Notes From All Over: Political Edition

i know, my lovelies... i've been neglectful.

but work has appeared to slow down and i've caught up on my press watching and i've had a chance to compile all of my political thoughts from the last couple of weeks.

when last we visited our heroine, senator clinton was coming off a sub-par performance in the philadelphia debate.

where do things stand now?

latest polls

hillary has slipped in the polls. no question. she saw an immediate slide after the philly debate and obama has finally shown some movement.

the latest kcci8 poll (november 12-14) shows the iowa race with hillary still in the lead at 27% but obama only two points behind at 25%. edwards is still showing strong at 21%.

for the first time, however, obama does lead in an iowa poll. a new abc/washington post poll of iowa voters has obama at 30%. hillary is four points behind at 26% and edwards is four points behind her at 22%. the poll has a +/- of 4.5 points. a statistical dead heat.

interesting thing about iowa, however. it's just about impossible to know who will win. polling is pointless, almost, because you never know who will show up at the caucus meetings. is it snowing that night? does someone have to stay home and watch the kids?

and time after time i hear pundits tell me most iowans do not make up their minds until they step into the high school gym.

but...obama's movement is troubling. trends mean something... and hill's team is obviously nervous. more national members of her campaign are arriving in iowa every day.

this could get interesting.

my new wet dream site

i've been meaning to look for a month or more... i finally did. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

seriously...check this out. you can track national polls and state polls... all the major races. who's ahead in iowa? check it out. florida? take a look....

it shows trends... it provides links to interesting articles.

see for yourself... i can't get enough.

jefferson jackson day dinner

have you seen clips from obama's speech this past saturday night? it reminds me of the greatness he displayed at the 2004 democratic national convention.

if he could perform like this at a debate.... he'd be ahead in all the polls.

speaking o' the debate - or - knock out in vegas

as one member of the press put it: the bitch is back.

hillary delivered a stellar performance at the cnn las vegas debate last thursday night. she was strong and fought back when attacked.

roger simon of politico wrote: "she gave as good as she got. and those who tried to kick her stubbed their toes."

john dickerson of slate said: "well, that was a short death spiral." and went on to say: "clinton ran no risk of looking weak by talking about her gender, because she was kneeing her opponents in the groin."

when asked about playing the gender card, hillary had - perhaps - the best answer of the night: "i'm not playing the gender card, i'm trying to play the winning card." she went on to say, "they're not attacking me because i'm a woman. they're attacking me because i'm ahead."

huge applause... and the rest of the night just went her way.

edwards and obama tried to consistently attack hillary. but every time they swung, she hit right back.

after obama first attacked hillary she hammered back about his health care plan and how it wouldn't cover the populations of nevada, iowa, new hampshire and south carolina (i wonder why she picked those states?). obama loomed at first - then backed off. he can't look at her when she attacks, but she can look at him.

and an interesting thing happened about an hour into the debate - after a lot of the attacks had stopped - edwards tried to use his canned attack on hillary about lobbyist money. he was actually booed. obama was booed at one point, as well, when he tried to compare her to romney and giuliani.

i think this really frazzled them both and i'm not sure they recovered.

body language

once again...i just think hillary has the best body language. she is always engaged. always listening. others are scribbling down notes, shifting. but she's always listening and looking directly at the speaker.

when obama tried to defend his potential tax hike to help social security, he twice said "tax break." hillary came back and corrected him: "i think you mean tax increase, because that's what it would be." she listens.

after edwards gave his first attack - never looking at hillary but hillary looking directly at him - she delivered a great line about accepting "attacks on my record, on issues." but accused edwards of "slinging mud." you could tell it stung edwards... just the look on his face.

and there's a great camera angle from edwards at the edge of the stage to hillary delivering the line. in between them stood obama and dodd. as soon as she said "slinging mud" they both turned away from her and looked down. they didn't want any part of it.

smart move, boys.

driver's license stumble...again.

but fear not...this time it was obama. it was amazing how well he fucked up his response. all three responses he gave. the audience actually laughed at him twice....

byron york of the national review (yes, a republican) said, "obama's mistake was absolutely mystifying. a democratic strategist just said to me it's almost as if he had read her [clinton's] answer from the previous debate and thought it was the right thing to say."

amazing... surely somebody had prepped him for that question, yes?

okay...i could go on and on so let's skip to my quick hits from the debate:

• what was with all the pre-debate analysis during the beginning of the debate time? how many hours did cnn have beforehand? oh - that's right. 24 hours.
• edwards first statement of the debate was: "nobody on this stage is perfect." john, give it up.
• enough with the canned answers! richardson's first answer was so canned it was pathetic. and edwards' "is that a planted question" remark was so out of place it just fell flat. there was no laughter.
• the first question to biden was 10 minutes in. he was the first candidate besides obama, clinton and edwards to speak.
• 20 minutes in kucinich got a sentence into the conversation...but still no direct question.
• 28 minutes in - the first question went directly to dodd.
• 30 minutes in, wolf blitzer piggy-backed a question on unions to kucinich.
• 50 minutes in, kucinich is asked the first question initially directed specifically to him.
• john roberts asks some really good questions. maybe he should moderate a debate on his own?
• dodd gave a great response on teacher "merit pay."
• happy birthday, governor richardson. when you blew out your candles, i hope you wished for better stage presence.
• i still don't think obama should be allowed to make any comments on the iran vote when he didn't even bother to show up (and he gave such a weak answer to why he wasn't there. "umm... i was running for president." yeah - so are clinton, dodd and biden.)
• kucinich has it out for edwards. he nailed him all night long.
• richardson shut down kucinich light an annoying gnat when he told him to stop lumping him in with the other candidates. he's not in congress, he reminded dennis.
• kucinich was really angry this debate. came across more bizarre than usual.
• chris dodd has tiny feet.
• biden mentioned potential impeachment of bush if he invades iran.
• an hour and half in, kucinich mentioned impeachment.
• apparently obama watches nbc nightly news and saw brokaw's interview with warren buffett.
• the audience portion of the debate really dragged. lose it.
• dodd said "here" 25 times. i doubt he got 25 minutes worth of air time.

meet the press quote of the week (a catch up)

sunday, november 4th.

fred thompson was the guest for most of the hour. i liked him so much more in the hunt for red october and in the line of duty. it's great when he's playing an asshole... not just being one.

since ole pick-up truck fred is such a defender of the bush administration and the war in iraq, i found it particularly interesting when he said:

i don't think we should be armchair generals...when we have people on the ground who apparently now know what they're doing.

so...since the war began...we just now have people on the ground that know what the fuck they're doing? it's nice to know we wasted....how many years with dumbfucks running the show?

p.s. thompson has a very machiavellian view on foreign policy. he'd definitely rather be feared than respected.

sunday, november 11th

senator barack obama was tim's guest for the entire hour.

i think obama did well... but he certainly demonstrated that he can parse an answer just as well as the next politician. especially in his discussion of "precondition" vs. "preparation."

i found it interesting that he has the balls to say he can take lobbyist money and we should just all assume he can fight against the influence. why you and nobody else, sir?

i really wanted to make his quote of the week "i do not believe being gay or lesbian is a choice" because it's reassuring to know that even though he doesn't think us fags deserve equal marriage rights (only civil unions), at least he doesn't think we're all choosing to be this way. hmmm... then why do we not deserve equal rights "in god's eyes"?

but i loved his long summation of his campaign:

i have admiration for senator clinton. i think she's a fine public servant. the reason i'm running is because i think we're at a unique moment in history right now. the nation's at war, our planet is in peril. we've got a series of decisions that we're gonna have to make and i believe i can more effectively, than any other candidate in this race, bring the country together, overcome some of the same old arguments we've been having since the 1990's and that i can reach out to the republicans and independents more effectively...

i think he could have gone on for another ten minutes if russert hadn't interrupted him.

sunday, november 18th

just a quick interesting note from chuck todd about the debate and some interesting internal numbers concerning iowa polling.

i think the obama folks know they had a bad night. the edwards folks had a really bad night. and this is just one night, but if he starts fading too quickly...that's actually not good for clinton. the quicker this is a two person race, the better for obama.

apparently when asked about who their second choice might be...obama and edwards fare much better. if you're not voting for clinton first, you're probably not voting for her at all. so if edwards begins to fade greatly, the majority of voters will probably defect from him to obama. and in a tight race.... that's no so good for my hill.

but my quote of the week goes to ron brownstein of the national journal, who provided this nugget:

not a leaf will fall in the forest between now and iowa and new hampshire without obama and edwards looking for a way to make this into a contrast with hillary clinton because that is ultimately what you have to do against a frontrunner.

only 45 days until iowa.... anything can happen.

e.