3-day Weekend: Political Wrap-Up

oy vey... where to begin?

i'm just not even sure how i feel about anything anymore.... i guess we should start with the specifics. the concrete outcomes of the weekend.

nevada
hillary clinton took nevada. she beat obama 51% to 45%. edwards came in an abysmal third place with only 4% of the vote. this scores edwards no delegates from nevada.

now...while hillary was ahead in most nevada polls... most pundits still expected her to lose.

"the culinary workers union! the culinary workers union!" everyone cried! the teachers lost the court case so the casino workers were allowed to caucus on the strip in their workplace. surely obama would pull out the win?

wrong!

and what brought about the win for hillary? she carried 51% of the female vote to obama's 38% of the same vote. but more importantly - she scored 64% of the latino vote... a large portion of the culinary union. in fact - hillary won las vegas. obama only won 26% of the latino vote... another possible problem for the obama camp.

sadly for hillary...and another sign of how ugly the entire "race" issue has become - she only won 14% of the african american vote. obama scored with 83% of the vote.

quickly: romney won the nevada GOP caucus...but there's a HUGE mormon population out there. sadly - ron paul came in second. yes...you read that correctly: second. the joke that is ron paul.

jesus... if i didn't hate them so much i'd mourn for the republican party.

south carolina
must win state for most of the GOP. mccain took it... 33% to edge out huckabee at 30%. thompson came in third and has since dropped out of the race. no fanfare... only a statement. the candidacy that never was.

i think this makes mccain the clear frontrunner..... but rudy holds out hope for a florida and february 5th win.

the democratic south carolina primary is this weekend. obama currently leads in the polls with a 12.2 point lead over clinton (42.8% to 30.6%). with all this ugliness i only expect obama's lead to strengthen and hillary's popularity with the 60% african american democratic party in that state to deteriorate.

the dems don't play nice
i decided to take a day off from politics on martin luther king, jr day and didn't watch the debate monday night.

i hear there were some fireworks.

jesus, dems! slum lords? wal-mart? are we so desperate to win the nomination that we're willing to tear apart the party and give the republicans a playbook of attacks for the general?

i'm becoming very frustrated with my party... both hillary and obama included. i love both of these candidates... i want both to be president. i just want hillary to be president first.

but this is not good....

and i'm not sure how i feel about bill as the attack dog. while i understand on an intellectual level that his attacks are working... and they are. you can't deny it. is this how i want him to be remembered?

is it getting all too ugly?

ted kennedy and rahm emmanual (a clinton backer) have both come out and asked bill to cut back on the attacks. he has - reportedly - declined.

and worst of all... it makes ole angry john edwards look like the calm adult in all of this.

at any rate... i think it's sad that the clintons...so long a supporter of civil rights suddenly appear to be losing the faith of the african american community. it's sad. and i don't want it to splinter the party.

and is there no hope for a clinton/obama ticket for the general campaign?

the return of the meet the press quote of the week
well...tim had a political roundtable this week with some old favorites: tom brokaw, joanna kerns-goodwin. and some cunt named peggy noonan that i simply wanted to shoot.

the GOP's looking for their "soul" she says. no, peggy... they're republicans... they have no soul to find.

i wanted to give the honor to john meacham of newsweek for his "if king lear had a southern accent, he'd be bill clinton" but i'm giving it to tom brokaw who describes rush limbaugh followers as "ditto heads." god, i loved that.

UPDATE: i have been informed that limbaugh himself refers to his followers as ditto heads... so that makes me sad. but i still love that other people use the term in a different context. so meacham gets the honor afterall....

more importantly...i wanted to highlight the lovely katrina vanden heuval who appeared on this week. she is rightfully outraged at how john mccain has become the "media darling" and that no one seems to question his honesty or the fact that he's now accepting money from the 527's (the same group that swiftboated kerry in '04 that mcccain "straight-talked" against).

says katrina:

john mccain puts a polite face on war-mongering. this is a man who has said we will keep our troops in iraq for a hundred years. he has advisors who are ready to go to war with iran tomorrow.

you tell the truth, katrina! this is the same man that swore he'd never pander to the religious right and then speaks at falwell's church.

straight talk, my ass.

more politics to come... i'm sure.

e.