Hiatus? What hiatus?
On January 2nd, 2008, I decided to toss out some predictions for the New Year. 11.5 months later, I wonder how I did…?
Please note my disclaimer from that post,
Read the rest of this article“I’d like to make my first post of the year one where I can look back and say, “Why the hell did I put that in writing? I’m an idiot.” So, let’s make some predictions!”
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For the past week greens keepers have manicured the fields of Washington, DC’s yet-to-be-opened Nationals Park in preparation for a rare United States appearance by Pope Benedict XVI on April 17th. The Nation’s Capital will be the first stop in Benedict’s 5-day US tour, ending in New York City.
Despite Catholics being a minority in the United States, tickets to the Papal mass sold out before you could say “Knights of Columbus.”
The question is – what is the purpose of him coming here? And in the grand scheme of things, what does the Pope have to do with America anyway?
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OK, I know I have said in the past that Ron Paul adds nothing of any value to the intelligent discourse of the presidential race, but I have to recant that statement. After watching the ABC/Facebook debate tonight and watching that nutty backwoods conservative scream over and over about the Iraq War and the welfare state, I have to say, he’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch. I don’t know how much longer he can last, but I almost want to give money to his campaign to watch the fireworks continue.
On domestic issues, I am about as opposed to him as I can be. I think he is a moron to want to cut the federal government as much as he wants to (that’s not to say it couldn’t use a little trim here and there). However, on foreign policy, while I disagree with his isolationist stance as a whole, there are some good and sound messages in there that we should take to heart.
The rest of the field fell all over themselves to say that Al Queda didn’t attack us because we have bases in Muslim countries, while Ron Paul was man enough to say that was the main reason it happened. Of course, none of them were able to say that it could have been a combination of that and the values that we hold dear as a nation (which it of course is).
So, I recant. I hope Ron Paul hangs in there as long as he can.
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Friday morning, there wasn’t a major paper in the country that did not have full coverage of the Iowa Caucuses on the front page. Even Friday’s financially-minded Wall Street Journal splashed Huckabee and Obama all over the top of its front page. All of the dailies did the same, both on paper and on their website. In fact, as I write this on Saturday afternoon, the websites for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, MSNBC all have residual news about Thursday’s Iowa caucuses and articles looking ahead to Tuesday’s New Hampshire primaries. Only CNN, of the major news websites, does not still have Iowa caucus news up. This is pretty amazing, since none of the major networks had live Iowa caucus coverage on Thursday night, and CSPAN apparently went on some quixotic campaign to show an entire caucus meeting from beginning to tedious end and make me realize I would rather be trapped in a room with Tom Tancredo and a truck load of illegal immigrants than sit through that mind-numbing process in person.
After unfortunately working late Thursday (all the while following news rolling in via Politico.com and Hotline on Call), I got home to find my wife watching The Apprentice on NBC. “Wha… where is the caucus coverage,” I asked as I dropped my bag to the floor. “CSPAN has some weird local thing on. So, I’m watching this,” she said. “What do you mean some weird local thing?” After she explained it to me, I asked about the networks. “That’s what this is,” she replied, making me realize how dumb a question I had just asked.
As you may have guessed, my wife and I don’t have cable. We don’t want to flush a ridiculous amount of money down the drain for 120 channels when we will only watch 12 of them. Until we can get an a la carte package, it will probably stay that way and we will keep enjoying our NetFlix subscription and get whatever comes through our building wiring (which we are pretty sure is not illegal, considering the cable guy came and set up our internet service and knows what channels come into the TV. Anyway, I digress…)
On caucus night, while every major print media outlet in the country was foaming at the mouth of their website over the Iowa caucuses, and I presume all of the cable media from what I have seen on their websites, NOT ONE OF THE MAJOR NETWORKS HAD LIVE COVERAGE! Instead, I had to battle with my wife over switching back and forth from sleaze like Desperate Housewives to the networks and CSPAN to see if ANYONE had any coverage besides what I was pulling up on my computer. I couldn’t believe it. And, what stunned me even more was that when the news finally came on, it was the local news that we saw – no national coverage until Nightline came on.
Luckily, I had my laptop and was able to keep up with everything, and when the time came, we watched Obama give his victory speech via the live Associated Press feed online. Then at some point CSPAN (which until that night had had great Iowa coverage) woke up and realized they needed to stop showing farmers argue about whether their county should include in its proposal to the state party platform whether the federal or state governments to regulate gay marriage, and they showed John Edwards’ speech.
How pathetically apathetic do the network executives think this country is? Do they not realize how badly Americans want to see someone else as president – if only in their imagination? Why else would voters have accepted the incredibly early beginnings of 2008 campaigns in 2007… er, 2006? Do they really think that TV watchers are so stupid that they don’t want to watch something more intelligent than Donald Trump firing a playmate?
ABC will partially make up for this tonight with its coverage of the New Hampshire debates, but it does not have any primary coverage on its schedule for Tuesday night. Neither do NBC or CBS. And, of course, ABC planned this debate for Saturday night, so who the hell will be home to watch it?
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This past Sunday, an annual political rite was staged in the wonderfully flat state of Iowa. It’s called a “steak fry,” but the precious cuts of meat are mercifully grilled. Regardless of cooking methods, Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual Steak Fry signals a “beginning” of sorts to the serious campaigning season. It’s fall and people are starting to pay more attention (especially since the first primary might only be three months away), and the Democrats seem to be revving up the people quite disproportionately to the Republicans. Several thousand – some have estimated upwards of 18,000 – came to clog their arteries with talking points about health care, poverty, and the generally awesome job President Bush has done. In comparison, the Republicans managed a much smaller crowd (a fraction of the steak fry attendance, and below expectations)
What does this mean? Are those whispers of a bummed out conservative electorate true? Well, it’s too early to make hay out of this, but it would be wrong to ignore it. Combine the attendance and congenial rowdiness of the event with those mega-events that Barack Obama has been having, or the thunderous ovations John Edwards has been getting across the country, or even the huge amounts of support Hillary still has wherever she goes and we have something of a trend forming.
It’s not a far reach to state that liberals and democrats are pissed off and riled up, but it has been a serious question as to whether this would translate to voting machines. A good signal of solid voter turnout is the level of political activity leading up to an election (think of the “vaunted Republican turnout machine”). The level of participation at these events is an early indication of a potential immense Democratic turnout.
Steaks are “frying,” politicians are speechifying, and the people are ready for a change. Ahh, the presidential election is about to shift into high gear and the Democrats, at this moment, are comfortably holding the gear shift. Will it continue?
Effective August 31st, Karl Rove will resign from his post as THE BRAIIINNNNN. Rove has long been a favorite punching bag of those of us on the left, and in some ways I’m sorry to see him go, in others I’m not so sorry…
He can claim credit for political victories of historic proportions, but also stands accused of policy failures and a strategy of divisiveness.
Political victories are like getting a girl at the bar to talk to you. Sealing the deal is the policy victory, and a budding and happy relationship… well, I guess that would be a satisfied America. Rove got us (meaning America) to bat our eyelids and take a liking George W, but then he got us drunk, took advantage of us and, fearing for our own safety, has us stuck in an unwanted and very unhappy relationship.
Goodbye Karl, I hope Waxman and Leahy torment the hell out of you with subpoenas.
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