Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Nail Biting and Happy Indifference

Wow, that is about all I can say. And also double wow as my wife, who normally chuckles at my political junkie hobby is happily flipping between Office reruns and CNN, quietly cheering every update that has Clinton adding another half dozen or a gross of votes to her margin over Obama.

If I had to have voted today, I think I would have voted for John Edwards but this time around it is so much less stressful as I am generally and generically happy with the leading three Democratic candidates while in 2004 I was very happy with Dean, okay with Clark, wary about Edwards and Kerry, and indifferent at best to Lieberman. I want a long nomination process as I think the debates and the practice that the candidates are getting in is a healthy process, and I also think that Obama's critical claim of differentiation --- bi-partisan rhetoric, leadership language, and kick-ass organizing to bring in independents, young voters and infrequent voters to the Democratic coalition needs to be seriously fielded tested. Is Iowa a good predictor? Or is New Hampshire where massive voter turnout occurred without independents being disproportionally overrepresented the norm? Or something else?

Beyond that a couple more quick thoughts:

  • None of us can predict primary elections well....


  • Libby may just have a bottle of Bushmills going her way if we take the horseshoes and hand grenade approach as it looks like she got the Dems right and got the top two Republicans right...


  • Being a bit cynical, were all of the leaks today about disorder and disaester striking the Clinton camp a leak hunt?


  • Ouch, the Nevada Culinary Union thought they could have timed their endorsement for maximum value at low cost, now the internal cost of their endorsement decision has massively increased


  • I like being happily indifferent, far less stress, and far cheaper on the bank account
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