January 29, 2008

We Can All Breath A Sigh Of Relief...

As of this time, several news sources are reporting that Guiliani will drop from the race tomorrow. At least the worst candidate for President won't win. That's gotta be worth something.

Posted by baltar at January 29, 2008 10:40 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Corruption | Homeland Insecurity | Politics


Comments

The Huckster's campaign is collapsing too. Lots of good news tonight.

Posted by: jacflash at January 30, 2008 07:34 AM | PERMALINK

Yes, but hatred of Romney rules all decisions. Giuliani is getting out, in part because this helps McCain (hurts Romney). Huckabee is staying in (at least for another week) in part because this helps McCain (hurts Romney). McCain may have won the most important primary, the one among the candidates.

Posted by: Bruce at January 30, 2008 09:02 AM | PERMALINK

Maybe Huckabee staying helps McCain in some states, but according to polls in Florida McCain was the 2nd choice of Huckabee voters. The analysis of that I saw suggested that was b/c supposedly Romney has trouble (relatively) with blue-collar voters.

Posted by: Armand at January 30, 2008 09:31 AM | PERMALINK

Yglesias points out that a McCain-Huck ticket would sort of average out to a mainstream Republican, which is an interesting idea.

Posted by: jacflash at January 30, 2008 10:15 AM | PERMALINK

While Huckabee leads most of the Political stock markets in the veepstakes (almost 30% in the Rasmussen Reports market), there is no way that McCain picks someone with that little experience and/or understanding of foreign policy. There's also no way he picks someone who has said some of the things that Huckabee has that will turn off swing voters. Plus this wouldn't even make the McCain haters in the Republican party happy. Many of them hate Huckabee, too.

Posted by: Bruce at January 30, 2008 11:59 AM | PERMALINK

Well, Bruce, the McCain haters in the GOP sure as hell aren't going to vote for Mrs. Whitewater, so they may just have to suck it up.

Posted by: jacflash at January 30, 2008 01:41 PM | PERMALINK

I don't know. I think McCain-Clinton brings a right wing third party candidate (perhaps followed by Bloomberg, perhaps followed by Nader). I heard a few snippets of Limbaugh today (admittedly, he also has more to gain financially than anyone from a Clinton presidency), and he didn't sound like he would "suck it up" for McCain.

Posted by: Bruce at January 30, 2008 03:10 PM | PERMALINK

Yah, but Hannity's a cretin already and has gone over to McCain. I can only speak for myself, but McCain Clinton would mean I stay home, and there's a lot of people like me (at least in this regard) out there. This is definitely fertile territory for a third party candidate. To be honest, McCain will get the old folks and Clinton will get the women. Anyone hoping to do more than stir things up will have to appeal to minorities and men.

Posted by: Morris at January 31, 2008 09:41 PM | PERMALINK

'cuz, y'know, "men", "women", "old folks", and "minorities" are four completely separate categories of people...

Posted by: jacflash at January 31, 2008 11:01 PM | PERMALINK

Hannity unprincipled? Shocking, just shocking.

Posted by: Armand at February 1, 2008 12:55 AM | PERMALINK

Absolutely right, J. But if you look at the numbers, most of the old folks are going to McCain, most of the women to HillBillary, most of the blacks to Obama, and most of the evangelicals to Huckleberry. So apparently who will win will come down to whether a voter feels more like a seasoned citizen, or more like a woman, or maybe they'll split evenly. Wow, this means that the swing votes may come down to younger white men. It's good to be king.

Posted by: Morris at February 1, 2008 06:16 PM | PERMALINK

except you said you were staying home, didn't you morris? can't be the king if you stay home.

i know why the fundagelicals aren't a big fan of mccain (although they tend to have short memories, and mccain has proven that for 18 whole months he can toady up to the worst of the hatemongers with the best of the panderers), but i don't think of you in that category, so i'm wondering, out of general curiosity, why someone you hate as much as you seem to hate hillary isn't enough to drive you to the polls to vote for mccain? seriously, i'd like to hear what your problem with him is.

he's slavishly supportive of the war against entropy in iraq; he (now) thinks that in general we can solve our economic problems, our deficit, and our national debt by reducing tax revenues (and concomitantly thinks that the more you make the less you should have to pay, especially if your income doesn't come in the form of a paycheck, in which case evidently you're so cool that completely different rules apply) despite the tremendous expense of the aforesaid war on entropy; he wouldn't dare reduce health care profits to the levels they were, say, thirty years ago, because then the robber barons might have to sell their classic ferrari collections; and he doesn't appear to have any interest in protecting homeowners against foreclosures or in permitting the avaricious financial magicians who put them in that situation to suffer the consequences of their own trickery (notwithstanding that in a truly free market, the speculators who f&*k up would end up on the same breadlines as their victims). i mean, if those aren't values you can rally behind, i don't know what are!

Posted by: moon at February 1, 2008 07:35 PM | PERMALINK

(random aside)

Gosh I'd love a return to the days when a '50s Ferrari was a fun weekend toy for moderately well-heeled eccentric car enthusiasts and not a hyperoverrestored status bauble for hedge fund nitwits.

(/random aside)

Posted by: jacflash at February 2, 2008 12:25 AM | PERMALINK

If they ever made a movie called "The Trouble With McManiac," the trouble would be because he's crazy. He had a scuffle with a 92-year-old Strom Thurmond, he called Republican Pete Domenici an A-hole, he said F-you to Republican John Cornyn, he's called anyone opposed to his amnesty bill a racist, the first time he got elected to the Senate he screamed at a Republican volunteer who didn' set up the podium such that it favored his diminutive stature, he's shouted obscenities at Republican Grassley...

"But it seems McCain goes ballistic on anyone who disagrees with him. And he's not just verbally abusive, but physically threatening.

"He got in the grille of Sen. Richard Shelby -- an inch away from the Alabama Republican's face -- after Shelby voted against the 1989 nomination of John Tower as defense secretary. 'I was madder than hell when I accosted him,' McCain admits, half boasting."

"'In his world, it's very difficult to have a simple policy disagreement,' said American Conservative Union chairman David Keene. 'Everything becomes personal. His position is right, and everyone else's is basically evil.'"

I share the thought of Thad Cochran:
"The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

If it were Dick Cheney, I'd vote for him, because my sense is when he tells someone to F-off, they usually deserve it for taunting the man. But McCain is something different. A lot of women who experience abuse and humiliation when young develop borderline personality disorder. People like that take any disagreement as a personal attack; they feel abandoned, scared, and become paranoid, lashing out. McCain's abuse at the hands of the NVA likely triggered a similar psychological problem with M. McCain.

We are in a free country in which people can disagree; but McCain's personality knows no tolerance, and unlike Hillary in which case that's a calculation, with McCain it's a broken filter (actually it's more like inverted radar, which is why he attacks Republicans more than he attacks Democrats, because they're supposed to be on his side, and when they're not he experiences feelings of abandonment (and even when they are, his paranoia will kick in after a while and he begins to fantasize they're not)). I don't want his hand on a nuclear trigger. He's an anti-Republican who doesn't even know it.

Posted by: Morris at February 2, 2008 11:18 AM | PERMALINK

and you didn't even take the bait. :-)

thank you, morris, for a perfectly understandable explanation. i don't know how fair or accurate the recitation of bad behavior is, but to the extent that it's true, it certainly raises concerns about how he'd run the country.

Posted by: moon at February 2, 2008 11:58 AM | PERMALINK

Errr, yeah it's a kind of pointless aside in what Morris wrote, but what sort of taunting of Dick Cheney did Pat Leahy do to merit Cheney's outburst? Cheney can be a dick too (though he's less likely to go beserk in the way you describe McCain).

Posted by: Armand at February 2, 2008 12:08 PM | PERMALINK

Baltar,
It's easy to choose between someone against me (Hillary) and someone against me who others believe is with me (McCain). So, yes, I may be voting Democratic if it comes down to them, because she doesn't claim to be down for the conservative struggle.
Bro,
What can tell you? I like Cheney's style. To put it in your perspective, he's much more a Hillary than an Obama.

Posted by: Morris at February 2, 2008 12:52 PM | PERMALINK
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