Primary Fatigue
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)
