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When I was a student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, there was a t-shirt you could get that said:
University of Iowa
Idaho City, Ohio
Now the New Republic continues the joke in talking about the upcoming Idaho primary.
"The home state of Larry Craig, Napoleon Dynamite, and the undefeated 2006 Boise State Broncos may not be the top prize at stake on February 5, but given that Iowa is one of the reddest in the country, it should provide a test..."
Pianist Hampton Hawes, c. 1975. Is that a shadow or a chinstrap?
The media are awash with tactical post-mortem's of the doomed Rudy Giuliani campaign. The analysts will see the failure of Giuliani's campaign as a matter of strategy, tactics and competence, because that's how they see everything. But the simple fact of Giuliani's fall is that it was inevitable. No matter how well he did in the early, name recognition portion of the campaign, he's pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-gay rights in a party that defines itself as being adamantly against all of those things. Throw in his highly entertaining personal life and the Republican grassroots distrust of all things New York and Rudy's chances of winning the Republican nomination are about the same as Ted Kennedy's.
Sure, he had 9/11, but it's hard to differentiate yourself on national security when the whole field is in favor of torture, endless war and the limitless power of the Commander-in-Chief. (OK, there was some slight shading. Ron Paul was against a couple of those things, and McCain is against torture at least some of the time.) Giuliani's national defense shtick was the same as everyone else's, so he had nowhere to go. He never had a chance.
How cool would it have been if John Edwards had withdrawn from the race during tonight's debate? Imagine, when Hillary and Obama start bickering, that he stood up and said:
That's it. I've had enough of this crap. I quit.
And then walked out. Leave 'em with 45 minutes of air time to fill and not a damned thing to say.
But no.
If you're profoundly observant, you'll note that I'm doing a little work on my blogroll. I'm cutting out some deadwood and rearranging a few things. It's nothing serious and will continue for a few days. If I accidentally delete someone significant, let me know and I'll fix it.
McCain: I'm more like Ronald Reagan.
Romney: If Ronald Reagan were here tonight, he'd tell you that I'm more like he was than you are.
McCain: I knew Ronald Reagan. I worked with Ronald Reagan. Mitt, you're no Ronald Reagan.
Paul: I think Ronald Reagan was as crazy as I am.
Romney: Ronald Reagan was crazy like a fox, and so am I.
Huckabee: I'm more like Jesus.
McCain: May be. But I'm more like Ronald Reagan
Romney: If Ronald Reagan were here tonight...
I'm sitting in my office. My desk is cleaned off. There are no messages in my voice mail. All of my emails have been opened and dealt with. I'm caught-up on my expenses. My wastebasket is filled to overflowing with crap that really needed to be thrown out. I'm going to go home at five o'clock.
The world may now end.
John Lindsay, mayor of New York from 1966 to 1973, ran for President in 1972 and, like Rudy Guiliani, never parlayed his name recognition into actual votes. Handsome, telegenic and likable in an effete, eastern way, he touted his experience in the "second toughest job in America" but couldn't connect with the folks in the outback. He left politics and worked for a succession of law firms, and at the end of his life found himself unemployed, unhealthy and without medical insurance. Newly elected Mayor Giuliani "hired" Lindsay as a city consultant, paying him $10,000 a year and providing health insurance, a minor corruption that no one really objected to. Lindsay died in South Carolina in 2000.
Convenient how Republicans, confronting the possibility of an Obama candidacy, suddenly think experience -- particularly foreign policy experience -- is so important in a President, isn't it? That wasn't how they felt when George W. Bush was running. But now, well, it's the whole ballgame.
One link, eight terrible products from Apple.
