SECOND A2K STRAW POLL White House 2008

nimh
My native position is some combination of Kucinich, Ron Paul and Noam Chomsky. But, as Mick said, we don't always get what we want. And, as you poor bastards understand, I'm obsessively interested in the manipulation of the public mind through language and myth. Sorry, sounding-board acquaintances.

I believe both Edwards and Obama have provided Clinton supporters with exactly what they need to overcome Hillary's persistently strong negatives with the electorate. Neither in my view is realistically electable, even in the presence of a strong anti Republican tide. Both the well-coiffed, sleazy tort lawyer spouting progressive nonsense from an earlier age, and the glib, tan amateur, clearly excite enough unease among voters to preclude their success if nominated.

Unfortunately, the main Republican candidates, each in his own way, has demonstrated analogous defects.

Hillary will be our next President.

In the absence of a realistic hope for a President Edwards or a President Obama, I'd settle for that gladly enough

I'm afraid of Giuliani though.

Rudy is by far the most dangerous candidate in terms of what kind of President he would make. Whether you talk about a Rumsfeld-type irresponsible, overconfident and sabre-rattling foreign policy, or a Cheney-type wanton disregard of any check on executive power, President Giuliani and his lunatic neocon sidekicks would make Bush's war cabinet look cautious and deliberate.

But he is also by far the most competent and shrewd (see, Blatham, it's not just Hillary who gets that label) campaigner and politician of the Republican field. If Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee, all bets are off, no matter who stands for the Democrats. He would stand a very good chance - and of course, any successful Republican presidential campaign would pull the party's Congressional races up too.

So I'm crossing my fingers for Fred Thompson to be the nominee.. I think the Dems would stand the best chance against him. Romney should in principle be beatable as well, and McCain would be a somewhat disembodied Republican nominee, without much of a natural constituency even in his own party.

Huckabee would actually be the second most competent Republican nominee, IMO...

Good evening, all. Just a little update from Virginia where yesterday all of the seats in the House and all of the seats in the Senate were on the ballot. Only about a third of the contests were actually contests; the rest were safely controlled by the incumbent or the the incumbent party.

The Repubs lost their majority in the Senate. The Dems now control the Senate by one or two seats. This was not unexpected by either party.
The significance is that it is the first time in forever that the Repubs have not controlled the Senate. The Repubs retained the House so it will mean a divided legislature, which could cause legislation to bog down.

This Senate, now controlled by Dems, will get to do the redistricting in 2011 based on the 2010 census. That could be big.

Pundits were also looking for evidence that Virginia, long a red state, may be "in play" or even leaning blue. Northern VA, around DC, is growing in population (leaning Dem?) and there was some evidence of an anti-Bush/anti-war attitude, but I think everyone agrees that given the low turn out in an off year election, not much actually happened of note.

I realize that was a long post but my thinking is that these are all little pieces in a much bigger puzzle. rjb

Back in October



and then she got the cover of New York Mag last week (the same issue that suggested her mother wait four years)

http://nymag.com/news/features/44454/



an interesting article

New York Mag. Love it. Flash and politics. Or is it flash politics.