be taking a pause if not reversing itself. This wasn’t quite the outcome I saw from the primaries. I assumed the promise of new leadership would bolster the US economy. It’s not like anyone could do worse the Bush after all but for some reason, perhaps the uncertainty, the effect has been the opposite.

So what do we do to turn it around? Well there are two options. Spend money to generate economic activity or narrow the field of candidates. Many are talking of stimulus packages but with so many out there taking such different paths it’s hard to evaluate the merits of them all and accurately predict which will take place. Since I have a family to look out for I can’t just run out and spend money so let’s look at narrowing the field of candidates…

Democrats

We have 5 candidates remaining on the blue side. Obama and Clinton are locked in a tight race. Edwards came in with just 4% in Nevada. Is it time for him to drop out? I’d say no because it’s one state out of many and he actually placed better than Clinton in Iowa. One more crushing defeat like that on Saturday and he should pack it in though. I like Kucinich, don’t get me wrong – I’ve argued long and hard about the important role he plays in this race but that said I think he needs to move on. Banned from the MSNBC debate his role and message has been significantly curtailed. Calling for a recount in New Hampshire was a good move but we have to move on now and focus our efforts and support. Mike Gravel didn’t compete in Iowa, got only 0.14% of the vote in New Hampshire and then stopped campaigning, but not officially dropping out, due to health reasons.

I’d like to take a moment to talk about the New Hampshire recount. So far results are only in for Hillsborough County but they are both interesting and unreported in the mainstream media. Somehow in the recount the top 8 candidates in New Hampshire lost a collective 1,800 votes; Biden being the only candidate to gain any, and then only 1 vote. How did this happen? Did 1,800 ballots get lost? Were 1,800 of the recorded ballots duplicate entries? Did a visual inspection result in 1,800 spoiled ballots? It didn’t change the percentages within the county and so to did not have a significant impact on the state’s overall percentages but with Hillary losing 675 votes, Obama losing 579, and Edwards losing 279 it all seems a little fishy to me. Unfortunately being some arm chair Canadian analyist I don’t have access to much further information but I sincerely wish the media dug a little deeper to find out why and actually report on it. Perhaps they’re waiting for the whole state to finish the recount but they’ve been at it for 5 and a half days already when they originally tallied the whole state more-or-less in one evening. With 2% of the votes missing in just one county, in a state where the race was within 2% this would seem to warrant further attention.

Republicans

Now on to the red team, we have 6 contenders left in the ring. Romney, McCain, and Huckabee are all still viable. Thompson said Saturday was do-or-die and when he didn’t do he refused to die and instead went on to make a non-sequiter speech about sacrifice when everyone was expecting him to drop out of the race as heavily hinted at. Ron Paul came in second in Nevada somehow, if it weren’t for that I’d suggest he drop out now. Yes, Thompson came in second in Wyoming but that doesn’t negate his do-or-die statement, how is anyone to take him seriously after that? As for Rudy he’ll drop out once he gets hammered in Florida…assuming he hasn’t been busy rigging the polls.

There’s a democratic debate tonight which I’ll probably watch. The image for the debate that CNN has on their website is very interesting in my opinion and with a little luck could be a sign of things to come…(click for larger image)

On a continuum of recent movies I’ve seen this was way better than AVPR and No Country For Old Men but not nearly as good as Charlie Wilson’s War. The story was good, Nick Cage, Ed Harris, and Jon Voight are all on their game. Jon Voight in particular was given a lot of stuff to play that was fairly different from his recent outings which was nice to see.

On a completely unrelated note there was a woman sitting behind me in the theatre, about 35, who kept kicking the back of my chair. At one point she started kicking along to the music. She was shocked and confused when I politely asked her to stop. No apologies but she stopped…for awhile. She ended up needing several reminders.

Back to the movie, it’s a little smarter than the first film. I particularly enjoyed the Last Full Measure reference that they didn’t spell out. This movie is alot smarter (and educational!) than the mindless entertainment some people seem to think it is, having not seen it. It’s not worth going out of your way to see but it’s a safe, entertaining way to spend 2 hours and 11 minutes but it’s kinda long so watch the soda intake.

Jon knows what I’m talking about.

My review has once again been requested, this time for the television outcropping of the Terminator franchise. I watched the first episode and to be honest I wasn’t in a hurry to see the second. Of course it’s hard, and often downright unfair, to judge a series by the pilot. Star Trek The Next Generation, indeed their entire uneven first season, comes to mind.

But then again some pilots grab you and rightly so such as DS9, Doctor Who, and Eureka. This, however, is not one of those times.

Plot wise the series is interesting enough, a few years after T2 the events largely recur with some notable changes, time travel for the protagonists chief among them.

I n essentially retelling the story of T2 the show does extremely well given the substantially lower budget, although advances in technology mitigate this a bit they are still to be commended on their production values.

The performances were a mixed bag. Summer Glau pretty much saves the show along with the FBI agent. Sarah Connor is horrible and perhaps the largest reason I’m unmotivated to watch more of the show. If they had cast Sarah Clarke as Sarah Connor they would have had a win.

Too bad.

So I watched a large chunk of the MSNBC debates once Michigan was in the can for the Republicans and I have to say I am profoundly relieved to see some unity within the party. Granted most of the infighting came from staffers (mostly Hillary’s) it was nice to see a congenial atmosphere among the top 3.

Don’t even get me started on Kucinich’s banning, he serves a vital purpose in the race largely to help bring important issues and views to the debates, MSNBC and the Nevada Supreme Court kept him from doing that, quite wrongly in my opinion.

Anyways, it was nice to see the candidates agree on some topics and disagree politely on others. It was, if you will, the very embodiment of the spirit of Obama’s message: disagree without being disagreeable. Some might complain that it had no fireworks or came off as a mutual admiration society but I disagree, I think the positive atmosphere allowed for a return to important issues rather than silly issues over racial history.

Speaking of which, the whole thing started when first a staffer and then Hillary herself implied that LBJ did all of the heavy lifting for the civil rights movement. Last night Jon Stewart argued that she was simply positing a case for realism versus idealism but I think Jon likes to be a contrary and had people not made such an issue out of it, he likely would have. And it would have been funny. He, like me, probably just thinks too much was made out of it and was trying to provide a counterpoint which was noticeably absent from the media at the time. But let’s face facts; a race war would cause ratings and circulation to go up for all news outlets. What upsets me is how Obama and Clinton keep being ascribed the same actions, motivations, and integrity. Clinton started the race thing by implying JFK and MLK didn’t get the job done, all Obama said was that he thought the comments “ill-advised” and yet somehow the media played that as a counterattack in equal measure. Just because the media sorely wants that to be the case as it would help line their pockets it simply isn’t true, or at best is editorializing the story. By simply saying he thought the comments were ill-advised but refusing to comment further Obama was taking the high ground. Clinton had let herself open to attack and he chose not to fire at her exposed flank but the media and their misleading headlines were quick to make it appear as if he had done the exact opposite. And then the spin of constantly repeated talking points made it almost accepted at fact. So suddenly with Clinton and her staffers going on the offensive (both in terms of attacking Obama and offending people) with the odd Obama staffer rising to the bait it took Obama to make peace and bury the issue. And when that happened did he get credit? No, more often than not the media headlines listed Clinton’s name first, (i.e. Clinton, Obama make truce over racial issues) when in fact Obama made the gesture and it was accepted but the headline makes it look like it was all Hillary’s nobility as the driving force when in fact she was the one who started the slide into the mud pit in the first place!

I wish I had kept a running tally of CNN.com posting stories that gave Clinton a unfair favourable light and Obama a negative one, as well a tally of stories the body of which completely contradicted the headline.

And now the apologies and pledges of support are rolling in for Obama although Bill Clinton still seems to think he’s still in a schoolyard fight. He recently had to be physically pulled away from a reporter by a mayor when discussing the issue of holding votes in casinos so that workers could vote more easily on Saturday, always a busy day in Vegas.

Patrick Leahy, the Vermont senior senator in charge of vetting nominees to the federal bench including the Supreme Court, has recently pledged his support for Obama. He was succinct in expressing why as stated on CNN.com, “Leahy said he endorsed Obama because he believes he can bring reform to the nation’s health care system and schools, and end the Iraq war. ”Barack Obama gives us that hope,” he said, saying the Illinois senator “represents the America we once were, and want to be again. We need a president who can reintroduce America to the world, actually reintroduce America to ourselves. I believe Barack Obama is the best person to do that“.

Where Kerry had trouble finding, getting on, and staying on his message last election it seems everyone is on board with Obama. Even if they disagree, they still get it.

On the other side of the fence things are getting interesting. Romney took Michigan but as far as I’m concerned he bought it so that’s all I’m going to say about that. Moving on.

Perot’s back and he’s got a score to settle against McCain.

What?

Yea, you read that right. Ross Perot has come out of retirement and obscurity to attack John McCain. Is it his policy? His vision? His funding? What does Ross Perot have a problem with? That fact that he divorced his wife in 1980.

Let me tell you a story about John McCain. He was taken as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in 1967. The next year his father was named CINCPAC and the North-Vietnamese offered to release him in a show of goodwill intended to garner support from the international community. But there’s a policy with POWs, “first in, first out”. John McCain refused to be released unless they released every POW that had been captured before him. The next month they began to torture him. He wasn’t released until 1973, five and a half years after the offer was made. He endured five and half years of torture on a matter of principle and solidarity with his comrades in arms and Ross Perot dares to think he can attack this man politically because his first marriage didn’t work out? I would love to hear what he has to say about Giuliani.

Ross Perot is supporting Romney due to his “strong family unit”. Ross Perot believed all of the untrue rumours about Obama thinking he was a Muslim who didn’t respect the pledge of allegiance. It turns out Perot has a habit of believing every e-mail he reads. Although when asked about Obama he did say he admired his eloquence and was relieved to have the rumours dispelled – probably because he knows he’ll be the next president. Seems like even Perot who is getting everything else wrong of late knows which way the wind is blowing.

His opinion of Hillary? He has a bumper sticker that reads “Monica Lewinsky’s Ex-Boyfriend’s Wife for President” so I think we know where he stands on her campaign. About Bush he says that he’s a “decent person, but you can’t say the same thing about the people around him”.

Perhaps it would be best if Perot went back to the mists of history, out of touch as it were as he seems to be.

Lastly in the area of poll results things just became a bit more problematic as Arianna Huffington is calling for a petition against pollsters and has called upon visitors of her site to refuse to give their opinions to pollsters. Personally I think this a bad idea as it will simply make the issues of the participants have less of a voice.

Update: Despite my disagreement with The Huffington Post on their call to stop responding to pollsters (latest poll has Obama up 9 points over Hillary in Nevada by the way) I have to say they knocked it out of the park with this article, which I’m sure my partner will be very happy to see:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-emanuel/the-curious-math-of-hilla_b_82028.html

It’s called The Curious Math of Hillary’s “35 Years of Experience” and while I considered just quoting it I came to realize I had nothing more or better to add to what they said and none of it deserved to be left out. I highly recommend you check it out.

I was working at the Michael Bublé concert the other day when his last song of the encore sounded familiar. A Song For You I believe it’s called. Years ago Warren performed this song at the Stripped concert series which was included in the Arc2 webcast and subsequent DVD. Compared to Warren, Bublé sounded like a bag of cats.

For one thing Bublé doesn’t bring the lyrics to life. He gives the performance energy and some kind of half-assed unoriginal style but clearly the words have no particular meaning to him. Warren on the other hand could sing Happy Birthday and make you think he just wrote it for you for all the heart felt sincerity he puts into even the smallest show.

I know nothing about music beyond the ordinary layman so I can’t quantify exactly why the quality of Warren’s performance was so much better but I do know that Bublé himself would be hard pressed to defend his performance were they placed side-by-side. Perhaps being a layman isn’t so bad as it means almost anyone could appreciate the gulf of quality between the two, even if they can’t put it into words well.

Bublé easily sold out the show of 14,000 seats. Can you imagine how well Warren would do after some exposure?

Chris Matthews in a surprising feat of sincerity, self awareness, and humility publicly admitted that Obama’s speech after losing New Hampshire made him cry. Largely because of the quality of the speech and it’s message for hope but also because he felt sympathy for Obama’s so-called defeat that night. So many pundits are making such a big deal over Hillary’s ‘crying’ which involved the shedding of no tears but I think the tears of hope and joy and solidarity from the likes of Chris Matthews have far more honour and meaning than the non-existent tears of frustration and exhaustion that allegedly swung New Hampshire to Hillary.

So here we are a day from the Michigan primary and no one seems to care, unless you’re a Republican. The Democratic race, the far more interesting and inspiring race, is a total mess in this state due to primary politics so I won’t bother covering it in great detail unless something interesting comes out of it. As for the Republican race it’s no surprise at all that Michigan is all about the economy. They’ve been kicked where it hurts and then kicked again while they’re down for far too long for much else to be relevant to them except perhaps the war as that’s the only source of employment for so many in that state. They currently have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, 7.4% to the national average of 5%. But I believe they would be against the war as the military would take them with or without a war, so given the choice who would want their friends, neighbours, or relatives fighting and dying in a war because they couldn’t find any other job when they could just as easily serve in peacetime?

This state could be problematic for McCain as he hasn’t been very strong against the war. Romney seems to have shot himself in the foot by downplaying the importance of Michigan – that’s just what voters love to hear, that they aren’t important. Way to garner support there, Mitt. I think Huckabee could do well given his economic stance however I’m not sure his arguments about trade with China and tax policy will translate well to the common voter. Polls say its Romney and McCain fighting for first with Romney slightly ahead. But if there’s anything New Hampshire reminded us of is that you can’t trust the polls to tell you the whole story. Romney may mitigate his problems though as he has outspent McCain and Huckabee combined by a factor of 5. Let me say that again, Romney has spent five times as much in Michigan than McCain and Huckabee combined. I think that bears repeating because if he does carry Michigan that and his recent strong talking points regarding their economy will be the reason. Romney’s going so far as to pull advertising from other states to refocus his resources on Michigan. He insists it’s not important but his actions say otherwise – why not just have your words match your actions rather than insult the people you’re spending the most money on?

So how will Michigan play out for the GOP? I’ll let CNN give you the background on the mechanics of it, straight from their website: “There is no party registration in Michigan, and registered voters can cast their ballots in any primary. Since national party penalties have meant that most of the Democratic presidential field are not on the ballot — and none of the major candidates will be campaigning in the state — Democrats and independents may play a far greater role in Tuesday’s GOP primary than they usually would.”

So with the Democratic race essentially a choice between Clinton and a protest vote I suspect many could cross the isle and go vote for McCain as he is well liked by both Democrats and Independents. So among Republican voters I see Huckabee doing well but McCain could well take this thing largely because of the mess the Democratic race has become in that state. McCain’s economic stance is also strong, he wants Michigan to be a leader in new green technologies to reduce the money going into oil and potentially supporting the very terrorists Michigan’s unemployed are being forced to fight in order to find work. It’s a pretty tight argument that, if successful, would solve Michigan’s 2 primary concerns.

If it is a race between McCain and Romney than it’s a race between strong policy and money; I hope policy wins, lest we have an auction.

Update:Just because the Democratic race in Michigan is a dog’s breakfast doesn’t mean the Democratic candidates aren’t still at it in South Carolina though. Bill Clinton came out with a list of 80 so-called personal attacks on his wife made by the Obama campaign. I believe one of them included playing a Jay-Z song in Iowa, but I won’t even bother dignifying that accusation with further comment except to say that background music is hardly worthy of debate. Personally I would like to see this list as I have some difficulty believing it, essentially since Bill’s previous attack on Obama came from a misquote. I must admit to being discouraged by the in-fighting in the Democratic party however I still notice that Obama has taken the high road almost every time. Does debate between candidates strengthen the party? Yes. Does in-fighting? No. Is this in-fighting? Maybe. Who’s responsible? Well thus far most of it seems to be coming from the Clinton camp. They seem to think any time Obama clarifies his position or corrects a misquote or provides context for something that he’s somehow going on the offensive. I’ll admit I haven’t been following the events of the last few days very carefully, I’ve been playing Lego Star Wars and spending time with my family, but around the New Hampshire primary, both before and after, Obama was going out of his way and taking his time to be respectful of the other candidates despite how low their attacks may have sunken. I refuse to believe after putting such an effort to bring manners, honour, and respect back to politics that Obama would give up on it so quickly, it simply isn’t a believable premise. What’s the one quote that everyone thinks of first when you say Obama? “We can disagree without being disagreeable”. Keep the faith Barack. Please.

I can’t also help but note that Bill is campaigning pretty hard for Hillary while Obama doesn’t seem to need his wife to get his message out for him. Although she did come out to comment on the fairy tale comment saying Barack Obama is the right candidate “not because of the color of his skin, but because of the quality and consistency of his character“. The fact is they seem to be tossing some of the more outrageous and unsubstantiated claims to Bill hoping the electorate will buy it without much question because he was a very popular president. Poor Bill.

In regards to New Hampshire, things may not be as they seem. As Khan said, “Oh no…the game’s not over”. Two requests for recounts, from Kucinich on the Democratic side and from some nobody Albert Howard on the Republican side, have been approved. Results from optical readers seemed to follow a different trend than votes that were hand-counted and now, hopefully, we’re going to find out why. Could it be junky software? Rigging? A conspiracy? Miscommunication? Perhaps. Although the pragmatist in me wishes to point out that areas with the money to afford automated vote counting machines may have different demographics let’s say than areas that don’t have that kind of money to burn. The recounts will begin on Wednesday January 16th; I daresay these may be more worth following than the Michigan primary at least on the Democratic side of the fence. Could you imagine if there was a significant discrepancy? Let’s say a potential error favoured Hillary erroneously, wouldn’t that throw her completely out of the race and make Dennis Kucinich, of all people, our savior? It’s something to think about. Either way I think the granting of the recount speaks volumes about the importance of Kucinich’s involvement in this race. Gravel needs to wake up and smell the defeat but Kucinich is serving an important role and I am glad he’s kept at it.

But what is the true likelihood of some malfunction or malfeasance? Well, let’s look at the machines. The company that made them is Premier Election Systems. Never heard of them? There’s a very good reason, it’s the new name of Diebold. That’s right, in a move I suspect largely motivated by a lack of confidence over their machines the company changed names but it seems their problems follow them care of the good people at The Huffington Post who have a long memory. Ohio’s secretary of state recently reviewed this company’s voting machines and found problems in all models, although admittedly fever in the kind used in New Hampshire. But seriously, who in New Hampshire thought it was a good idea to trust something as sacred as a vote to a machine with known problems? Sigh. Alright, let’s break this down. The servers are easily hacked; the memory cards easily tampered with, a single vote can be scanned and counted repeatedly with no errors cropping up, the type of paper or ink could cause a ballot to be misread, and each machine needs to be calibrated - a process in which many mistakes can be made.

How much of a difference could this make? Well Ron Paul’s people ran over the numbers and discovered that John McCain received nearly 3% more votes at polling stations in which the votes were counted by hand than those with a machine. Given that this survey favours another candidate I’m willing to take them at their word. A 3% possible margin of error. Interesting. Hardly a deal breaker to the top 2 Republicans that night as it would effect neither of their standings but the order of the rest of the candidates could be altered. But wait, on the Democratic side of things Clinton supposedly beat Obama by 2%, well within the 2.8% margin of error the Ron Paul people believe they have discovered. How very interesting indeed.

Alright, rigged or faulty I believe if the results are substantially different a crime has occurred so let’s look at it like a crime: who stands to gain from it? Romney had more votes from the machine count, as did Hillary. Oh and Obama suffered a loss of votes at the hands of the machines, if the averages are to be believed. How very interesting indeed. Isn’t it interesting how the machines would favour those with greater access such as Clinton and Romney over the more radical outsiders like Obama and McCain?

But before you break out the pitchforks and torches and start talking of revolution remember that large cities use the machines while small towns use hand counts, it is entirely plausible that the different issues faced by each produced different voting trends. We don’t all always fit on a Bell curve afterall.

I’d also like to take a moment to publicly call the Clinton camp stupid for even bothering to mention a speech being removed from a website. Or for being too stupid, or thinking the American electorate too stupid, to grasp that you can be against a war and still vote to approve funding for the troops. You can be against a war but still support the troops and thinking in total black-and-white that if you’re against a war you can in good conscience send the troops off to fight in their underwear with muskets smacks of the same kind of with-us-or-against-us Sith-like absolutes that Bush, Cheney, and Rove work in. When you accept that as a premise you stifle healthy debate and marginalize the moderates. Hasn’t 7 years of that nonsense been enough?

There are many interesting things afoot in the American political theatre in the wake of New Hampshire that it’s hard to know where to start.

The Huffington Post has a great opinion piece written by Huffington herself about various tactics being used to attack Obama from the Clinton camp which includes such contradictory claims as Obama’s too liberal, conservative, and hopeful. I recommend you check it out. And Hillary’s argument against “false hope” is insane. Does she really think ‘he wants to do too much for the country’ is a valid complaint against Obama?

Someone should ask Hillary ‘would you rather win the nomination but lose to the Republicans or lose the nomination but have a democrat in the White House?’ Because I think that is one of the critical questions of the campaign. Of course she’d probably dodge the question…or cry.

Gasp! Did he just say that? You ask. Yes I did. Why? Because it’s a party favor compared to what the Republicans can do. Dare I list even some of the areas she’s vulnerable?

-Do you want a commander-in-chief who lost her composure during the early primaries? How would she respond to genuine stress with lives, peace, stability, and the future all on the line perhaps in direct conflict with the constitution and rule of law? How will she respond if she faces a hostile house and/or senate?

-How can she control the country when she couldn’t restrain her husband? If another country cheats on the US will they be as easily forgiven? (note: I do not agree with this line of thinking but you know they’ll go there)

-What will Bill’s agenda be as First Gentleman? How much control and influence will he have? Will this be a partial workaround of terms limits?

-How can a member of a prior administration bring about fundamental change?

-A Clinton Dynasty? It didn’t work out so well for the country when the Bush clan tried it.

-Her flip-flopping on issues makes Kerry look like a rock.

-Constant and consistent voting support of the war.

-Dirty tricks (527 group) and negative attacks.

-How relevant is her experience?

-It took New Hampshire for her to find her voice? Shouldn’t she have found it before spending millions running for president? Is the so-called experienced candidate making it up as she goes along? Figuring things out as she goes?

Karl Rove is attacking Obama for sinking to traditional political dirty tricks but fails to provide an example. Months ago he was trying to advise Obama on how to beat Hillary. What does this mean? The Republicans are afraid of Obama. I’d call that a strong endorsement.

Speaking of which the punditry seems to be waiting for Richardson and Kennedy to issue their endorsements which may never come. What I want to know is how Bono feels.

In case there was any doubt let me state for the record that I support Obama 95%, Kucinich 3%, and Edwards 2%. On the Republican side I admit to being far less informed but I currently like McCain and Huckabee. I think they would be a good ticket and is just about the only chance the Republicans would have against Obama.

Well it seems RRSP season has struck with a one-two punch, my mom must be thrilled as RRSP season is the closest thing the bank has to a busy season. On the same day commercials began to run  I received my receipt for last year’s contributions which were about 13% of what I contributed the previous year. I’ll admit I’m worried about tax time. I used to look forward to it, a settling of the previous year’s accounts and generally a refund of some kind.

This year is different because it’s all a great mystery right now. The tax breaks of having a child but penalties for living with my family are largely unknown at t is point, not to mention the government’s fiddling. Only once before did tax time bring bad news but what bad news! I owed $1,000! Only a bail-out from my mom kept that from being a problem. Thanks to her intervention it went from a problem to jump-starting my retirement savings.

I can’t expect similar intervention if things go south again. It’s such a question mark right now. I could owe a grand again or I could have as much coming back to me. I loathe uncertainty, particularly when we’re talking about this kind of money, even moreso given the recent depletion of my savings. It’s not like I can drop 4 grand into my RRSP to make any potential tax debt go away.

To put this in perspective though I’m only about 10% as worried about tax time as I was about day care.

What’s that you say? ‘Was’? As in past tense? Did you read that right? Yes you did. Thanks to some work and figuring by my partner day care is looking like it might not be crippling afterall. I’m not getting my hopes up as I won’t completely believe it until  we’ve got a couple months under our belts but I am letting go of some of my fear. Seriously, my biggest fear since finding out I was going to be a dad was day care costs.

Global warming, criminals, conservatives, terrorists, rabid dogs, cancer, heart attack, car accidents, electrocution, airplane turbulence didn’t have anything on day care costs in terms of fear. Amusement park thrill rides had a muted effect on me because they didn’t have the same likelihood of hurting me as badly as day care costs. So suffice to say I’m sleeping a lot better.

Okay let’s start off with the side that makes sense, the Republicans. (Did I just say that?)

McCain won with 37% which is neither a surprise nor upsetting, frankly I sincerely hope he gets the nomination. Romney came in second, no surprise there. Huckabee in third as predicted. Giuliani took forth which was both surprising and discouraging. Paul is still alive in fifth for some reason. Thompson came in sixth and Hunter in dead last where he belongs.

Should Hunter drop out? Well let’s see thus far he’s come in seventh twice and third once. He has a grand total of one delegate. Face the music dude.

I admit I’m a little discouraged by the margin McCain won by, only 5%. I was hoping for a bit more of an ass whooping but in the end it was a lead of only about 13,000 votes. Will McCain be able to build up some momentum? I hope so but will it last until Super Tuesday sadly I have to admit this is unlikely but stranger things have happened, just look at the Democratic results for New Hampshire.

Uh. I guess I should do exactly that, shouldn’t I? Do I have to? Wouldn’t you rather hear more about how AvP: R sucked or what happened to me on the bus today? No? Alright, fine.

So Hillary won with 39% and a lead of about 7,000 votes a mere 2% ahead of Obama.

The pundits are going nuts.

Firstly because all the polls were dead wrong in terms of predicting the future. Frankly I’m a little surprised by this as anyone who took stats knows polls are only so accurate as well as the problems of SLOP (Self-Selecting Opinion Polls – not a perfect acronym but that’s what they call it in academia). Plus any Poli Sci major could tell you that polls often influence what happens. Think about it, you see your guy in dead last you may not want to throw your vote away, or you see your guy in second you may do what you can to get others to vote for him as well as yourself, or you see your guy in such a substantial lead you decide to stay home and watch Rocky & Bullwinkle in your underwear. The point is, polls take at best an inaccurate but educated guess at what people are thinking right now. Releasing those results may change people’s thinking. As well people change their minds for a variety of issues. If polls were so accurate why would candidates do all that last minute campaigning? Their jobs depend on these things and they don’t trust the polls so why should pundits believe them to be sacrosanct?

Secondly, they’re crawling all over each other trying to explain WHY they were wrong. Did Hillary’s ‘tears’ cause her upswing? Perhaps but since she didn’t actually cry I think we should all check our language on this one. Others have suggested it was a backlash to the ‘Iron My Shirt’ prank which, while hilarious, I can’t help but wonder who was behind it given its final outcome. Hillary had 13% more of the female vote than Obama so where the votes came from isn’t the question, WHY they came is the source of the speculation. Did they feel sorry for her? Is it a backlash? Do we REALLY need to dust off the ‘glass ceiling’ metaphor? As interesting as all that may be none of it is particularly relevant unless there is a possibility of it repeating in other states so perhaps we should just move on.

One thing I will say, Hillary’s victory lead to one hell of a speech from Obama. My partner says she saw someone crying in the audience, I can understand why. Shortly before his assassination MLK seemed to predict his own passing but encouraged people not to despair for he had seen the Promised Land; Obama IS that Promised Land and not because of the colour of his skin but for the things that he is saying, the content of his character if you will. Obama mentioned both MLK and JFK in his speech. Was he giving in to people trying to draw the parallels? Was he putting himself up beside them on the same level? No. He was citing them as inspiration. They set us on a path we have strayed from recently but he wants to continue to fight for their ideals, ideals that were immensely popular at the time and have resonated in the American consciousness ever since. There’s good there, Bush just hid it very well not just from the rest of the world but from the American people themselves. Thankfully a few have not forgotten and the populace is starving for it. He sees the good in the common man and even those who would be his enemy and he acknowledges, accepts, and promotes it. Gene Roddenberry would have loved this guy. You can point fingers at others or the status quo, you can talk about how great you are and all the things you can do better or have done better than someone else but Obama’s not interested in that – it’s not constructive. He has a philosophy of inclusiveness predicated on values, honour, respect, integrity, and you can feel it when he talks. He doesn’t want to beat out other candidates because he’s better than they are or because he disagrees with them, he wants to beat them because they won’t listen to or work with the other side to make things better. A vote for Obama is not a vote against anyone else and no matter what anyone else in the campaign does, you cannot reproduce it with the same quality and you can’t oppose it because it accepts you and that is why he will be the next president.

While watching The American President last week my partner asked why we never see speechs like the one at the end of that film in real life. At the end of Obama’s speech I turned to her and said “now you do”.

An Obama presidency is something you can feel good about and be passionate about, the elusive passionate moderate Jon Stewart doubted would ever come. And you can feel that passion not out of anger or frustration with the ‘enemy’ but out of hope.

Obama’s book is called The Audacity of Hope and while I regret to admit I haven’t read it his campaign could easily be called The Power of Hope. Because it seems hope can overpower anger, you just need someone audacious enough to make it a part of the conversation and people will come running to the table.

It’s refreshing and powerful and meaningful enough to bring a tear to your eye, no matter where you live.

Oh, right, other candidates.

Edwards at 17%, he’d make a good running mate.

Richardson at 5% announced today that he is dropping out of the race which I think is a wise choice that makes Gravel look like an idiot who’s lost touch with reality. If the guy who had 19 delegates to your 0 delegates drops out, and you’re not bringing important points or agenda-setting like Kucinich then you need to step the hell down. Here’s a fun fact: Richardson got twice as many votes as separated Clinton from Obama. Kinda makes it a whole new ball game, don’t you think? And if you listen to pundits who claim Richardson’s support came from Latino communities where do you think they’re going to take their votes?

Update: Do you think I could hack it as a serious political blogger? We might just find out if there’s any substance to these ramblings of mine as I just submitted the following comment to The Cafferty File in response to the question “After New Hampshire, will you trust the polls again?”

I think the problem here isn’t the polls or even the polling methods but the importance given the polls by the media. The polls only tell part of the story and were those numbers taken in an appropriate context a poll or indeed all polls not accurately predicting the future wouldn’t be viewed as such a betrayal. I will trust polls exactly the same as I did before, which is only to a certain logical point. They tell you what a certain group of people think at a particular time but that is subject to change as well as the methodology of the poll. Frequently people without land lines, those who only have cell phones or too poor to have a phone, are not polled. People need to be home at a certain time to be reached, these people have to agree to provide their opinions - those 3 factors alone limit the diversity of the pool you select from. It’s not wrong or flawed methodology; it’s just the reality of polls than many pundits seem to have forgotten. Polls are a single data point in a mosaic. Even if you had all the possible data points, hard and soft, you still couldn’t accurately predict what will happen otherwise I’d make a killing betting on political contests. I think many pundits (present company excluded) rely too heavily on polls and take them as hard indisputable facts but these “facts” need to be filtered with common sense and educated, informed, and in-depth analysis.

If any of the above makes it to air, please let me know as I may not catch it.

When my partner first expressed her interest in this film I was surprised. When she told me how much she liked the first film I was shocked. I hadn’t seen it yet but it just didn’t seem to fit her personality. Even she, a fan of the franchise(s) was very quick to admit how horrible a movie this was. Seeing it was her idea/request, she’s still apologizing.

Despite negative reviews I was encouraged for 2 reasons. One, the first film received largely negative reviews but was decent enough. Two, Reiko Aylesworth was the female lead.

Poor Reiko.

It was like all the worst parts of Michelle Dessler in a bit part. The blonde teenage horror movie slut stereotype actually had more dialogue but to call her female lead would have acknowledged that it wasn’t an action or scifi flick but a teenage slasher film. Wes Craven would have laughed his ass off. I giggled a few times at it’s campiness.

Only one thing could have saved this film, well actually 3 things: Crow, Tom Servo, and Joel or Mike.

It’s a countdown to the RiffTrax.

MSNBC set up a poll for visitors to predict who would carry the day in New Hampshire; with over 36,000 responses the poll has McCain with 63% and Obama with 73%.

Apparently there is a tradition in New Hampshire for the two hamlets closest to the Canadian border to have their vote in a just-past midnight early bird. This seems a little gimmicky to me, one woman of the 46 who voted said she was going to close her eyes and randomly mark a ballot for example however who would go out to vote at midnight besides her that didn’t care about the results? It seems a wasted effort to me. So here are the results from those 2 polls…

Democrats
Obama – 70%
Edwards – 13%
Clinton – 13%
Richardson – 4%
Kucinich – 0%
Gravel – 0%

Republicans
McCain – 43%
Huckabee – 22%
Paul – 17%
Romney – 13%
Giuliani – 4%
Thompson – 0%
Hunter – 0%

So I’m very happy with how things are looking so far. Why did I bother posting the results you may ask, well the major news websites only referred to votes cast in the body of their articles. I had to crunch the numbers myself for the percentages which I think puts things in a different perspective. Oh well, this is largely academic anyway given the tiny numbers we’re talking about. Unfortunately I have to work tonight so hopefully my partner will keep me appraised via text messaging as real (i.e. statistically significant) results come in.

Update: Bill Clinton has come out swinging against Obama but his comments essentially boil down to “I’ve seen things you haven’t, so just trust me he’s a bad guy” so while the initial shock of two Democratic heavyweights in disagreement was jarring the substance of the comment seems somewhat absent. I think this will likely counter the near-crying episode Hillary had the other day but likely won’t gain any further ground. Also rumours are coming out that the Clinton campaign is debating the merits of dropping out of the Nevada and South Carolina rounds. Apparently Obama has secured the support of the Culianry Workers Union in Nevada and the large African-American population in South Carolina isn’t likely to slow down his march to the nomination even if they did like Hillary more, which they probably don’t. As well rumours are surfacing about the Clinton camp exploring the possibility of creating an ‘independent’ 527 group ala The Swiftboats Veterans For Truth to discredit Obama without direct connection to the Hillary camp. Apparently one of the big roadblocks they’re facing is no one in the Democratic party wants to quarterback the effort for fear they would become a pariah within the party, particularly in the eyes of President Obama. Other than Bill’s comments these all look like very bad news items for Hillary. I can’t say I’m upset about it though. Did we really expect her to go down without a fight?

As if that wasn’t enough to make for a fun news day it seems the Secret Service had to remove Bill O’Reilly from an Obama rally after he verbally assaulted and pushed an Obama staffer demanding that he get out of the way so O’Reilly could get to Obama. O’Reilly called the staffer a “low class son of a bitch” and said, and I quote “No one on this earth is going block a shot on the O’Reilly Factor. It is not going to happen.” I guess the Secret Service doesn’t count as some one on earth because they stopped him. O’Reilly later defended his behaviour by saying “I had no choice, ladies and gentlemen, but to uphold the Constitution,” specifically he felt he had to defend the “freedom of the press” by calling the staffer a “son of a bitch“. Looks like Bob Novak may have some competition for the Douchebag Of Liberty Award for 2008.

Update: Colin Powell, the first African American National Security Advisor, Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has come out in support of Barack Obama saying that he is “taking joy” in Obama’s success and wants to encourage Americans to “enjoy this moment where a person like Barack Obama can knock down all of these old barriers that people thought existed with respect to the opportunities that are available to African Americans”. He went on to say “This argument about him not being black enough, that’s just absolute nonsense. He is putting himself forward not as a black man but as an American man who wants to be president of the United States of America. We should see Barack as a candidate for president who happens to be black, and not a black candidate for president”. I always liked Powell, when he wasn’t being use as a pawn that is.

Back to New Hampshire, some towns are apparently running low on ballots…but only the blue ones.

The media has been noticing that Obama’s New Hampshire speeches have had national themes rather than local content as the other candidates have been focusing on. Many have begun to speculate that this is Obama’s way of beginning to focus on his message for his campaign for November once he has the nomination. Kerry found his message in the dying days of his campaign, Obama hasn’t even won the nomination yet and he’s refining his message.

Another Clinton misstep: While introducing Hillary at a rally someone had this to say to the crowd, “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated.” Not cool.

…and by that I mean ‘correct’ not ‘Republican’.

Democrats

Obama
Not only did he carry the day with 38% of the vote but apparently his speech afterwards is being called the most important and inspirational of this election thus far, too bad I missed it. Now he has a healthy 10-point lead on Hillary in New Hampshire. This should be good. I know Republicans who are ready to vote for him.

Edwards
Came in second with 30%, I would have predicted this but I was concerned I was letting wishful thinking guide my predictions – either way I’m happy about this result. And now he’s saying he wants to come in second to Obama in New Hampshire. Good man, Edwards.

Clinton
Came in third with 29% of the popular vote but gets one more delegate than Edwards, thankfully no one’s really paying attention to that. Does the steamroller that is the Obama campaign toll for Hillary? Let’s hope.

Richardson
Came in fourth with 2%, so I thought Biden might beat him but I did acknowledge that it would be neck-and-neck. Nice of him to stay in the running I think.

Biden
Came in fifth with 1%, I was surprised to hear he was dropping out at first but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. The fact is, it was inevitable, so why waste the time and money?

Dodd
He finally faced reality, good for him. Now we can narrow our field of discussion a bit and better focus our efforts.

Gravel
I thought he had dropped out shortly after Iowa but it turns out that was a mistake by MSNBC. He’s had a lot of support online and been able to raise some pretty significant funds for someone not well recognized. Apparently Noam Chomsky is backing him so despite his poor showing in Iowa, he’s not out of the game yet.

Kucinich
No surprise there, he did the right thing and I think people will respect him for it going forward.

Republicans

Huckabee
Who knew? Granted I predicted he would gain ground but I was as surprised as most at his strong showing. I saw his interview with Larry King afterwards and despite some negative slip-ups late in the campaign he struck me as a man of honour. And he stole Obama’s talking points but seemed to acknowledge that it was a matter of good ideas being evaluated on merit rather than their source. Is Huckabee jumping on a bandwagon or is he the genuine article? Will it matter in the long run? Time will tell but one thing is for sure his win reframed the debate into more constructive terms. I doubt we’ll ever see a President Huckabee but we might have a better race because of his contribution.

Romney
Odd how Obama’s 8-point lead looks crushing but Huckabee’s 9-point lead doesn’t seem to encourage anyone to speculate that Romney is out or that the Republican field has even narrowed. I guess McCain’s strategizing is throwing a bit of a monkey wrench into the traditional predictive conventions – good for him but more of him later.

Thompson
Thompson beat McCain? Thompson?! Recount! I demand a recount! It’s 4 days after the fact and there’s still only 98% reporting? Thompson’s lead is 345 and there are still approximately 2,400 votes not yet counted? Sounds like them crazy vote-rigging Republicans are back to their old tricks. Good thing Obama’s crushing victory in November will be such a landslide that a little data massaging won’t be able to turn the tides this time.

McCain
McCain is a military man and he’s approaching this campaign with a strategic bent. He’s concentrating on the important targets to win the war rather than some blanket campaign war of attrition and frankly I’m very glad (and not just a little relieved) to see it. McCain put virtually no effort into Iowa and yet he came in 4th, or perhaps 3rd. Can you imagine how well he would have done if this was a more important target in the Republican battleground? People are already predicting his Obama-like win in New Hampshire.

Paul
10%, who saw that coming? Well I certainly didn’t given my prediction that he’d drop out after a bad showing. Weird. The Crypt Keeper is still in it.

Giuliani
Now I know I predicted he would lose ground but I don’t think anyone imagined just how poorly he would do. Just one of the reasons Iowa made me less fearful of Americans and more hopeful for the future.

Hunter
You know, Biden took only getting 1% of the vote in Iowa as a sign and did the right thing, why didn’t you? And who are you again?

Quote of the night: “We’re not going to have an auction, we’re going to have an election” –Edwards

Addendum: Wyoming

Romney
See? I told you we hadn’t heard the last of him.

Thompson
Seriously, what is it with this guy? When did he become such a serious candidate as to marginalize McCain? Granted McCain hasn’t made his big play yet but nevertheless Thompson coming in second anywhere is a bit of a shock, unless of course it was behind McCain.

Hunter
Who is this guy and why won’t he die? Granted he only got 8% of the vote and only 1 delegate but nevertheless he beat out 4 people with greater name recognition and policy promotion. How?

Giuliani
Another defeat for Mr. 911. Can’t say I’m upset about it.

Huckabee
He must feel like someone tapped the breaks when he was speeding. Wyoming isn’t critical but it must be a tiny bit discouraging nevertheless.

McCain
I don’t want to talk about it.

Paul
Who cares? Just reality re-asserting itself.

New Hampshire

So the democrats are in a 6-person race, let’s take a quick look.

Obama
Did he win the presidency last week? I still think so. Crush ‘em Obama, crush ‘em with respect, honour, and dignity.

Edwards
Hopes to come in second to Obama. I hope so too.

Clinton
Why does CNN keep doing their best to make it look like she’s doing better than in reality? If there’s one poll that says she’s 10 points behind and one that say 9 points, they write about the 9-point poll. If she came in 3rd in Iowa, they find delegates and superdelegates that have pledged support to make it look like she’s in first. But what’s really going on? A supporter asked her about her hair and she nearly broke down into tears over pizza. Of course nothing could stop CNN from reporting on that.

Richardson
Look, on the Democratic side of things it will largely be a repeat of Iowa but with fewer players and bigger gaps. Obama first, Edwards second, Hillary third, Richardson fourth. I said it before and I’ll say it again he’ll drop out after Nevada fails to do for him what New Hampshire is likely to do for McCain.

Kucinich
Do you think he feels bad about Iowa? I doubt it. Like I said, replay.

Gravel
Will he get the message this time? I hope so.

It’s an election year for the highest office this side of the UN so grab your hopes and dreams and don’t forget the popcorn.

The Iowa primary coming so close after New Years really kicks things into gear early. Keep in mind I watch election results the way some people watch the Super Bowl. I took a night out of my Vegas trip to watch the midterms for Pete’s sake.

It’s great political theatre, the stakes couldn’t be much higher, the candidates aren’t too scary and the speculation, mmm, it’s delicious.

As I write this it’s still a day before Iowa and I’m still praying Obama and McCain deliver crushing victories. The world and my blood pressure would both be better off.

But what about those names not on the ballot? Who do I wish were in the game?

#1 - Howard Dean
The guy made a funny noise years ago, I think we’ve moved on. He’s brilliant and charismatic, I’d love to see Obama crush him.

#2 - Wesley Clark
Brilliant and qualified, brings further legitimacy to the Iraq debate.

#3 - Ralph Nader
Face it, you’re more of a Democrat than a Republican, why not join a team that can win and change things from the inside?

#4 - Martin Sheen
You laugh now, give it time I say.

#5 - Al Sharpton
Run as a Republican, hijack the agenda with #7 below. I want to make an Undercover Brother joke but I’m afraid.

#6 - Vilsack!
I’d buy a duck. Vilsack!

#7 - Stephen Colbert
Run as a Republican nation-wide, make a total mockery of the party.

#8 - Noam Chomsky
Is he still alive?

#9 - Clone JFK
I’ll run the nature versus nurture risk on this long shot even if it is illegal, we stand too much to gain.

#10 - Ross Perot
Is he still alive? Run as an Independent and split the crazy-right-wing-f*cker vote.

People you’d think I’d want to run but don’t…

#1 - Jon Stewart
He’d split the vote on the left.

#2 - Bill Maher
He’s better at critiquing than making policy alternatives, he’ll tell you so.

#3 - How About A Green Party?
See #1

#4 - Al Gore
While I’d love to see him mix it up with the leash off I don’t think my poor old heart would survive going through that again - I’m going to be 30 in a few years after all.

#5 - Traffic Pylon
See #1

#6 - David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert)
Writer’s Strike and even if not they’re needed on 24.

#7 - Roberto Luongo
Some people don’t understand politics.

#8 - William Shatner
See #7. Nimoy maybe…

#9 - Jon Cassar
Needed on 24, plus he’d blow it all up cuz it’s fun.

#10 - Me
It sounds like an awful lot of work

#11 - Optimus Prime
Too busy on Transformers sequel

Didn’t really do much this year, just had a special dinner and shared a bottle of Champagne. The kid more-or-less slept through it. I didn’t mind any of it though, I didn’t really feel like going out this year.

I don’t really feel like doing the year-in-review thing this year so I think I’ll focus on resolutions…

1) More anonymity in the blog
2) Be a better Dad
3) Survive Daycare
4) Have better hair
5) Support my girlfriend’s quest to make our family mobile

I admit I phoned it in with the resolutions this year. I could vow to try harder next year but that just sounds like work.

CNN has a fascinating article on what’s at stake in Iowa for the Democratic candidates; I thought I would wade in on the issue before the results tonight.

Barack Obama
Beat Clinton and you’re the president. That’s it. You don’t have to come in first, everyone else can spank you but so long as you beat Clinton you’ll be president. The slightest amount of momentum is all you need to bury this thing, show you can beat Hillary and no one can stop you…unless racism comes back. Barack recently said he expects a high turnout in Iowa because he’s seen lots of people at speeches in really bad weather so he thinks the Iowa electorate is engaged - no other candidate has made similar remarks. I believe this is because more people are turning out for Obama than the others. Why? They want to meet the next president.

Dennis Kucinich
He’s encouraged Iowa voters to make Obama their second choice. This means he knows he’ll lose in the first round, not expecting to make the 15% threshold and wants to support Obama in the second round. This kind of maneuvering makes for good VP material if you ask me. I’d love to see an Obama/Kucinich ticket; I think it’s the best possible outcome ideologically once we accept Obama/McCain will never happen.

John Edwards
Come in the top 3 and you’re still in the race - don’t make the top three and it’s time to decide if you want to support Obama or Clinton and make a grab for the VP spot again. As much as I’d love to see Kucinich as a running mate Edwards is the guy that would mitigate any risk one might feel voting for Obama or Clinton. He’s safe but not exciting – excellent VP material. If Obama/Kucinich is best ideologically then Obama/Edwards is best strategically.

Hillary Clinton
If Obama beats you, he’s the next president - if you beat him narrowly, it’s still a race. It you beat him by a wide margin you can probably take Edwards down and get the nomination. Then you’ll lose to McCain or someone when the actual election comes around.

Bill Richardson
Come in the top 4 Bill. It’s sad to see the low expectations people have for you, show them you’re still relevant by making the top 4 and keep fighting. You never know, you could be VP or be a serious contender next cycle.

Joe Biden
As the CNN fellow says double digits will keep him going and I think having him in the conversation improves it. He won’t crack the top 3 though, mark my words. He and Richardson will fight for 4th since Kucinich is throwing his weight behind Obama second round.

Mike Gravel
Sadly I must agree with the CNN boys, he won’t survive this caucus with anything more than Joe-mentum level support. Will he face facts and drop out so we can focus on the big boys? Hopefully as I’d hate to see more of that Joe-mentum defiance of reality.

Chris Dodd
Accept facts, President Dodd will never happen. Throw any support you may have behind Obama now and save yourself the embarrassment of a single-digit showing.

Okay, fine, I’ll do it. Predictions… (Latest poll percentage in parenthesis)

#1 - Barack Obama (30%)
The voters in Iowa will realize he’s less vulnerable to Republican attack. Hillary can be attacked on relevant grounds; all they can do to Obama is make fun of his name. They could attack his experience but a general disdain for Washington insiders is part of the ‘conventional wisdom’ that comes part and parcel with the fear-mongering and other mainstays of the Republican Party during an election cycle. Also, you wave a picture of Hillary at a GOP fundraiser and the cash comes pouring in, do the same with Obama and you have to accept a contribution from the KKK. The second round will see his numbers increase with Kucinich and other supporters moving over when their guys don’t break 15% in the first round.

#2 - Hillary Clinton (40%)
Much as it pains me to admit, she’s the game to beat. But her inconsistencies, background, and support for the Iraq war in her voting record will end up costing her. The Republicans would like her to win the nomination as they’ll have a field day with attack ads, the same cannot be said for any other candidate. I don’t think her numbers will go up in the second round; you’re either with her or you’re not, she’s nobody’s second choice.

#3 - John Edwards (15%)
Just look at the polls, the top 3 is already decided it’s just a matter of who gets which spot. We’ll probably see an increase in his numbers in the second round.

#4 - Joe Biden (4%)
Kucinich will drop out in the first round; Biden looks more presidential than the other remaining candidates.

#5 - Bill Richardson (4%)
Will be eliminated first round. He may get double digits but he won’t break 15% first round. He’ll find just enough support to keep going until he can try and cash in on the Hispanic vote in Nevada, but by then they’ll be mostly supporting Obama preferring to vote strategically for someone who can win rather than voting along purely racial lines.

#6 - Dennis Kucinich (2%)
Will be eliminated first round. Dennis knows he won’t reach 15% and has planned accordingly.

#7 - Mike Gravel (<1%)
Will be eliminated first round. Won’t break double digits first round but will pull ahead of Dodd when things get serious.

#8 - Chris Dodd (2%)
Will be eliminated first round. But will he get the message?

Predicted Fallout
Gravel and Dodd will call it a day, everyone else will move along to New Hampshire. Richardson will drop out after failing to deliver high enough numbers in Nevada on the 19th. Biden will drop out after the South Carolina primary and Kucinich will either stay with it to end without becoming a serious threat to the top three or bow out at some point before Super Tuesday and throw all his weight behind Obama. Obama will win the nomination with Edwards as a running mate as things got too heated with Hillary for quick reconciliation. All the Republicans would have to do is make a commercial with creative editing of them sparring and you destroy any credibility of a united Democratic front. But Obama/Edwards will crush the GOP in November and the world will breath a profound sigh of relief.

To summarize and further beat the dead horse what this all comes down to is Clinton versus Obama. If Obama wins the Democrats have this thing in the bag, if Clinton wins we’ve got a long hard fight ahead of us.

On the other side I see Paul and Hunter dropping out after abysmal showings, Giuliani losing some ground but still remaining relevant; Huckabee, Romney, and McCain all gain ground. Thompson’s impossible to predict at this time. If the Republicans knew what they were doing they’d send McCain to beat the democrats at their own game but thus far it seems they either haven’t figured that out or care about other things more.

Depending on who gets the nominations I may just host a party election night that may or may not include a suspension of the Swear Jar. If it’s interesting like Obama/Edwards versus McCain/Anyone then let’s do it but if it’s boring like Edwards/Biden versus Huckabee/Romney I’d probably fall asleep mid-results and that wouldn’t make for a good party.

Update: There are conflicting reports that Bill Richardson’s camp is lending it’s support to Obama in areas in which they don’t reach the 15% threshold. With Kucinich already having stated this publicly estimates say at least half of the second tier votes would be earmarked for Obama in the second round. As well conflicting polls contradict the numbers mentioned earlier, some polls have Obama above Hillary and Edwards’ gap to Hillary much closer, perhaps as close as within 2%. This is going to be interesting.

Update: This just in, now it seems rumours are circulating that Biden’s camp is backing Obama as a second choice. Although it’s suspect because the reports claim this deal was made to swing Obama overflow to Biden to defeat Richardson which contradict prior reports regarding Richardson. I suppose it could be possible that both are true but at different locations. Either way I take these reports as good signs. It’s like I said, Hillary’s no one’s second choice.

Update: Meanwhile on the other side Republicans are tearing themselves apart with dirty in-fighting. It’s like Christmas for us left-leaners. It’s not enough that Huckabee and Romney were launching attack ads at each other recently or that McCain recently expressed annoyance at Ron Paul as a spoiler in Iowa without a national campaign (and why I was barely aware of his existence) but they’ve now taken it up a notch. Or perhaps more accurately, down a level.

The Huckabee camp is claiming that Romney is sabotaging them by sending false addresses for precinct locations to known Huckabee supporters. The Romney camp fired back with the same accusation. A little, and I do mean little, investigating turned up that an e-mail from GOP HQ contained some errors that lead to all of this. The tiniest glitch and they tear each other apart and the first primary hasn’t even begun! Meanwhile the Democrats are too busy supporting each other. Headlines I’ve seen include things like “Democrats Predict Record Turnout, Republicans Predict Reasonable Turnout“.

It looks like the midterms were just an appetizer for the Bush backlash. The Republican party is falling apart and the strongest Democratic contender is raising an army.

I was going to post about my New Years resolutions when an e-mail from Michael Moore reminded me the Iowa primary is tomorrow. I want to get my thoughts in on the subject before results are made public. Given the short time frame don’t expect in-depth analysis here. Some candidates I have been following somewhat regularly, others only intermittently show up on my radar. These are just some overall feelings.

I’m not going to predict what will happen; who knows what lurks in the minds of party-affiliated Americans? But I do have several thoughts on who I would like to see do well and who should be thrown into a pit – actually it’s the current administration I’d like to reserve that privilege for, none of the current candidates upset me so.

Democrats

Choice 1 – Barack Obama

It’s not just the sound of his voice that makes me pray for him to be our savior; the content of his speeches, ideas, and character, his views on the present and plans for the future provide the brightest beacon of hope for the future in a period of dark fearful dystopia. I hear tell he’s of a racial minority and that it would be some kind of milestone, frankly I just want him to prevent a premature End of Days. Think about it this way: even if you disagree with his policies who better to make peace with radical elements than a member of a minority whose only substantial flaw his opponents have been able to attack is his name? He’s slick, charismatic, and seems untouchable in terms of mud-slinging – Clinton without the women if you will. I also hold out semi-secret hope that his plan for national health care might help subvert recent trends in my own country towards privatization.

Choice 2 – Dennis Kucinich

Now in terms of policy agreement and experience Kucinich kicks Obama in the nuts in my opinion but he’s textbook unelectable as president. Were he to come in second and later score the VP slot on the ticket I would be very pleased. Sadly it’s likely the highest office he could ever attain simply because a television-watching electorate does not elect a Munchkin. I mean it, I look at him and I think about the Wizard of Oz; I can’t help it – it’s completely unfair but we can’t ignore reality. Although in more relevant terms he also lacks the charisma and leadership Obama seems to come by quite naturally and seems less of a consensus-builder than Obama. If he were to win the nomination the Democrats would not gain the White House but it’d be a fight worth losing. Nevertheless his ideas are brilliant and he must stay in the debate if for no other reason than to help frame the agenda.

Choice 3 – John Edwards

He wins over Hillary and Richardson by a nose for me by the simple fact that I trust him more and his reasoning seems more sound. Plus he has the name recognition and seems to have gotten out of the previous run reasonably unscathed by Kerry’s half-assed attempt to formulate a message.

Choice 4 – Hillary Clinton

Hillary’s behaviour since declaring her intention to run has only served to lower her standing in my eyes. She’s inconsistent and that leads to trust issues not just with the voters but internationally were she to take office. Michael Moore made an interesting suggestion that her support of the war in Iraq was largely to convince the voting public that she’s Thatcher-esque enough to stand up to the bad guys – as Moore himself alludes such weakness of character is a cause for concern. She beats out Richardson largely due to name recognition – I’d like someone who could win.

Choice 5 – Bill Richardson

A sense of humour and interesting ideas is a tempting mix for my support.

Choice 6 – Joe Biden

Another well-reasoned person. Even if we may disagree on some issues of policy I would have faith that the process by which he reaches a decision would be sound and have merit.

Choice 7 – Mike Gravel

A little too fringe for my comfort level (direct democracy is the least of our worries) but also a reasoned individual with a sense of humour. He may have some firm ideas (such as reforming the tax code) but at least I get the sense that he would seriously consider opposing viewpoints based on merit rather than source before moving on anything.

Choice 8 – Chris Dodd

Sorry Chris but you’re this election cycle’s Howard Dean (why isn’t HE running?) – you’ve become a joke and a parody of yourself. Had Vilsack not dropped out even he would have crushed you. (Vilsack!)

Republicans

Choice 1 – John McCain

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, despite his rare retreat to the base I would support this man even if he ran with Hitler. The fact is he’s a hero, a man of thoughtful informed conviction, and a sense of humour. We may disagree on policy items but he would bring a sense of honour back to the presidency long since forgotten.

Choice 2 – Mike Huckabee

Another Republican with a sincere sense of humour, I thought they stopped making those. We strongly differ on certain issues like abortion and same-sex marriage (hell, he’s a Republican, what do you expect?) however any person who can look at his own party with a critical eye and condemn it of racism on the issue of immigration is worthy of attention as he is not just willing to accept ‘conventional wisdom’ or the party line which has lead us down so many dangerous roads.

Choice 3 – Fred Thompson

He seems to embody the old Republican motto that ‘the government that governs least governs best’ – well when it comes to Republicans in charge of anything I can get behind that for the simple reason that it would seem to limit the potential damage they could cause. He’s also willing to admit the current administration has made mistakes. In the last decade that’s a huge step for any Republican – until the last couple years there seemed a unanimous consensus that Caesar could do no wrong in abject defiance of mountains of evidence and common sense.

Choice 4 – Mitt Romney

So he’s a Mormon, big deal – you would be shocked by how little I care about the underwear choices and caffeine intake of the president. The worst thing he seems to have been pegged with was a poor choice in rhetorically comparing his sons help with the campaign to serving the country – if that’s the worst he gets we aren’t in too much danger. Hell, a slipup like that still makes him look like Shakespeare next to Bush the second. Haven’t we all had a metaphor or other rhetorical device get away from us on occasion? And his fluctuating stance on gay rights tells me there’s some room there and that would be a good thing as it could go either way.

Choice 5 – Rudy Giuliani

This man will lead us off a cliff with that smile. Since entering the race he’s proven just one thing: that’s he’s an opportunist. Prior to that he established himself as a strong leader which is why he didn’t get the last spot in my list. But that’s mitigated by my opinion that he’s the only candidate in both parties that I could see continuing Bush’s “legacy” albeit more articulately.

Choice 6 – Tie: Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter

Who are these people? I seem to recall hearing Ron Paul speak on a show or perhaps at the debate and mildly impressing me but he seems so frail you’d need to think long and hard about that running mate.

Note: You’ll notice I mention sense of humour frequently in the above. The reason for this is deceptively important, for the man or woman who can sincerely laugh at themselves is a person who can take a good hard look at their own position and re-evaluate it based on new information. If there’s one thing the current administration lacks its self-awareness and an ability to consider alternate points of view. If you can laugh at yourself you must be able to see things from another person’s point of view as well as accept the possibility of your own fallacy. This makes you stronger and the world safer.