Day: January 3, 2008

Iowa Caucuses

Jon Ponder

5:17 p.m.: On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann reported that “entrance polls” show stronger support for Clinton and Obama than other Democratic candidates, while there is stronger support for Romney and Huckabee among GOP voters. Olbermann cautioned that these numbers are very soft because of the dynamics of caucusing.

Another indicator from MSNBC: Many Democratic caucus sites are filled above capacity. It’s purely anecdotal but at a site where only 86 people caucused in 2004, well over 200 people have shown up tonight.

5:40 p.m.: First numbers released put Edwards and Huckabee in the lead.

5:54 p.m.: Latest Dems: Edwards 34 percent, Clinton 33 percent, Obama 33 percent.

5:58 p.m.: Latest GOP: Thompson in third — Huckabee 36 percent, Romney 23 percent, Thompson 14 percent.

6:00 p.m.: MSNBC calls GOP vote for Huckabee.

6:10 p.m.: MSNBC: 60 percent of GOP voters tonight self-identified as born-again or evangelical.

6:15 p.m.: With 56 percent in, delegate counts: Obama 35 percent, Edwards 33 percent and Clinton 31 percent, via MSNBC. Chris Matthews insists this is a “huge” defeat for Clinton.

6:26 p.m.: MSNBC calls the Democratic caucus vote for Obama — Edwards second, Clinton third.

6:43 p.m.: MSNBC: Obama 37 percent, Edwards 30 percent, Clinton 30 percent. Tom Brokaw is on. Olbermann: Pat Robertson won Iowa in 1988.

Prediction: Clinton and McCain Will Be Winners in Iowa Tonight

Jon Ponder

I have no fear of being wrong about prognosticating so will boldly go where others won’t and make predictions about the outcome of the Iowa caucuses tonight.

After Feb. 6, it’s hard to see any other result than two two-person races: Romney vs. Giuliani and Clinton vs. Obama

Republicans

The easiest one is perhaps the strangest: McCain will win the expectations game by coming in third behind Huckabee and Romney. (And after the dumbass mistakes Huckabee has made in the last few days, it wouldn’t surprise me if Romney came in first, despite recent polling otherwise.)

After spending so little time and money in Iowa, if McCain comes in third, he’ll almost certainly go on to win in New Hampshire next week, too. But after that, it looks pretty grim. He might do okay in South Carolina but he has no money to compete against Romney and especially Giuliani, who has also spent little or nothing in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Even if McCain wins in New Hampshire and Huckabee wins South Carolina, it probably won’t matter much in the long term because they’ll both lose in Florida and then the big states on Feb. 5. Starting Feb. 6, there will be a two-man race between Romney and Giuliani. Way too early to predict the outcome of that battle, but Giuliani has the support of the White House, Fox News and rightwing talk radio.

Democrats

Among Democrats, whoever comes in third is in trouble but among the top three, Clinton has the best chance of recovery. It’ll put her behind in New Hampshire — but, who knows, she could come in second and call herself the new “Comeback Kid,” as Bill did after Paul Tsongas bested him there in 1992 — but she will have California and New York, just to name two, in the bag on Feb. 5.

Polling caucus voters is wiggy, at best. Obama has been surging lately but my sense is, Iowa Democrats will take the perceived safest bet tonight and go with Clinton.

It’s true that the media has already turned on her big time. But this is nothing new, really. Despite the rightwing’s fantasy that the liberal media helps Democratic politicians, the Clintons have been despised by the Beltway Cool Kids — the very same folks who kissed George Bush’s ass for so long — from the outset of their national political careers.

If Obama wins tonight, he’ll get a tremendous boost from the momentousness of the fact that an African-American has won the first round in a U.S. election. He may even win in New Hampshire. But he will likely stall in South Carolina (sorry, Oprah) as well as in Florida.

If Obama comes in third tonight, he is still sitting on a pile of money and could still rally over the next few months but it will be an uphill climb.

If Edwards comes in third, he’s done. (Sorry, Trish.) He’s nowhere in New Hampshire, trailing in his native state of South Carolina and has nothing in the bank for Feb. 5. Unfortunately, if he wins tonight, very little, if anything, changes in this equation.

After Feb. 6, the Democratic race will narrow to Clinton and Obama. He has a chance but it is slim, at best.

*

For the record, if he’s still in the race, I plan on voting for Joe Biden in the California primary on Feb. 5.

*

Update: Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t mind being wrong about these prognostications yesterday because I got the main two points wrong. Obama won with 38 percent, Edwards came in second with 30 percent and Clinton came in third with 29 percent. Huckabee won substantially over Romney, whom the pundits are already calling last night’s “big loser.” But the biggest surprise for me was that “Fixin’ to Get Ready” Fred Thompson tied for third with John McCain. There was talk yesterday that Thompson would drop out after Iowa and throw his support to McCain. Don’t be surprised if Fred’s handlers — particularly his wife Jeri and their BFF Mary Matalin — convince him to postponed that move until after the South Carolina primary later this month.

Rudy Rolls Out Terror Ad – a Disgusting Attempt to Enflame Fear Among GOP Sheeple

Jon Ponder

Are you scared yet?

If you are a liberal, a Democrat or a sensible moderate independent, this ad probably won’t scare you. Good for you for being able to see through Rudolph Giuliani’s cravenly manipulative attempt to terrify dim-witted folks into voting for him.

But even if you are a wise consumer of this sort of propaganda, this ad should scare you nonetheless — because it probably will be effective in scaring the votes out of the terror-addicted Republican base, who have been softened up by the terror politics of Bush and Rove since September 2001, and are now fully converted into what may be America’s first generation of cowards — rivaling in the inverse the Greatest Generation that fought World War II.

Republican pols like Bush and Giuliani depend on the fact that when people are terrified they don’t think rationally. Like drug pushers in the bad old days, the neocon-nationalist wing of the GOP has fed Wal-Mart shoppers,” “security moms,” “NASCAR dads” and their other key voter demos a steady diet of fear and now millions of them are completely hooked on terror.

The more consumed they are by fear, the less they notice that the same politicians who routinely scare the bejeebus out of them are simultaneously sending their jobs overseas, forking over billions of their tax dollars to giant corporations and fomenting the decline of democracy in favor of Mexican-style oligarchy and even fascism.

It worked in 2004, and there is no reason to believe it won’t work in 2008.

So… Are you scared yet?

At the End of the Day, Throw Me Under the Bus

Buck Banks

Since 1975, Lake Superior State University has published a list of misused and overused words and phrases, nominated by people like us who have an intimate and meaningful relationship with the English language — we use it to communicate.

The list began this year by returning truthiness — coined by Stephen Colbert — to the list of approved words. Seems there just is no substitute for it in the lingua franca.

Here’s this year’s list. For explanations about why they nominated them from those who nominated the words, go here.

Perfect storm
Webinar
Waterboarding
Organic
Wordsmith/wordsmithing
Author/authored
Post 9/11
Surge
Give back
Blank is the new blank or X is the new Y
Black Friday
Back in the day
Random
Sweet
Decimate
Emotional
Pop
It is what it is
Under the bus

To which we would add:

At the end of the day — meant to be a kind of summation, but mainly used as a place-holder when someone has nothing better or more intelligent to say
Drill down — used in marketing speak to mean to get down to the nugget of whatever it is that’s currently under consideration
Blogoshpere — just a stupid-sounding word
Social media — is there any other kind?
Web 2.0 or anything 2.0 — duh
Lassitude — a perfectly fine word that no one uses

Do you have some words or phrases that just grate on your ear like fingernails on a blackboard? Let us know. Leave a comment.