Disco Stu wrote:Rudy should go down as the biggest bomb in the history of primaries in the 21st century.

The biggest bomb since Howard Dean...or Hillary if she loses.

mpmcgraw wrote:Hillary is going to run away with NJ.

That's a foregone conclusion as far as I'm concerned. The dems around here love her.

I think she had a 12% to 15% lead depending on the poll but they are all before S.C. Watching Clinton tonight celebrate her victory was sickening; how anybody could vote for her is beyond me. Celebraing her rousing victory in Florida, I wonder who is living a fairy tale now!

Lou Dobbs sucks. I would love to see a reality show where we drop him on the wrong side of the Mexican border and watch him try to smuggle himself back in.

RedState is at about a level four meltdown. It's going to take a lot of patience for me to make it through the next nine months.

so, uhhh, what's the score?

John McCain won the Florida primary yesterday with the help of key endorsements from Governor Charlie Crist and Senator Mel Martinez.

Rudy Giuliani finished third despite endorsements from Mickey Mouse and Goofy.

It seems clear Republicans are voting for who they think can win. That never works, ask John Kerry.

jerseyhoya wrote:The biggest bomb since Howard Dean...or Hillary if she loses.

Maybe not the biggest bomb, but certainly the biggest idiot.

I was a Hilary supporter at one point, but her celebration in Florida last night is the final straw. I know any candidate probably would have done it, but it strikes me as somewhat slimy and desperate. If I'm one of the majority of Florida democrats who didn't vote in the meaningless primary I'd take that as a slap in the face. They should have closed the polls if it wasn't going to count.

VoxOrion wrote:It seems clear Republicans are voting for who they think can win. That never works, ask John Kerry.

It doesn't work for Democrats, because hardcore primary voting democrats have a warped notion of electability. They did manage to figure out that Bill Clinton was more electable than Gerry Brown, so maybe there's hope.

Appears both Guliani and Edwards are dropping out today...

I don't know who this benefits more...if I had to guess I'd say Obama.

Its about time that Edwards quit.

VoxOrion wrote:It seems clear Republicans are voting for who they think can win. That never works, ask John Kerry.

I don't think you can say something never works because it has failed once before. Obviously I'm rooting/voting for McCain at this point, so feel free to take anything I say with a grain of salt...

The main similarity between the two is neither was the first choice of the base. The Dems had Dean, the GOP had a hodgepodge. But in both cases it seemed that beating the other side (Bush/Hillary) was so important that a lack of enthusiasm for the electable candidate could be put aside to accomplish the greater goal.

I see two main differences between McCain's electability in 2008 and Kerry's in 2004. One is ideological, the other is actual support vs. perceived support. Kerry was named the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal as he was making his run. Whether or not a few folks were to the left of him, it's clear Kerry was a pretty doctrinaire liberal. As such, there was little natural crossover appeal. McCain is a conservative, but not exclusively. On stuff like climate change, immigration and money in politics, McCain not only takes the default liberal position, but he takes on a leadership role in them. He's not afraid to work across the aisle and that sort of thing appeals to independent voters.

In 2004, a lot of Dems voted for Kerry because they figured a lot of independents and some disaffected Republicans would like him because he seemed like an adult. He might be a liberal, but he wasn't strident about it. He might oppose the war, but he was a former soldier himself. There was probably something to this, but the problem was there was never any real reason, anecdotal or more substantial, as they were making this choice to actually believe independents and Republicans would jump on board with Kerry. You didn't hear Republicans in large numbers saying things like, you know who the one Democrat I really like is...John Kerry. People say that about McCain all the time. He consistently runs best in the polls against the Democrats because he does better among the type of swing voters that decide elections.

Hitting out at the voting for the guy who they think can win became too fashionable after it failed in 2004. I think coming to the conclusion that voting for the guy who matches up best against the opposition never works is simplistic and wrong. In baseball we can have something happen 100 times and a trend might start, but if you point it out, people scream "small sample size!" In politics something happens once, and everyone knows it's true forever and ever.

I'm not saying McCain's going to definitely get elected, but he stands a heck of a better shot than Romney or Huckabee. If he was 10 years younger, I'd feel a lot better about it. In any case, I think it's a perfectly legitimate reason to support him over the others. I'm not saying ignore issues completely, but electability deserves to be a factor in coming to a decision on who to vote for.

jerseyhoya wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:It seems clear Republicans are voting for who they think can win. That never works, ask John Kerry.

I don't think you can say something never works because it has failed once before. Obviously I'm rooting/voting for McCain at this point, so feel free to take anything I say with a grain of salt...

Dole. Dukakis. Ford.

It's more than once, I was referring to most recently.

I think you're looking at it too deeply, not because you don't have any good points, but because you are expecting voters to be thinking and analyzing the situation that way and they aren't. The not-hard-on-any-specific-issue GOP folks are going for who they think can beat Hillary. McCain has an erratic past where he flies against the GOP on his own, or just as often flies against the GOP with Democrats. I think this is a simple case of people assuming that the Democrats who don't want Hillary will accept a quasi-moderate McCain instead. Who knows, it might work, but I think it's the wrong way to approach things. McCain is not the guy to put back together the Bush-destroyed fragmented base of the GOP.

It's good news for liberals, I think.

VoxOrion wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:It seems clear Republicans are voting for who they think can win. That never works, ask John Kerry.

I don't think you can say something never works because it has failed once before. Obviously I'm rooting/voting for McCain at this point, so feel free to take anything I say with a grain of salt...

Dole. Dukakis. Ford.

It's more than once, I was referring to most recently.

I think you're looking at it too deeply, not because you don't have any good points, but because you are expecting voters to be thinking and analyzing the situation that way and they aren't. The not-hard-on-any-specific-issue GOP folks are going for who they think can beat Hillary. McCain has an erratic past where he flies against the GOP on his own, or just as often flies against the GOP with Democrats. I think this is a simple case of people assuming that the Democrats who don't want Hillary will accept a quasi-moderate McCain instead. Who knows, it might work, but I think it's the wrong way to approach things. McCain is not the guy to put back together the Bush-destroyed fragmented base of the GOP.

It's good news for liberals, I think.

I'll chime in and say that if it ends up being Obama vs. McCain, I'm probably going Obama (I have long been a fan of John McCain so it'll be a close call for me).

If it ends up Clinton vs. McCain, I'll be first in line to vote for McCain. As I said before, I'm a Democrat in name only - I vote for who I believe is the best PERSON for the job.

VoxOrion wrote:I think you're looking at it too deeply, not because you don't have any good points, but because you are expecting voters to be thinking and analyzing the situation that way and they aren't. The not-hard-on-any-specific-issue GOP folks are going for who they think can beat Hillary. McCain has an erratic past where he flies against the GOP on his own, or just as often flies against the GOP with Democrats. I think this is a simple case of people assuming that the Democrats who don't want Hillary will accept a quasi-moderate McCain instead. Who knows, it might work, but I think it's the wrong way to approach things. McCain is not the guy to put back together the Bush-destroyed fragmented base of the GOP.

I'm not one to give voters too much credit. I just think they got this one right, probably by mistake or maybe because they were due.

McCain isn't the guy to rebuild the GOP, I'll agree with you there, but I guess he's good enough to be the caretaker of the party for 4-8 years. For a while my running line was I trust John McCain with my country but not my party, but I've softened on that I guess. The dearth of other good choices probably played a role in that transformation.

In 2016, maybe Bobby Jindal or Pawlenty or Sanford or someone else will step forward and wow us all with charisma and well founded conservatism, but there was no one in the field this year that fit that bill. Maybe the party would benefit from a few years in the wilderness, but I don't think the country would.

hoya, I think your Kerry analysis is sound but the bigger deal might just have been that it's very, very tough--close to impossible by historical standards--to defeat an incumbent president in wartime. Even one who's as obvious a screwup as Bush.

I campaigned in Ohio at the end of that election. People were scared--exactly as Rove wanted them to be. Between that and the misinformation the church networks were spreading about Kerry--which his idiot advisers hadn't done enough to counter, being too busy buying ad time for their firms--it was just too much to overcome.

As for McCain, what I think will be interesting is how far the Limbaugh/Hewitt type crazies will go to stop him in the short time before he locks it up next week.

Then there's the Edwards dropout news. I'm not happy. His supporters seem to be mostly low- and middle-income whites who are spoiling to fight; though the Clintons mostly (exclusively?) fight on their own behalf, I'm not sure the Edwards voters will grasp that distinction, and they'll probably just revert to Clinton Brand loyalty.

Between the Santana news and this, not a good last 18 hours or so.

TenuredVulture wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:It seems clear Republicans are voting for who they think can win. That never works, ask John Kerry.

It doesn't work for Democrats, because hardcore primary voting democrats have a warped notion of electability. They did manage to figure out that Bill Clinton was more electable than Gerry Brown, so maybe there's hope.

Many Democrats don't consider electability. They see a candidate and imagine the great things they'll see him do and not event take into account what other people will think. I think Al Gore would win the nomination this year if he decided to run. With Bill Clinton they got lucky that the guy who inspired them actually had the charisma to inspire others.

Well, this cheers me up some:



Viva Il Douche!

dajafi wrote:hoya, I think your Kerry analysis is sound but the bigger deal might just have been that it's very, very tough--close to impossible by historical standards--to defeat an incumbent president in wartime. Even one who's as obvious a screwup as Bush.

I campaigned in Ohio at the end of that election. People were scared--exactly as Rove wanted them to be. Between that and the misinformation the church networks were spreading about Kerry--which his idiot advisers hadn't done enough to counter, being too busy buying ad time for their firms--it was just too much to overcome.

As for McCain, what I think will be interesting is how far the Limbaugh/Hewitt type crazies will go to stop him in the short time before he locks it up next week.

Then there's the Edwards dropout news. I'm not happy. His supporters seem to be mostly low- and middle-income whites who are spoiling to fight; though the Clintons mostly (exclusively?) fight on their own behalf, I'm not sure the Edwards voters will grasp that distinction, and they'll probably just revert to Clinton Brand loyalty.

Between the Santana news and this, not a good last 18 hours or so.

I fear you are going to be proven correct but if I'm low- to middle-income I'm identifying substantially more with Obama than Clinton. I think there is a decent chance that Edwards' supporters are swept into the Obama wave of change. Obviously an Edwards endorsement would be ginormous but it doesn't sound like that'll happen in time for Tuesday.

There are some important things to note about McCain's status as a conservative and as a Republican. As of 2005, he's got a lifetime ACU rating of 83--not Sam Brownback (100), but hardly to be confused with say Snowe (50) or Spector (45). He's a conservative.

His status as a "maverick" Republican reflects a voting behavior that used to be far more common in Congress, especially the Senate. It's how Congress used to actually accomplish things. But it also reflects the intention of how the Framers expected Senators to function.