While you’re busy celebrating New Year’s Eve, some folks have been busy checking the latest batch of poll numbers. Here’s an excellent summary of some of the key findings:
Nomination At A Glance: Down To The Wire
With only one week to go, money doesn’t matter right now. All the campaign events have been scheduled, all the staff has been hired, and all of the ad buys have been purchased. Further, polling in states after New Hampshire don’t matter right now either, since the first two states will scramble everything. All that matters is Iowa, how Iowa will impact New Hampshire, and [...]
And, here is an updated summary of where things stand in Iowa, beyond the polls:
Obama’s Campaign Nervous + C.S. About Iraq
The polls show that Obama has peaked in Iowa and has nowhere to go but down. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has endorsed Hillary Clinton, the 10th U.S. Senator to do so. And Obama’s campaign is showing signs that it’s nervous, edgy, and has “a whiff of desperation.” John Edwards is hitting Obama hard on his [...]
Tags: 2008 Election, Iowa Caucuses
Categories: 2008 Election
Sure, there are some “success stories” from Iraq, Sure, there are areas where overwhelming pressure from U.S. troops has led to a reduction in violence. But, when you back away and look at the “big picture”, the numbers don’t look quite as positive:
2007 Deadliest Year For U.S. Troops In Iraq
Four years and eight months after the mission was accomplished in Iraq, 2007 ends as: “…the deadliest for the U.S. military since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed.” But apparently this is good news, since fatalities have decreased in recent months, with only 21 U.S. troops and 710 Iraqi civilians killed in December. This brings the total U.S. fatalities for Bush’s fiasco to 3,902. And the Iraqis, now that someone has decided to count their deaths? [...]
Tags: Bush Administration, Iraq
Categories: Bush Administration · Iraq War
Okay, conspiracy buffs. Time to line up and chime in with your best thinking on the question of whether Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and, if so, is there a governmental coverup.
New Video Footage Shows Bhutto Was Shot
Britain’s Channel 4 News has acquired video footage of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination that appears to establish that Ms. Bhutto was shot before the suicide bomber exploded his device. You can see the footage in [...]
UPDATE: Now, there are rumors that the Pakistani military was involved. Surprised?
UPDATE 2: More Questions Of Pakistani Government Pressure Regarding Bhutto’s Death
More questions are being raised about pressures from the Musharraf government influencing the medical reports on the Bhutto assassination. Via the NYTimes: New details of Benazir Bhutto’s final moments, including indications that her doctors felt pressured to conform to government accounts of her death, fueled the arguments over her assassination on Sunday and added to the pressure on Pakistan’s leaders to accept an international inquiry [.... ]
Tags: Bhutto
Categories: Pakistan
This pretty much counters every other trend we’ve seen in the past couple of days…
Obama Breaks Out In Iowa
At least that’s what it looks like in the latest DMR poll: Obama 32, Clinton 25, Edwards 2: In an indication of the Obama’s appeal in Iowa, Democratic caucusgoers say they prefer change and unity over other leadership characteristics. Selecting [...]
New Des Moines Register Poll: Obama Widens Lead Over Clinton
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has widened his lead in Iowa over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards heading into Thursday’s nominating caucuses, according to The Des Moines Register’s final Iowa Poll before the 2008 nominating contests. Obama’s rise is the result in part of [...]
Tags: Iowa Caucuses, Obama
Categories: 2008 Election · Obama
Now, they’re going too far. The recording industry is just getting too greedy. Frankly, haven’t you done this? Hasn’t anybody with a CD collection and computer done it, to some degree?
We’re All Crooks
The recording industry now says it’s a crime for you to copy songs from your own CDs onto your own personal computer [....]
Tags: CD’s, Music, Computers
Categories: Entertainment
I’ve long disliked the Electoral College system of electing a President. There are a couple of intriguing changes floating around right now, including this one that truly seems to have potential and would not require a change to the constitution.
Dropping Out of Electoral College
A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It’s called National Popular Vote (NPV), and has been hailed as “ingenious” by two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. And several other states, including Illinois and New Jersey, are likely to follow suit. How NPV works is this:[...]
Tags: Electoral College, National Popular Vote
Categories: Politics
Really think about it. Isn’t the American political system pretty well broken? I don’t know how you change it, but it’s become all about money. I thought the idea was that anybody could be elected to national office. Now, you don’t have a chance unless you can come up with the $$$$$.
The Real Story
The real story is not about Obama and Edwards trading surges, Hillary rebounding, or the likely determining factor of the Biden and Richardson supporters’ second choices. The real story is not about the weather facilitating turnout for Hillary, or the passion of Obama’s youth vote, or Edwards’s solid ground game with likely caucus goers. The real story has nothing to do with the candidates or the horse race or the volatility of the polls. The real story is [...]
Tags: 2008 Election
Categories: 2008 Election · Politics
You can look at the polls, but they really don’t mean all that much. A lot of caucus-goers in Iowa still haven’t made up their minds about who they want to see as president. So, it may come down to who generates the most excitement. Right now, that seems to be the democrats.
Dem Voter Excitement Scares Republican Party
As presidential hopefuls from both parties rally support across Iowa ahead of Thursday’s caucuses, Democratic voters are showing greater fervor for the race than their Republican counterparts, a difference that could have repercussions throughout the 2008 campaign. At its simplest, [...]
Tags: 2008 Election, Iowa Caucuses
Categories: 2008 Election
Huckabee. Gonna do it. Not gonna do it. Sincere? Or shrewd strategy?
Huckabee locks, loads, then holds fire on Romney
…He called a press conference to unveil a new ad that attacked his principal attacker, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Huckabee was really going let the Mitt hit the fan. Then, in one of the stranger moments of the campaign, Huckabee came forward — cameras flashing, trailing his every step — to say that he [...]
Tags: 2008 Election, Huckabee, Romney
Categories: 2008 Election · Huckabee · Romney
It is the night of champagne, toasts and old friends. For our home, it will be as usual the past few years, an early toast after some appetizers spaced throughout the evening. We seldom make it all the way to midnight, particularly when we know we’ll be up at an early hour on New Year’s Day for a 10:30 am Cotton Bowl! Peas are soaking so we can put a big pot of Black Eyed Peas and ham on to cook first thing in the morning. It’s a Southern Tradition to guarantee good luck for the year. I’ll try to slide a few posts up this evening and a few more tomorrow afternoon and evening. But, overall, the blogosphere appears to be quieter than usual today.
Polls, Polls & More Polls
We’re down to the wire now, as the Iowa caucus is just a few short days away and the pollsters are reverberating off the charts with a wide variety of results. The latest McClatchy-MSNBC Poll is here to your left. It gives John Edwards a bit of the edge in the Democratic field, as he [...]
Huckabee Signed ‘USA Today’ Ad Backing Idea of Wife as ‘Servant’
Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet, in 1988 signed a full-page ad in USA Today backing the idea of the wife in any marriage serving as a “servant” in relation to her husband. Then-Gov. Huckabee was one of 131 signatories on [...]
“We Cannot Recognize Our Country”
“There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country.” The New York Times lead editorial today echoes what millions of Americans must be feeling as this awful year comes to a close. It was year of self recognition, when Americans finally realized America can no longer pretend to be a [...]
And, for good measure, the “quote of the weekend”. And, surprisingly, it’s not from Mike Huckabee!
Thompson: “Not Particularly Interested In Running For President”
…Yesterday several journalists traveling with Thompson wrote stories about a response that Thompson gave to a ‘fire in the belly’ question. According to a transcript of the answer posted on the campaign’s website Saturday night, Thompson’s response included this line, along with a longer explanation about why it is unfair to criticize his desire to president: [...]
Tags: 2008 Election, Huckabee, thompson
Categories: 2008 Election · Huckabee · Thompson
