Primaries & Caucuses: SuperTuesday and the Saturday Stumble

For a variety of personal reason, I never really got around to commenting on SuperTuesday. But now that the dust has settled a little, there are some things worth saying about each party's race for the presidential nomination.

I haven't heard much comment on voter turnout.

• In Colorado, about 120,000 people turned out for the Democratic Caucuses; the GOP drew only about 55,000 people. Colorado went for Clinton in 1992 (but not in 1996), for Jimmy Carter in 1976, and for Johnson in 1964. In the last 12 elections that state has gone to the Democrats just three times.
  
• In Georgia, 1,046,000 people voted in the Democratic Primary. Only 958,000 people voted in Georgia's GOP Primary. Georgia went for Kennedy in 1960, Carter in 1976 and 1980, and Clinton in 1992 (but not in 1996).
  
• In Missouri only about 585,000 people voted in the GOP Primary compared to around 820,000 in the Democratic contest. Missouri has gone to the GOP in seven of the last 12 presidential Elections.
  
• In North Dakota the Democrats drew almost 18,000 caucus goers, compared to only about 9,000 for the GOP. North Dakota hasn't voted for a Democrat in November since 1964.
  
• In Oklahoma the Democrats drew over 400,000 voters to their primary while the GOP only saw about 330,000 come out. Like North Dakota, Oklahoma hasn't voted for a Democrat in November since 1964.
  
• Democrats in Tennessee drew 614,000 voters to their primary, while the GOP managed to get out only about 547,000 (even with favorite son Fred Thompson running). Tennessee went for Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Carter in 1976, and Johnson in 1964, but they've gone to the GOP in eight of the last 12 elections.

The question: Will this translate to the November election? Maybe...

The trend continued in Louisiana, where over 350,000 people voted in the Democratic primary yesterday and only and only about 155,000 voted in the GOP race. The state went for Kennedy in 1960, Carter in 1976, and Clinton twice, but has gone to the GOP two-thirds of the time since 1960.

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Did SuperTuesday have winners? Well, it certainly had losers on the GOP side. Fred Thompson placed fifth in his home state. I'll go back to the actor metaphor I heard somewhere a while back and say that Mike Huckabee seems to have gotten the part that Fred Thompson tried out for.

Romney fell victim to a combination of factors. There was the fact that the Conservative vote was divided three ways. That made it easy from McCain to pull out a win in states like Missouri and Oklahoma. In a head-to-head race with just the two of them, Romney might well have beaten McCain out of those 90 or so delegates. Romney fell victim to high expectations; he was expected to do better than he did, and that made it difficult to justify staying in the race. I think Romney also fell victim to his own ambitions in as much as he's more committed to being president someday than he is to being president now. He could be perceived as having hurt the party by staying in, so he suspended his campaign.

While McCain carried the day, the biggest GOP winner may well turn out to be Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor is now the only choice for many Conservatives and logic choice for the anti-McCain block. Huckabee picked up the endorsement of Dr. James Dobson, champion of the Religious Right. And Huckabee's two wins yesterday testify to his new status as Last Conservative Standing. Mathematically, it's still possible for Huckabee to win the nomination (especially is Romney releases his delegates to vote however they want). It's not very likely, but it's possible at the moment.

On the Democratic side, SuperTuesday proved that the Clinton-Obama race really is a tie. That translates to a win for Obama. And that momentum carried him to three new wins yesterday. More and more, the focus of the Democratic race is on SuperDelegates since it doesn't look like either candidate will get enough delegates from the primary and caucus process to win outright.

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The Saturday Stumble is the name pundits giving to the performance of McCain and Clinton yesterday. If McCain is not careful, he could end up being offered a position as Huckabee's VP. If Hillary is not careful, she could just plain lose.

No one seems to stay a front runner for very long...

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In case you hadn't noticed:

• Fred Thompson endorsed John McCain.
  
• Ron Paul made some statements to the effect that he probably really would support the GOP candidate (he refused to rule out running as an independent during a Washington Post interview a few weeks ago).
  
• NYC Mayor Michael Bloomburg seems to have shut up about running for President as an independent now that it looks like the GOP will nominate a moderate candidate.
  
• President Bush said yesterday that McCain wasn't a moderate and endorsed McCain's credentials as a true Conservative.
  
• Conservatives from Ann Coulter to Dr. Dobson are suggesting that their people should just stay home in November and left the Democrats have the White House if McCain is the nominee.
  
• And Mike Gravel is still technically a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

But who cares about trivia...

Hope for Conservatives? Bad News for McCain? Fred Thompson Drops Out...

One for Fred Thompson's most important backer, Georgia State Senator Eric Johnson, jumped ship this morning and moved to the Romney camp. "Clearly Fred Thompson is not going to be the nominee," the State Senator told a Savannah, Ga., paper. He said that Romney had always been his second choice.

Thompson announced that he was pulling out of the race shortly after Johnson's announcement. Johnson wasn't the only supporter Thompson lost this morning. Former New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato threw his support to John McCain this morning, according tot he New York Post.

Pledged Delegates to the GOP Convention as of SC
Candidates	Delegates pledged
Romney	66
McCain	38
Huckabee	26
Thompson	8
Ron Paul	6
Giuliani	1

Thompson drew 16% of the vote in South Carolina's January 19th GOP Primary. If he had dropped out before that state's primary, Romney would still have finished third, at best. But Thompson votes might well have made Huckabee the winner in SC if Thompson had dropped out earlier.

In the six caucuses and primaries so far, Thompson's best finish was 2nd in little-noticed and barely contested Wyoming. He finished 5th or 6th in Michigan, New Hampshire and Nevada and managed 3rd place finishes in Iowa and South Carolina. Thompson has accumulated eight pledged delegates for the GOP convention, compared to Huckabee's 26, McCain's 38 and 66 at the moment for Romney.

In the statement, Thompson did not say whether he would endorse any of his former rivals, according to the Associated Press. Thompson supported McCain in 2000.

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Speaking of Huckabee, USA Today is reporting that his campaign is on "a shoestring budget" and is considering a pull out from Florida in favor of the February 5th SuperTuesday states. Huckabee isn't buying TV time for ads in Florida and some Huckabee aids are foregoing paychecks to keep money in the campaign coffers.

McCain Wins South Carolina (And Conservatives Still Don't Have a Candidate)

The voters in today's GOP Primary in South Carolina could be divided up into four many demographic groups: there were Moderates, there were Conservatives, there were Evangelical Christians, and there were Retirees. About a quarter of the voters were moderates, according to exit poll data, and John McCain garnered two-thirds of their votes.

That means that of the 33% of primary voters who went for McCain, about half called themselves moderates. Older voters, according to the Associated Press, also tended to cast their ballots for McCain.

But the majority of South Carolina's GOP voters described themselves today as either Conservatives or Evangelical Christians (most of whom qualify as Conservatives, as well).

So why did the most moderate of the GOP's candidates win South Carolina? Simple: Conservatives still don't have a favorite son. They split their vote four (or maybe five) ways and diluted their power as a voting block.

You might say that Conservatives are more concerned today about their differences these days than about their similarities. Evangelical Christians are looking for a candidate with a faith based message and they think they've found on in Mike Huckabee. He carried the Evangelical vote for the most part. But the Fiscal Conservatives who are more concerned with financial policy than religion don't much like Huckabee because they question his record on taxation and spending during his tenure as governor of Arkansas. Those voters split their ballots between Romney and Thompson. And while Evangelical voters might be willing to accept Thompson as a candidate, they have a problem with Romney's Mormon religion. Romney has failed in his bid to attract the support of Evangelical voters.

Perhaps the most important factor in the South Carolina GOP Primary was McCain's ability to draw some voters from every camp. He gained a degree of acceptance among both Evangelicals and Fiscal Conservatives.

It is worth noting that Mike Huckabee is the darling of the misnamed "Fair Tax" crowd at the moment. The only other candidate that supports that proposal in Ron Paul. And if Ron Paul's people had voted for Huckabee, their four percent of the vote would have made Huckabee the winner. That's assuming a lot, I know. If bullfrogs had wings...

Ron Paul finished fifth in the race. And Giuliani came in a distant seventh.

After South Carolina: Fred Thompson Stays In

Fred Thompson said he needed to finish at least second in today's South Carolina GOP Primary to say viable. He finished third, with only about half the votes of second place Mike Huckabee. In the Nevada Caucus today Thompson finished fifth, about 100 votes behind Huckabee.

Just the same, Thompson say, well gosh, he reckons he'll say around a while longer... The question is, why? And how long will that while be?

Thompson entered the race late with high expectations that he would be met by adoring crowds who would sweep him to victory. The crowds never showed up, proving that politics is at least as much about work as it is about personality. He lags nationally behind Romney, McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani - all of whom were out shaking hands and asking for votes long before Thompson tossed his hat into the ring.

In South Carolina Thompson was something of a spoiler, dividing Conservatives and Evangelical Christians today who might otherwise have mostly voted for Huckabee or Romney. John McCain, who won in South Carolina, would be glad to see Thompson keep doing that at least through the February 5th Super Tuesday ballots.

If Thompson hopes to eventually play the role of either spoiler or kingmaker, it is unclear who would get his support at the Republican National Convention. A tone of bitterness is developing between the Thompson and Huckabee camps as the two groups compete for the title of "Most Strongly Against Abortion." And Thompson disagrees with McCain on important issues like immigration.

For now he's making speeches that could be taken to mean he's staying in, or that he's putting his house in order before he drops out.

Perhaps Thompson would make Romney a good vice presidential candidate to increase the Boston Mormon's appeal in the south during the general election. But there are a lot of delegates left to county before it comes to that.

In the mean time, Thompson is beginning to smell like a Thanksgiving turkey that's been left in the oven too long...

Giant Sucking Sound Heard Across Midwest as Romney Campaign Is Resuscitated

Residents of surrounding states heard a loud sucking sound at a little after 8pm local time tonight coming out of Michigan. That was about the time that major news sources predicted the winners in the Michigan Presidential Primaries - and the sound was Mitt Romney's campaign breathing life back into its almost dead body. The sound was actually heard (faintly) as far away as South Carolina and even created gentle breezes in places like California and Florida.

Okay, I'm being a tad sarcastic I suppose. But Michigan was a "must win" for Romney. And his win does little more than further muddy the question of just who the GOP frontrunner is. For the next 24 hours, I guess the frontrunner is Mitt Romney. But the question on everyone's lips since the race started seems to be, Where'd the "mo" go?

Momentum, the big MO, seems to disappear quickly in this GOP race. Mike Huckabee seems to have more of it than any other candidate. He went from "Mike who?" at Thanksgiving to the Iowa Caucus winner in January. The momentum of that win has placed him a respectable third in New Hampshire and now Michigan - states he wasn't expected to do well in. Next up is South Carolina, a state where Huckabee and Romney will compete for the Conservative Christian vote the way they did in Iowa. When we woke up this morning, Rasmussen Reports had McCain leading in South Carolina; that lead was built in part on momentum from the New Hampshire win and McCain's numbers will now go down. Huckabee, Romney, and Fred Thompson were all competing for second spot - separated by 3 percentage points in the survey. If Fred Thompson pulls out a win (or even a second place), the GOP race will go from a three man to a four man field of frontrunners - five if you count Giuliani, which I don't at the moment...

So let's talk about Giuliani. But what's to say? He finished sixth in Iowa and Michigan, fourth in Wyoming and New Hampshire. A poll yesterday said that McCain was leading in Florida (they like old people there), but that statistically it was a four way tie between McCain, Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee. If Thompson were to win South Carolina, Florida would become a five way tie...

NPR had a cute story about a sand sculpture in Myrtle Beach, SC. Six GOP candidates were sculpted in beach sand there. Duncan hunter must be irritated that his face was not included. With 83% of the Michigan vote counted, hunter got less than one percent of the vote in the GOP Primary there...

New Hampshire Makes it Muddier

I'm listening to Barack Obama concede. It's clear that he's conceding nothing but the New Hampshire Primary... "And when I am president, I will end this war in Iraq and bring our soldiers home..." That's not a concession.

Barack won without winning and lost without knowing it.

He won because Hillary is still on the defensive. Almost winning has only increased his credibility as a challenger. Six or eight weeks ago the Democratic Party was a coronation procession on its way to crown Hillary Queen of America. Today most Americans aren't sure who the Democratic Party's frontrunner is. And I'm not sure myself.

Obama lost because he didn't replicate the young college vote miracle that work for him the Iowa Caucus. I'm sure his campaign people will worry about that...

Because it is a two-way race, Edwards is still in it and makes it a three-way race. But that will change soon unless Edwards a) comes in second, in front of one of the two "frontrunners" again before February 5th and b) wins at least a couple of primaries on February 5th (or before).

Who's not in it anymore? Joe Biden got twice as many votes as Mike Gravel. Since Joe Biden dropped out last week (he's still on the ballot because they were already set), maybe Gravel should reconsider his status. When Dennis Kucinich is 10 times as popular as you are, Senator Gravel, you're probably not popular enough to be President.

The GOP field becomes even muddier after New Hampshire. McCain has new life after winning the New Hampshire Primary. It will be interesting to see how much momentum that gives him going into the next few state, and whose votes he cuts into.

Romney and Huckabee are in a death struggle for the conservative religious vote. Romney has now lost twice in states where he was supposed to win; but he probably won't go away. Huckabee did better than expected in N.H. and is sneaking up on Romney in Michigan (next up, January 15). If Huckabee wins Michigan and South Carolina (January 19 for the GOP), I think Romney is toast. If Romney wins Nevada (far from certain) on January 19, that may take the edge off the defeat; but Romney has to win Michigan or South Carolina to stay alive, I think.

Giuliani finished fourth as was glad for it. He almost came in fifth. It's still three weeks until Florida. Giuliani decided not to compete in the races before Florida. The question is, will anyone remember who he is in three weeks? The economy has replaced terrorism as the leading issue; that's bad for Rudy. If Huckabee doesn't bead Rudy in Florida, McCain will. If McCain doesn't, Romney may. And Ron Paul got new life in New Hampshire by giving Giuliani a run for fourth place.

Does anyone remember when Fred Thompson was considered a shoe in; all he had to do was declare his candidacy? Huckabee, in third, got ten times the votes of Thompson, in sixth. Fred can take comfort in beating Duncan Hunter...

One week until Michigan.

Biden, Dodd, Gravel Drop Out

The Iowa Caucus cleared up the democratic race a little by reducing the number of candidate. In the wake of poor showings last night, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, and Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska all dropped out of the Democratic race.

That narrows the Democratic field to five; the new frontrunner, Barack Obama, former NC Senator John Edwards, and New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton all have reasonable shots at winning the nomination. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich are both still in the race.

On the GOP side the Iowa Caucus seems to have done nothing to narrow the field. Duncan Hunter is counting on Saturday's Wyoming GOP Caucus. At last report Ron Paul was actually leading the opinion polls there and Duncan Hunter had the advantage of not being last there at the moment.

So we are likely to be stuck for with all six GOP candidates until at least February 5 when close to half the states in the US hold primaries. If we get rid of anyone before then, I expect it to be Fred Thompson. All the hype and high expectations surrounding his entrance into the race has meant that he has to start winning soon; if he finishes less than second in South Carolina on January 19, I expect Thompson to bail out...

The biggest question for the GOP is whether there will be an independent in November. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he's not going to run. Do you believe him? In a Washington Post interview last month, Ron Paul wouldn't rule out an independent run. Either candidate would have a Ralph Nadar effect on the GOP, costing them enough votes to ensure a GOP defeat - if that isn't a sure thing already.

Correction: Mike Gravel is still campaigning, as one of my commentors has pointed out. My bad...

Iowa is Over...

Well, almost.

At the moment about 94% of the precincts are reporting and Barack Obama is the clear Democratic winner with 37% of the vote. The Loser? Hillary looks set to come in third, about half a percentage point behind Edwards. In a state that borders Illinois, it's not surprising that Illinois Senator Obama had a small home field advantage. That doesn't account for a seven point victory. Obama clearly benefited from mobilizing new caucus goers. So the question becomes one of how much momentum her gains from this and whether he can keep bringing new participants to the caucus and primary process.

The last I looked, Hillary had a small lead in New Hampshire. And I believe NH is a winner-take-all state, unlike Iowa...

Iowa's Democratic Party uses the caucus process to pick delegates that go on to another caucus to vote on who to send to the nominating conventions. At the moment, CNN reckons that Obama will get 16 delegates sent on to the next level. Hillary will get 15 and Edwards 14, even though Edwards finished ahead of Hillary. Thus are the eccentricities of the system. there are 12 "super-delegates" that are uncommitted; so it's still anybody's guess ow tonight will effect the actual nominating process.

The GOP results seem to only be available through CNN. Even the GOP's Iowa Website doesn't seem to know how the vote is going. (The Iowa Democrats have had a very nice site updating numbers every 30 seconds since shortly after the caucuses started.)

Fred Thompson said that he needed to finish second in this race; he looks set to finish third, with McCain in fourth. But there's still about 15% of the GOP vote out and I'll probably go to bed before the count is complete.

And while the Dems seem to split their delegates, the GOP is closer to a winner-take-all format; Huckabbe, according to CNN, will get 37 of the 40 delegates from Iowa to the GOP nominating convention.

Giuliani is in last place; but considering he didn't really run in Iowa, that's no surprise. Ron Paul, in fifth, is probably the GOP's biggest loser; perhaps the hype about Paul will go away now...

The Scariest Candidate for President: Ron Paul

If you listen to National Public Radio like I do, you probably heard a lot this week about GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Among my favorite sound bites, there was the description of how jut a few weeks ago Huckabee was in a tight race with Margin of Error. Now he seems to have gotten the part in the Conservative play that Fred Thompson was trying out for.

No one really knows what he'd really stand for as President. He took a soft view of immigration as governor and is now promoting a hard line on the issue. He wants to cut taxes as President (don't they all?), but his GOP rivals want to make him out to be a tax-and-spend liberal while governor. And then there's religion...

As tempting as it is to talk about Huckabee at the moment, the most frightening candidate on the campaign trail today is not Mike Huckabee. Its GOP candidate Ron Paul. His political positions are both extreme and dichotomous:

• He would overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for states to outlaw abortion.
  
• He would abolish the U.S. Department of Education (along with a large number of other federal agencies).
  
• He would work to legalize marijuana.
  
• He would pull U.S. troops out of Iraq (the only GOP candidate to make that claim).
  
• He would do away with Medicare and Medicaid.
  
• He would have America withdraw from both the United Nations and NATO.

His positions are dichotomous to such an extent that it would easy to call him schizophrenic. But that's not really true. He may draw from both the far left and far right, but he holds his positions with unwavering consistency.

Who is Ron Paul? Think of Barry Goldwater having a child with Frank Zappa: that's Ron Paul.

The 10-term Texas Congressman and obstetrician has been on the November ballot for President once before. He beat Zappa for the Libertarian Party's nomination in 1988.

The guiding principal of Ron Paul's political philosophy is simple. If the U.S. Constitution doesn't expressly grant the federal government the right or responsibility to dabble in something, then it should get out.

That philosophy has earned him the nickname "Dr. No" because he casts a no vote on almost so many issues, like appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. He voted "no" on the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007. He voted "no" on implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. You get the idea...

Paul has been criticized (perhaps ridiculed would be a better word) for his position on the economy and on monetary policy. In his view, the government shouldn't be involved in either. Ron Paul would close the Federal Reserve. Most other countries (and all of our main competitors in the world market) would have central banks that could manipulate their currencies and set monetary policies; America would not.

Ron Paul's position on taxation is not unique to him. But he would close the IRS, eliminate income taxes for individuals and corporations, and create a federal sales tax that (to start) would be about 23%. A recent NPR story on Huckabee examines some of the flaws of that "fair tax" plan. Their conclusion was that the poor in America would be a little better off under the plan (provided the "pre-bate" provision of the plan actually worked), but that the rich would be much better off and the big losers would be America's middle class.

So picture an America where much of the work of the federal government simply stopped. Welfare, education, health laws, etc. would differ greatly from one state to the next and the federal government would have almost no power. No one could whine about FEMA doing a bad job after the next hurricane because FEMA wouldn't come at all. And while it might be legal to smoke marijuana to relieve the pain associated with your chemotherapy, Medicare wouldn't pay for it (or anything else) because Medicare wouldn't exist.

Not yet convinced that Ron Paul is the most frightening candidate? Go back 35 years and consider what the 1970's might have been like if Paul's suggestions now on NATO had been followed then. My bet is that we'd all be speaking Russian today, or at least trying to learn it so that we could get a job in our own country...

When it Comes to It, Electability is the REAL Issue for Dems

Reuters is reporting that if the 2008 presidential election were held today and Hilary Clinton was the Democratic nominee, Rudy Giuliani could beat her.

So could Mitt Romney.

And John McCain. And Fred Thompson. And even Mike Huckabee.

I the same poll in July, people were unfamiliar enough with the most of the GOP candidates that Hilary would have won by a small margin. Not as big as the margin that Barack Obama or John Edwards would have won by, but she would have won. But people have had time to think about it.

The campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination has been about influence and money until now. Many Democratic women want a woman to be president. And Hilary is easily the most well connected of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination. Hillary has led until now. She still leads the other Democratic candidates in polls that ask Democrats who they plan to vote for.

There is a danger for the Democrats, a danger that they could lose sight of the real goal of the nominating process. The goal is not to find out who is most popular with other Democrats. The goal is to nominate a candidate who can become President. The concern has consistently been that Hillary Clinton may not be that person, regardless of her influence and popularity with the party.

The choices are really at the party level:

• Almost every Democrat wants universal health care administered by the Federal government; almost every Republican believes that it can be left in the hands of private insurance companies and employers.
  
• Almost every Democrat wants to get out of Iraq; almost every Republican want to stay in Iraq.
  
• Almost every Republican wants to privatize social security and reduce benefits for future generations; almost every Democrat wants to extend the payroll tax so that the wealthiest one or two percent of Americans pay that tax on all (or at least most) of their incomes (like the rest of us) so that we can fund the system as it currently exists in the future.
  
• Almost all Democrats are pro-choice; almost all Republicans are pro-life.
  
• Almost all Republicans want to take our education system toward government financed private education; almost all Democrats want to strengthen public education and repeal many aspects of the disastrous No Child Left Behind law.
  
• Almost all Democrats want to simplify the tax code and make it more progressive; almost all Republicans want to simplify the tax code and make it less progressive (or do away with it and replace it with a federal sales tax).
  

So take your pick. Do you want a Republican or a Democrat in the White House in 2008. If your answer is that you want a Democrat, that person is probably not Hillary. And if we nominate her, there's a good chance that we will end up with eight more years of George Bush's policies and a President name Mitt or Fred....

The 2008 President Race - Some Tidbits...

You've all probably heard the joke about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac who used to lie awake in bed at night and wonder if there was a dog. But did you know he was running for president? Okay, I don't really know how well Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) sleeps at night. And he's a Unitarian, not an Agnostic. But he is dyslexic.

There's a lot we don't know about this batch of presidential candidates. The information is out there; it just doesn't seem to float to the top very often. Maybe that's because it doesn't really matter much (or matters less tan it used to, at least). Here's another example....

Almost everyone is away that candidate Mitt Romney (R-Mass.)is a Mormon. What rarely gets mentioned is that the wife of candidate Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Jackie Marie Clegg Dodd, is also a Mormon. Dodd's father was a U.S. Senator. In 1970, Dodd, a Catholic, married his father's speech writer, Susan Mooney. They divorced in 1982. Dodd dated for 17 years; his romantic interests included Bianca Jagger (Ex-wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger) and Carrie Fisher (who player Princess Leia in Start Wars). The in 1999 he married Clegg.

If you had to guess which presidential candidate was the bass player for a band that had opened for or played with stars like Willie Nelson, REO Speedwagon, Charlie Daniels, Alabama, and Grand Funk Railroad, who would you pick? Would it confuse you more if I told you the candidate was a Republican? Mike Huckabee is the answer. The former Arkansas governor is a blues and rock band leader as well as an ordained Southern Baptist minister (he went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas).

There are 17 declared candidate in the two major parties. Where did your favorite go to college?

Hillary (D-NY) went to an all-girls school, Wellesley College, before doing her law degree at Yale (ironically, the alma mater of our current president). On the other hand, Romney, Obama (D-Ill.), and GOP hopeful Alan Keyes all get their last degree at Harvard. So will the fact that Harvard beat Yale this year make a difference in the campaign?

Here's a list:

• Joe Biden when to the University of Delaware and did his law degree at Syracuse University.
  
• Chris Dodd went to Providence College before doing his law degree at the University of Louisville.
  
• John Edwards (D-NC) started at Clemson, graduate from North Carolina State, and did his law degree at the University of North Carolina.
  
• Rudi Giuliani (R-NY) went to Manhattan College and on to New York University School of Law.
  
• Mike Gravel went to Columbia University.
  
• Mike Huckabee did his undergraduate work at Ouachita Baptist University.
  
• Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) got his BA and his law degree from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.
  
• Alan Keyes did his undergraduate work at Cornell.
  
• Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) went to Case Western Reserve University.
  
• John McCain (R-AZ) went to the Naval Academy.
  
• Ron Paul (R-Texas) went to Gettysburg College before getting his medical degree from Duke.
  
• Romney attended Stanford, but ended up doing his undergraduate work at Brigham Young.
  
• Obama finished up his undergraduate work at Columbia University before going on to Harvard.
  
• Bill Richardson (D-NM) went to Tufts University.
  
• Tom Tancredo (R-CO) went to the University of Northern Colorado.
  
• Fred Thompson (R-TN) got his undergraduate degree from the University of Memphis and did his law degree at Vanderbilt.
  

That's eleven lawyers, one doctor, two soldier, one minister, one Peace Corp volunteer, one real live knight, one actor, and one real estate agent.

Other tidbits worth mentioning:

Ron Paul is a Republican, but he is also a member of the Libertarian Party. Bill Richardson was a French major in college. Mitt Romney's father ran for president in 1968. Duncan Hunter won a Bronze Star in Nam as an Army Ranger and went to college on the GI Bill. Rudi Giuliani was knighted by Quenn Elizabeth. And Fred Thompson was the GOP mole in the Watergate Hearings.

Could You Vote for Hillary?

Eight years ago (give or take a few months) people started asking me if I could vote for Al Gore. It usually wasn't really a question - it was more of an accusation. They'd tell me that Gore was arrogant and over-educated (I always wondered what was wrong with being over-educated). They'd tell me Gore was stupid, that he thought he'd invented the Internet (which, obviously, he hadn't), and that Al made fun of Oliver North at a 1987 Senate hearing where North told Congress that one day Osama Bin Laden was going to be a problem (You remember that email? The truth is that Gore wasn't on the committee and never questioned North). Then they'd tell me something like that Bush had better judgment and would make a good president - and they'd finish with something about how a Bush presidency would be good for public education in America....


Four years ago those same people started asking me if I could vote for John Kerry. And, again, it usually sounded more like an accusation than a question. They'd tell me that Kerry was a hypocrite because he only threw cheap ribbons that can be replaced anyway instead of real medals at whatever that protest event was. They'd tell me Kerry didn't really earn those three purple hearts, anyway, and that they knew he didn't because Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said he didn't (and we all knew they were a disinterested party speaking on behalf of God and justice). And they'd tell that Kerry was really just a pansy who owed most of what he'd accomplished in life to money he got from his wife with the funny accent. Then they'd tell me that it was unpatriotic to vote against Bush in the middle of a war (even if he started it)....

Now those same people have started asking me if I could vote for Hillary. And it sounds like an accusation again.

I voted for Kerry. I think I voted for Gore, but that was a long time ago and I'm not absolutely positive.

When the Democratic Primary comes around in my state, I'll probably vote for John Edwards. For reasons I can't really quantify, reasons that have as much to do with personality as with politics, I don't really like Hillary all that much. But on November 4th, 2008, if the choice comes down to Hillary Clinton or Fred Thompson, or maybe Hillary vs. Newt Gingrich, I will not stay home and curl up in bed and pull the covers over my head.

The Republicans have spent eight years trying to privatize public education and take America backwards in time to before it was a Great Society. They started an expensive war to satisfy personal agendas. And when it's all said and done I'll go out on November 4th next year and vote for whomever I think is most likely to clean up the mess that George W. Bush and the GOP have made of America. And I'll do it at least in part because it's my patriotic duty.

The answer, then, is "yes." I'll almost certainly vote for someone else when Virginia holds its Democratic Presidential Primary on February 12th. But if it comes to that, I could vote for Hillary on November 4th next year. Quickly, and without much reservation...

Fred Thompson: Hero to Rodent at the Speed of Sound

"Dumb as Hell." That was former President Nixon's description of Fred Thompson in February of 1973 when Thompson became one of the two co-chief counsels to the Senate Watergate Committee. By June 6 (15 weeks later), Nixon's opinion hadn't changed; according to a recent Associated Press story, Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, can be heard on one White House tape explaining to then President Nixon that Thompson was "friendly," even if he wasn't very smart.

The truth about Fred Thompson surfaced recently as the Associated Press was reviewing Nixon Era White House tapes.

Sarah Baxter, a columnist for the Times of London, is blunt: Thompson was Nixon's "mole" in the Senate Watergate Committee. Imagine... One century he was a hero, the guy that asked the BIG question ("Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"). And Fred Thompson was credited with writing the question that summed up Watergate, that meanest of questions that Thompson's mentor, Senate Howard Baker (R-TN) asked former White House counsel John Dean ("What did the president know and when did he know it?"). Then the next century rolls around and everyone figures out that when Thompson asked White House aide Alexander Butterfield about tapes and listening devices, Thompson already knew the answer and asked the questions mostly so that his friends in the White House would know that the Senate knew about the tapes. Democrats on the committee when incensed that Thompson let the cat out of the bag on that issue.

Oh, and the Baker question? Some historians now thinks that it was originally intended to show that whether the president was involved in the Watergate scandal came down to the word of one witness (John Dean) against the word of a sitting President. Which was true until the tapes came to light.

Rarely do people get such a glimpse into how history will remember them. When the tapes were reviewed, Thompson went from being the tough hero who asked the hard questions to a rodent (a mole) at the speed of sound (the sound of those tapes).

Does Thompson play up his Watergate hero credentials? Sarabeth at 1115 Dot Org points out that:

To hear Freddie tell it, he was singlehandedly responsible for bringing down Richard Nixon’s house of cards. He was the “hard-charging counsel on the Watergate committee” who took the lead in revealing “the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office”.

And now we find out that Nixon's attorney, Buzhardt, spent days coaching Thompson on how to question John Dean because the Nixon White House wasn't sure Thompson was smart enough to carry that much water for them...

But in Fred Thompson's case the irony is that after decades of pretending to be the hero, Conservatives in America may actually like him more because they now know he "Carried water for the (Republican) White House," as one historian puts it. And the rest of America? Unfortunately they may well view the issue as being long ago in a far away place and not take into account what living the charade for so long says about Thompson's character.

I suspect that other character issues and conflicts will surface for Thompson as his years as a Washington lobbyist come under scrutiny. As one blog I read today has already pointed out, when it's all said and done, Thompson may go the way of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The LA Times recently reported that Thompson took money from a pro-choice group for his services as a lobbyist and then told them he spoke to John Sununu several times on their behalf when Sununu was White House Chief of Staff for the first President Bush. If he lied to them, he committed criminal fraud, the same kind of fraud that Abramoff is now in jail for. If, on the other hand, he really did lobby the White House for a pro-choice group, his status as the Right-to-Life candidate is in the crapper.

Thompson needs those conservative credentials; charm (and good acting) will only take him so far...