More Politics? Why Not...

fred's big debut

well, fred thompson had his official coming out party this afternoon by attending his first republican debate.

how was he....?

as roger simon put it: he wasn’t terrible. he wasn’t great. he was just “eh.”

there were no "soviet union" remarks or dismissives of the terri schiavo case.... instead, thompson was simply overshadowed by the bickering between rudy and romney.

just about everything i've read and watched gave the debate to rudy.... but chuck todd points out that the format favors both giuliani and romney in the first place. but when asked who up there looked like they could go head to head against hillary...? the answer was clear: rudy.

"romney is playing to the conservative head," chuck says. "rudy is playing to the conservative gut."

while fred stumbled at the beginning and had a nice remark about the race being "pretty boring" before he showed up.... rudy was smart enough to attack hillary and romney at the same time.

romney....for his part....said he would have to check with his attorneys before attacking iran's nuclear facilities.

um....mitt? a couple of points of fact: 1) the GOP cheers when you want to increase the amount of torture at gitmo. no need to be delicate. they want you to blow the shit out of iran.... 2) lawyers? really? you're bringing up lawyers in a room full of republicans? did you not see the attacks against edwards in 2004?

anyway.... nothing spectacular really. so let's look at poll numbers instead!

new hampshire & south carolina

i've been talking a lot about iowa the past several days. and i always seem to allude to hillary's strength in other primary states. how 'bout some specifics?

a cnn poll conducted by the university of new hampshire shows hillary waaaaaay out front with 41% of the vote. her closest rival: obama at 19%. the remainder of the field: edwards 11%, gore 7%, richardson 6% and on and on......

a cnn/opinion research poll shows clinton also ahead in south carolina with 39% of the respondents. obama comes in second, again, with 25% and edwards comes in at 15%.

so...you see why barack and johnny boy need to win iowa. if they can get something going there.... maybe it will snowball through tsunami tuesday.

but hill is looking formidable.

oh....but could we PLEASE stop with all the inevitability talk? as al michaels and john madden might say... let's not put the kibosh on my girl.

michigan

well....i wasn't going to talk about michigan tonight, but why not?

the wolverine state has decided to move up its democratic primary before the cutoff point set down by the dnc of february 5th. this has upset the powers that be.

while all of the dems have already pledged not to campaign in michigan... five have now moved to have their names removed from the primary ballot: obama, edwards, richardson, biden and kucinich.

biden is calling the michigan primary a "beauty contest" and trying to limit its impact.... especially with the majority of candidates out. but if no one is campaigning in the first place, why the more extreme move?

bill schneider of cnn explains: "if there's no campaign, the candidate most likely to win michigan is hillary clinton. her democratic rivals don't want a clinton victory in michigan to count. they want iowa and new hampshire, where they have a better chance of stopping clinton, to count more."

but what does this mean down the road....? i mean, florida is in the same predicament. do we as a party want two pivotal states pissed at the dems once we move into the general election?

now...i'm all for protecting the history of iowa, new hampshire and south carolina going first. but why do these states get so much say in presidential politics?

well, apparently, they take it all very seriously.... spending most weekends during primary season out with notepads, taking notes, listening to the candidates.... would other states put so much effort into it?

not sure... so let's say for the sake of history and tradition for now.

back to michigan..... schneider goes on to say that hillary may benefit from even a non-competitive win in michigan for no other reason than "it will earn her a lot of good will in michigan if the state schedules a later caucus to pick its delegates."

i guess bill is saying.... it's still all very fluid. it could all still change.

but now that we're into the regular season..... there's never a dull moment.

e.