5 January 2008 a Saturday

...which is, all of a sudden, clear and sunny with very few clouds. It's still only 67 degrees but sure feels differently with the sun shining. I did not sign up for 'cold' and as far as I'm concerned this qualifies for that word. I hope we're due for a change once the sun gets further above the horizon.

Ah, yes...45 minutes later it is now 71.4 degrees and much more comfortable.

Knowing how much money Hillary has stashed away and how much is riding on this, I'm with the cabbie I quoted yesterday...Obama could win all of the primaries and Hillary would still get the nomination in a brokered convention.

Huckabee has to feel good knowing that he's only regarded as a s--t-disturber creating turmoil.

And if you want to read an article that falls all over itself trying to acknowledge something good that Bush has done, his work on AIDS relief, this one is a work of art. Here's the front-page lede:

Bipartisan. But when you read the article it comes out, bit-by-bit, that it was virtually a secret plan of Bush's from the beginning and...

Dr. Coutinho said Ugandans were terrified that when Mr. Bush left office, “the Bush fund,” as they call it, would go with him. “When I’ve traveled in the U.S., I’m amazed at how little people know about what Pepfar stands for,” he said. “Just because it has been done under Bush, it is not something the country should not be proud of.”

The need to knock Bush is really difficult to overcome. "Just because..." What internal self-conflict Bush raises in people.

So does this mean that there will be a huge negative reaction when he loses?

Here's some news you can't use and wonder why the space was wasted: poll results for a poll taken before the results from Iowa. Oh, well. It didn't really say all that much, anyhow, so forget it.

This from an article on the subject of poor working conditions in China, makes a separate point for me:

In 2007, factories that supplied more than a dozen corporations, including Wal-Mart, Disney and Dell... No company has come under as harsh a spotlight as Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, which sourced about $9 billion in goods from China in 2006, everything from hammers and toys to high-definition televisions.

I want to point out that even though Wal-Mart, Disney and Dell, et al, are paying cash for their purchases, nonetheless this is called part of the United States trade "deficit". It's a little different than the "budget deficit" with which it is often linked as if somehow comparable. But the budget deficit represents real debt.

It's true that some of this money comes back to purchase treasury debt instruments, like T-bonds, to help fund the U.S. budget deficit, but even if the U.S. budget were to become balanced, a situation which appears to be approaching, the trade "deficit" wouldn't be affected by that, necessarily. The relationship is not cause-and-effect. It's often complained that we're "exporting our debt" as if that's automatically a bad thing, but does that number also appear in the export column along with other capital goods?

The storm, one of two predicted for the weekend, hit the Bay Area before dawn and knocked out power to about 1.2 million people from Central California to the Oregon border. With repair crews in some areas forced to retreat in the face of flying debris and tree limbs, Pacific Gas and Electric, Northern California’s chief utility, warned that some customers could be without electricity through the weekend.

Third-world country. Actually, since we've lived here we had one storm which damaged a crucial link and blacked out virtually the entire country for about a day. It wasn't really storming that hard where we were, either. We ate out at the pizza place...they had candles and baked their pizzas in a wood-oven, like proper pizzas are made.

The most extreme conditions were about 200 miles to the east of San Francisco, in the Sierra Nevada, where the National Weather Service warned of blizzard and whiteout conditions and gusts of 160 miles per hour. Just hours into the storm, a 163-m.p.h. gust was reported on one mountaintop near Lake Tahoe.

Power was sporadic in some mountain towns along Interstate 80 from Sacramento to Reno, Nev. Only the hardiest of trucks and tire-chained cars were crawling along that stretch Friday.

Forecasters said trying to travel through the storm would be foolhardy.

“It’s an exceptional storm,” said Rhett Milne, a Reno meteorologist with the Weather Service. “If you do get stranded, it’s a life-threatening situation.”

The Weather Service said some upper elevations could get up to 10 feet of snow by the time the twin storms blow through at weekend’s close, and some ski resorts, visibility eliminated by blowing snow, had already shut their high-mountain lifts.

When my wife and I moved to Jackson in 1980 we bought a home in the foothills up closer in elevation to Pine Grove. A late spring snowstorm dropped very wet snow on the trees and power lines and our somewhat-remote house was without power for nearly a week. By great good fortune our wood stove was being installed right as the storm hit...in fact, we lost power while the guy was installing the smokestack and were fortunate that he had battery-operated power tools to finish with.

It should really put the hurt to Romney to lose, I would think, possibly finish him, but I'm not so sure it's that critical to Obama and Clinton, although it will certainly be looked at as a strong indication of something or other. Just what, though, isn't clear. More interesting will be what happens to Huckabee...will he disappear with scarcely a ripple? I'd like to see it be McCain, Romney/Thompson, and Huckabee a distant fourth, myself.

And what is it with Arkansas governors, anyhow? Huckabee plays the bass guitar and Clinton played the saxophone. Does he still, I wonder?

Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric is also notable for its optimism, in contrast to John Edwards's angry populism. Mr. Edwards is now citing his second-place Iowa finish as a vindication of his call for "change." But he's taken to running essentially like the trial lawyer he is, as if he is prosecuting a giant tort case against all of American business and politics. Mr. Edwards speaks of villains and victims, Mr. Obama of aspiration and opportunity. The latter is what Americans want from a President.

This is not to say that either Mr. Edwards or the Clintons will go quietly into retirement. The Clintons in particular are experts at attack, though Mrs. Clinton has to guard against making herself even more unlikable than she already seems. She might have the most luck hammering at Mr. Obama's greatest liability, which is his lack of national security experience. This remains a post-9/11 country, and Americans know they are electing a Commander in Chief in wartime. Mr. Obama has often sounded naive in the extreme in discussing Iraq, Iran and the overall war on terror, and Mrs. Clinton can point out that Republicans are sure to make that argument in the autumn.

Obama has taken to campaigning, as a result, as if 9/11 almost did not happen. There are a lot of people apparently objecting to the Republican campaign as being one of "fear", and apparently they are responding to the nice daddy who tells them they don't have to worry, there isn't really any ogre under the bed...except in this case there really is.

Still and all, who knows what will happen to Obama if a serious event really occurs? It's often unfairly charged that George Bush came into office dreaming about attacking Iraq from Day One, but the truth is that Bush cared so little about foreign policy that those same people now forget their complaints about that in the beginning. The media laughed because Bush didn't even know the names of all of the foreign leaders.

Osama would doubtless be the first to tell you how shocked and surprised he was at Bush's turn-around, because Osama thought 9/11 would be the final straw that sent American troops home in Murtha-like manner.

We've had going on a seven year reprieve since 9/11/01...those 17-year-old Iowa voters were barely into double-digits in age at that time, and scarcely remember. Obama may not, either...now. Or maybe he's just willing to talk that way in order to get elected?

Mickey Kaus has an interesting column on "the Bradley effect". The Iowa caucus was public for the Democrats and private for the Republicans. What if, he says, white Iowa Democrats voted for Obama as some kind of display of public piety ("we're not racists in Iowa even if we are 99% white") while Republicans secretly hid their Mormon antipathy?

And is Romney's defeat really that remarkable, considering the high evangelical vote...people the most likely to be against Mormonism, no matter who the candidate might otherwise be? In other words, would Huckabee have won in the same voting environment if he had also been Mormon? That, after all, would have been the only meaningful test between them as candidates.

Isn't politics a lot of fun? What's that? It helps if you don't have a lot of really strong feelings about things? Oh. Maybe... Depends on what you mean by really strong, I guess, to be Clintonish. For instance, I'd be really unhappy with Edwards as president, but on the other hand I learned back in 1944 that the country wasn't actually destroyed when Roosevelt won, so I don't feel that strongly, at least.

Snippet from NRO's Media Blog that caught my eye, a liberal commenting on economics:

Sounds intelligent, no? But...where does the influx of capital come from if you take the capital away in taxes? It should have been brutally obvious in recent years that capital not taken away by taxes goes into productive use, instead. And there are two ways to reduce a trade 'deficit'...one is reducing imports, the other is increasing exports. Both occur with a declining dollar, not a rising one.

Even before the bad news for Sen. Hillary Clinton was in from Iowa, two veteran Democratic political practitioners -- Chuck Campion and Joe Grandmaison -- were dispatched to New Hampshire to try to save her failing campaign.

Campion, a Massachusetts Democratic stalwart, long has been considered one of the Democratic Party's ace organizers. Not active until now in the 2008 campaign, Campion was a senior campaign aide for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004.

Grandmaison long has been one of New Hampshire's top Democratic insiders. He now lives in Washington, D.C.

Wow, said Obama in dismay, how can I stand against Campion and Grandmaison? One last helped Kerry to his victory and the other veteran moved to D.C. What buried bodies do you think these two must know about if they're going to suddenly be of help?

Here's a great comment by Michael Barone writing in the Times of London and explaining Iowa to the Brits:

British readers might be pardoned for wondering whether Americans – or at least Iowa caucus-goers – are a little crazy. On Thursday night, the ninth night of Christmas, some 340,000 Iowans (out of 2 million registered voters) chose for their party’s presidential nominations two men whom no one outside their home states had heard of four years ago and who, between them, have less than four years’ experience in the federal government.

You don't understand, Edwards sobbed...winning the presidency is worth HUNDREDS of millions, and I may never find another lawsuit like that one again!

This is fun! The Politico says that Bill has a lot riding on Hillary's presidential run, as well!

Without a second Clinton presidency, Bill Clinton might be remembered as a colorful but in the end not terribly consequential president who governed in comparatively placid times between two war presidents named Bush.

For all that he is often touted as a political superhero, Bill Clinton was always a mere mortal. He never cleared the 50 percent threshold in two presidential elections. He steered his party to disaster in the congressional elections of 1994 and never steered it back over the next six years even through years of peace and prosperity.

Some may even start remembering his bellicose pronouncements against Iraq, his unilateral military excursions, and the fact that the economy was sliding into recession when he left office. In fact, his legacy was so poor that he couldn't even pass it on to his incumbent vice president! Even for those who mistakenly think that Bush somehow stole the election, the fact is that with a really decent Clinton legacy to run on Gore should have been so far ahead of Bush from the very beginning that Bush would never have had a chance.

All of this becomes understandable, though, is the Clinton presidency wasn't really all that memorable or consequential, rather than the dream scenario many have bought into. Here are some more realities, as Politico warns that the Clintons will fight back:

The Clintons have been at their most effective when they have had their backs to the wall together.

That was true in January 1992 when she helped him recover from allegations of womanizing and draft-dodging early in the nomination fight. It was true six years later, in January 1998, when the White House was reeling and even some Clinton aides thought resignation was a possibility over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. She rallied a demoralized Clinton team and sent notice inside the White House and to the public at large that they were going to fight.

A thought to ponder: The tenth anniversary of her famous comment on the "Today" show that the Lewinsky allegations were false and the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” will come between now and the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries.

Will people remember he had a whole crew of people devoted to dealing only with "bimbo eruptions"? Or will his draft-dodging forgeries appear? How can Clinton Democrats possibly say anything at all about Rudy Giuliani's private life? And wasn't the scandal more about not Clinton's private life and his relationship with his wife but actually about the location of the event...the Oval Office? Which is definitely not Clinton's private property, even after hours. Would it have been as bad if the event had taken place in her apartment? I don't think so.

This year, Hillary Clinton, who holds Robert F. Kennedy’s old Senate seat, is cast in a role more like Walter F. Mondale had against Gary Hart in 1984 — the graying but well-connected candidate holding off a dashing but largely unknown challenger.

Mondale went on to grind down Hart and win the nomination. Everything we have seen about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign suggests she has the intelligence, the organization, the money and the self-discipline to do the same.

Oh, I don't think the situations are comparable. Hart, after all, dared the press to catch him if they could, after which he went out and did something unbelievably stupid. Somehow I doubt if you'll see Obama doing the same thing. Recent history suggests that if anyone is about to make a defining mistake, it will be one of the Clintons.

Denny Gallaudet, an investment manager and undecided Democratic voter from Freedom, N.H., who attended a rally in Rochester on Friday with Mr. Clinton, said he sensed “a little Clinton fatigue” among voters. Mr. Gallaudet, who supported Mr. Clinton in 1992 and 1996, said he was skeptical that Democrats were still in the thrall of the former president.

“I got really mad at him about the Monica thing,” he said. “It really creamed the party.”

In response to the evangelical tide from the west, New Hampshire primary voters have figured, "Any old crusty, cranky, craggy coot in a storm," and re-embraced John McCain. After all, Granite State conservatism is not known for its religious fervor: it prefers small government, low taxes, minimal regulation, the freedom to be left alone by the state. So they're voting for a guy who opposed the Bush tax cuts, and imposed on the nation the most explicit restriction in political speech in years. Better yet, after a freezing first week of January and the snowiest December in a century, New Hampshire conservatives are goo-goo for a fellow who also believes the scariest of global-warming scenarios and all the big-government solutions necessary to avert them.

Of course, this isn't really a fair assessment of McCain's positions. For instance, you should know what it was that he opposed about the Bush tax cuts, because if you did you'll know it wasn't the tax cuts he opposed. Oh. I think he was wrong with McCain-Feingold but not so many thought that at the time and you have to understand what he thought he was doing, and why. Being wrong is not the same as being evil, after all. The Supreme Court is there to set wrong legislation straight. I haven't heard his specific words about global warming, I admit...but how different is his belief in global warming compared with Huckabee's disbelief in evolution?

Rudy Giuliani's team is betting that, after a Huck/McCain seesaw through the early states, Florida voters by Jan. 29 will be ready to unite their party behind a less-divisive figure, if by "less divisive figure" you mean a pro-abortion gun-grabbing cross-dresser.

I can't see things playing out quite like that. The principal rationale for Rudy's candidacy is that he's the national-security toughie who can beat Hillary. But it's hard to conclude after Iowa that this is shaping up as a Code Orange election. And, as for Sen. Clinton, her Thursday night third-place was the nearest Bill and Hill have come to a Ceausescu balcony moment. In a world where even John Edwards can beat Hillary, who needs Rudy?

There used to be a time when it was considered funny, as in humorous, for men to dress up like women. A couple of very good movies were made, in fact, and considered to be very funny. It's different, you see, when the cross-dressing is done as a joke, a funny sketch, rather than as some psychological compulsion. Rudy did it as a joke, of course, but that doesn't seem to count now.

As for Huckabee, the thinking on the right is that the mainstream media are boosting him up because he's the Republican who'll be easiest to beat. It's undoubtedly true that they see him as the designated pushover, but in that they're wrong. If Iowa's choice becomes the nation's, and it's Huckabee vs. Obama this November, I'd bet on Huck.

As governor, as preacher and even as disc jockey, he's spent his life in professions that depend on connecting with an audience, and he's very good at it. ... This is the Huckabee advantage. On stage, he's quick-witted and thinks on his feet. He's not paralyzed by consultants and trimmers and triangulators. Put him in a presidential debate, and he'll have sharper ripostes and funnier throwaways and more plausible self-deprecating quips than anyone on the other side. He'll be a great campaigner. The problems begin when he stops campaigning and starts governing. ...

Where I part company with Huck's supporters is in believing he's any kind of solution. He's friendlier to the teachers' unions than any other so-called "cultural conservative" – which is why in New Hampshire he's the first Republican to be endorsed by the NEA. His health care pitch is Attack Of The Fifty Foot Nanny, beginning with his nationwide smoking ban. This is, as Jonah Goldberg put it, compassionate conservatism on steroids – big paternalistic government that can only enervate even further "our culture."

So, Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that's the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

I don't think that Huck is going to get all that much further, myself. I figure he'll be lucky to be 4th in New Hampshire...McCain, Romney, Thompson ahead of him. I don't think he can beat Thompson in South Carolina, but if he falls behind McCain, as well, then he's toast. See, Iowa doesn't count for much for Huckabee except as against only one guy, Romney, and as far as one group, Christian evangelicals, was concerned. Take those two issues off of the table and you take Huckabee with them. If Romney finishes second in NH, even, can he win in South Carolina? No, I don't think so. Fourth place and adios.

Will the argument stick that Thompson doesn't really want the job badly enough? Yeah, I get that impression at least this far. So this will leave McCain vs Rudy. People who have marginalized Rudy already are marginal thinkers themselves...the man hasn't appeared on the stage yet. That's what these preliminaries are all about: seeing what happens after your man gets on stage. Each one refers only to the candidates who actually appear, not to those who do not.

Edwards, for instance, lost in Iowa because he put so much effort forth there. Had he not appeared until South Carolina then being third wouldn't have counted against him.

McCain is the sober grown-up with credentials, Rudy is the likeable rogue but also with good credentials. The Republican version of the 1992 Clinton, only with much better credentials. But can he keep on smiling and joking or will he lose his temper? I think McCain can afford to lose his temper, but Rudy can't...it's a personality thing. McCain is serious and older; grumpy comes with serious and older, it's expected and taken into consideration. With Rudy it's a character fault...of the wrong kind.

So, I think clearly Obama wins on the Democrat side unless he is bushwhacked by the Clinton machine. Could happen, but probably not, although they've been wrongly counted out before. But the same was also true, over and over, about Saddam, and look where he is now. Eventually, you lose.

Obama vs McCain goes probably to Obama...as Steyn points out, the ability to connect counts for more than anything else, unfortunately.

Obama vs Rudy is pretty close, I'd guess. If Obama was Colin Powell then his color wouldn't count against him, but being BOTH black and inexperienced just might. Still, he's easier to like than Giuliani, isn't he? Fewer negatives, certainly.

In the end I think it will boil down to the situation in...Shazam!...Iraq and Iran. If thinks look perilous and unsettled then the older and more experienced guy will win over the young kid.

And if Hillary is still standing at that time, Obama is toast there, too. And machine or no machine, both Rudy and McCain can beat Hillary when it comes to being liked and connecting.

So, there, I've figured out for you who the next president is going to be. Hillary, Obama, McCain or Rudy, depending. Nothing to this.

Wrapped up as we have been in presidential-election hoopla, machinations and drivel, we have to sober up and realize we still have another entire year of the Bush administration to deal with. What should we expect?

Ed Gillespie, senior White House counselor and one of the few experienced work-a-day Republicans who haven’t fled the administration, says President Bush plans to spend this year in a “lot of travel.” ...

The basics: No major new initiatives on foreign policy, another try at extending No Child Left Behind, more funding for the troops in Iraq, a reprise of past State of the Union speeches, some vague effort on reforms to make the housing market more stable and, as always, making the tax cuts permanent. Oh, yes. More fights with Congress over last year’s budget.

Folks, this is depressing.

I guess it helps being depressed if you are Liberal enough. It would be interesting to see what she would consider to be a "new initiative" on foreign policy...more kissy-face, perhaps? Seriously, the words obviously mean something to her, but what? Urge Iran to stop their nuclear program...also North Korea? Send more AIDS help to Africa? Sign Kyoto II? I think she's just mouthing an empty phrase, myself, and has no idea what she means in terms of anything concrete. Extending NCLB is important to a lot of kids, if not her, and as Kennedy's signature bill you'd think she'd be more respectful. She obviously doesn't want to fund the troops in Iraq, that's a given, or make the tax cuts permanent despite the obviously productive spur they have given the economy...she probably doesn't believe that, anyhow. And why try to make the housing market stable, anyhow? No wonder she's depressed.

It’s for certain we don’t want any more disasters from this president. His legacy involving the war in Iraq, the tragic, botched response to Katrina, the confused non-commitment to saving the planet from greenhouse gases, the failure to capture Osama bin Laden, the catastrophes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the loss of American prestige, the probably illegal destruction of the CIA torture tapes and a huge national debt is bad enough.

In years to come, the president's legacy involving the war in Iraq might be recognized for what some of us already do, an important decision to take action and confront jihadists in their home territory rather than in ours. People who think that Saddam was a peaceful old man looking after his people as best he could are simply too stupid to argue with. People who think he meant the United States no ill-will seem oblivious to the fact that he was trying to kill Americans on a daily basis...no ill-will, indeed. Dumb and double-dumb. If you are going to talk about the tragic response to Katrina without ever mentioning the fact that the governor was in charge of the state of Louisiana then obviously you have an agenda, and it's one which manages to leave out the fact that the governor of neighboring Mississippi acted much more responsibly and his state suffered only fractionally compared with Louisiana, as a result.

And the lady is simply grossly ignorant when it comes to "saving the planet from greenhouse gases", and the "catastrophes" of Abu Grabu and Guantanamo are tragedies in the Liberal mind rather than in actual fact. On the world scale of catastrophes, they aren't even ripples on the pond. In fact, using the word to describe them diminishes it. A catastrophe would be the tsunami which hit Indonesia, or the flooding of New Orleans when the levees were breached. The "loss of American prestige" is likewise imaginary, I think, and in part because it has no real meaning. What, does the 'world' hold prestige contests, with the losers doing the complete and utter bidding of the winners at all times? And no matter how much one may wish otherwise, the national debt is not Bush's fault for the simple reason that Bush does not control spending: congress does. It would take a tiny fraction of one's gray cells to read enough to see that Bush has repeatedly PROPOSED budgets smaller than those approved by congress! Oh. Those.

The "possibly illegal" is still only possible, the "torture" was not defined as such by congress when given the opportunity to do so, and Osama hasn't been captured because we were unwilling to nuke Pakistan in order to do so, something I feel sure she wouldn't have approved.

After reading her, I'm depressed to think that she gets paid money for writing such crap. Worse, some people are nodding yes, yes, while they read it.

What's that? You think I am treating this intellectual genius too harshly? Well, let me continue quoting her:

The last edition in 2007 of Parade, the ubiquitous Sunday-newspaper supplement, has a smiling picture of Bush on the cover advertising an article called “What Made My Year Special by President George W. Bush.”

In an article the president most assuredly did not write...

You see? She admits she knows the president did not write it, but she's still willing to read it and then consider it to be what the president thinks!

Liberal Logic, what a triumph! Knowing better and thinking are two separate brain channels.

We elected Bush the first time because he seemed to be a nice guy (despite the smirk) and because Florida has messed-up ballot procedures. We re-elected him because John Kerry was not a compelling alternative and we didn’t feel like jumping to a different horse midstream in a post-9/11 world.

Bush almost assuredly will never again run for elective office. He has the rare luxury of being able to set aside electoral politics to become a statesman and a whole year to try to correct his mistakes. But this president does not admit - publicly, at least - to having made any mistakes. He seems absolutely, arrogantly convinced that he made all the right decisions.

Not many presidents do run again for elective office, but we can skip that line for the moment. The entire complaint filed by Gore was essentially that a bunch of elderly Democrats in one county had become confused during voting.

Amusingly enough, at the time of the 2000 election the Democrats were in full control of the balloting procedures in Florida...they controlled every county, I believe. They created and approved the butterfly ballot which caused the confusion, allegedly. Republicans had nothing at all to say about Florida ballot procedures.

Bush was elected because the American people so little trusted Clinton's heir-anointed, Algore, that he couldn't even win his own home state of Tennessee, otherwise he would have been elected. Where they knew him best, they trusted him least. It's a big laugh to me that many serious Democrats actually are quite angry at Gore for taking such a sure thing as he had and managing to blow it. Part of it wasn't his fault, of course, because he turned out being just who he really was...a career politician completely full of himself, smarter than all comers.

Bush got re-elected in part because the Democrats ran their worst candidate against him, a bigger self-inflated fathead than Gore, even. Had they run Lieberman they well might have won. Instead they ran a "war hero" who wouldn't allow his record to be shown when some people said they thought it was a tad over-blown...a "war hero" who had already labeled his fellow warriors in that battle as war criminals, himself included, and worse, a man who had thrown away his own medals, supposedly, in protest.

None of that was true, either, alas. He actually kept his own medals, throwing away someone else's as a favor to them, he said...in order words, a real protester...and he never volunteered to be tried for his own self-admitted war crimes, strangely enough. He refused to produce his war records, a stance he has maintained to this day even though he can win a cool million dollars by doing so, at least presuming they show what it is he says they show, and in the end not enough of us could stand voting for him.

Now, go back and read the above paragraphs again, keeping in mind the fact that this lady considers herself to be one of the liberal elites who actually should be running the world. What are her complaints? Bush smirks and doesn't admit mistakes publicly. She can forgive smirks in a nice guy, she says, but not admitting mistakes publicly turns her off.

I watched the debates this evening and thought that Gibson did a decent job, even correcting a few of them when they made irresponsible statements which simply weren't true. Not often enough, of course, but better than most. I thought Romney got badly battered and didn't help himself any, McCain looked good, Thompson broke even (which isn't anywhere close to good enough) and Ron Paul looked like an idiot much of the time. Giuliani showed us how hard he's going to be to handle once he finally enters the primaries, he gave a good account of himself, I thought. I figure that McCain is going to win big over Romney, now. Huckabee gave a good account of himself but I don't think that's going to matter much in New Hampshire. McCain with a good lead; Romney and Giuliani tied, Fred and Huckabee close behind, Paul last.

The Democrats were interesting with just four candidates left, although Richardson was clearly a non-starter even though he tried and is also probably the best-qualified of all of them. He simply does not impress in this venue. Hillary looked grim, I agreed that much of the time it seemed that Obama and Edwards were ganging up on her, but I thought she recovered rather well at the end, probably enough to beat out Edwards, although he got points for his apparent passion. I can't forget that the guy is a professional actor as a trial lawyer, though. I figure same as Iowa here: Obama wins big, Edwards and Hillary duke it out for a close 2/3 finish, Richardson last.

Interestingly, all of the Republicans were truly concerned with national security and the jihadist threat, while the Democrats seemed to think all they had to do was pull out of Iraq and everything would be calm again. (Paul was worse...he wanted us to pull out of the entire Middle East, at a minimum, after which all would be well.) My biggest problem with Obama is his blindness concerning Iraq, but I'm not really sure how much of that is not partisan positioning aimed at the moment.

His biggest weakness, I thought, was the feeling that you get that he really doesn't quite get what is happening in the world. If Hillary beats him it will be because it's more obvious that she does. She missed a great opportunity tonight when asked a final question about likeability. She played for a joke, and did reasonably well, but she could have--and should have--said that the president's job is not about being liked, it's about doing what's right.

What's that? Too Bushian to admit at this point? Yeah, I know. I don't like Hillary, but I still think she would make the best president of the four. A bitter pill, I know, but that's still the way it flops.