Florida Aftermath (and other stuff, for you people uninterested in politics)

Ok, after writing a whole lot of stuff about politics, which I realize most of you don’t want to hear about, I’ve decided to highlight that whole section in red, to make avoiding it easier.

I’m officially ready to call myself wrong on my prediction two posts ago regarding the Democratic nominee. I had thought Obama had it locked up, but now I think Hillary Clinton will win.
It’s true that Obama won SC by a big margin, and also true that Clinton’s win in FL last night is meaningless in the Democratic nominating process. However, Tuesday night does tell us something about the people voting in the Democratic primaries.
Clinton won last night by a big margin, despite the fact that neither she nor any other Democrat campaigned in Florida. This means that, absent a huge media blitz and a big organization effort by Obama, Democratic voters, left to their own devices, will vote for her over him. Where Obama has won (Iowa and South Carolina), it’s been because he paid a lot of attention, gave lots of speeches, and had lots of volunteers getting new voters to the polls for him.
On Super Tuesday, when the race will basically be decided, neither candidate will be able to pay much attention to any one state. Because of this, I think Hillary will carry most of them and get out to an insurmountable lead in the delegate count. At that point, the Democratic nomination will be pretty much wrapped up. Obama has a week to change that equation, and I just don’t see how he can.
This, my friends, is going to have repercussions.
For one, the Clintons have made a lot of Democrats really angry with their ‘search and destroy’ campaign against Obama. There’s a general consensus that their tactics in South Carolina- where they made Obama "the black candidate", a title he’s never claimed or wanted, in an effort to marginalize his impending win there- landed well below the belt. Similarly, the new voters that Obama has mobilized are probably coming out on the strength of his personality and (deliberately vague) message, and aren’t going to vote for someone they see as ‘just another politician’. Particularly not one instrumental in destroying their candidate’s chances.
Equally important, another Clinton at the top of the Dem ticket is going to mobilize Republicans in a way they haven’t been since the 2006 election.
Republicans, as a party, have been mostly content to let go of their all consuming hatred of Bill Clinton. Yes, they remember the excesses of those years, the completely shameless and unapologetic lying, the straight-faced manipulations, the incredulous word games, etc, etc. But the world moved on, and America faced bigger problems. He was largely out of the picture, and his wife was contained as junior senator in a liberal state that no Republican had much of a chance of winning anyway.
But now, all those feelings are going to come back up again. Everything Democrats feel about George W. Bush is mirrored in how Republicans feel about the Clintons. They will energize the party in a way no other Democrat can.
But that’s not enough. In 2004, Democrats learned an important lesson: Passionate hatred of the other party’s nominee is not enough to win an election. You need a strong candidate, someone who’s sole reason for running isn’t just "I’m not the other guy". And that brings us to the Republican race.
John McCain is going to be the nominee. There’s no doubt of that now. He’s shown in the races so far that he can bring in Republicans, but he brings in Independents and conservative democrats in greater numbers. This is a benefit to his chances in the general election, provided he can rebuild his bridges with the conservative base, and convince them (us) that we’re on the same side and that he’ll represent our interests in the White House.
McCain won’t win in the general if the conservative base stays home, no matter if it’s Hillary or not. He has a chance in the next few weeks to bring the "Straight Talk Express" to conservative bastions, and convince us to be excited about his candidacy.
And he needs to do this. I’ve come to the difficult conclusion that he’s my candidate, but every time he’s won so far, I don’t feel unsurpassed joy. I have visions of him getting into the White House and going right back to sticking his thumb in conservative eyes. I fear a Solicitor General again adopting a Collectivist Rights model of the 2nd Amendment, of terrorists being granted Habeaus Corpus rights, of military and policy decisions being made not according to what is in our best interests, but what the New York Times bleats about on its editorial page, or irrelevant Europe whines about at the UN.
So, McCain needs to go before hostile audiences. He needs to sit down, on air, with Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin **(see below)etc, and talk to them. He doesn’t need to pander- just note that there have been disagreements in the past, describe the type of president he would be, the principles behind the decisions he’s made, answer some hard questions, and ask for conservative support. If he does so, that’ll go a long way to mending those fences.
If he does so, he’ll win against Clinton. But if he does so with a "What are your choices, now?" attitude, or ignores conservatives altogether, he’ll lose. It’s that simple. Because conservatives aren’t going to be put in a position where they support McCain because they have no other choice; even if the other choice is to prove the old battle wagon wrong and welcome a Clinton Presidency.
Yes, the entire dynamic of the November election is going to be decided in the next few weeks.
To paraphrase Elrond, we will unite or we will fall.
**(yes, I've read Mark Levin, and Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh, and numerous other anti-McCain articles. If anyone's reply is simply to admonish me, yet again, to go see what some other commentator is spewing about him, please don't waste your time)

Alright, on to other things.

Tonight, Shelly and I enjoyed the premier of the fourth season of Lost with Erika and Jason. Unfortunately, though, it was probably only about 35 minutes long, so chocked full of commercials it was. I guess everyone wanted their piece of the action. As for the episode itself, it was good, though it wasn't groundbreaking at all. More like "Ok, everyone needs to find out about the boat not being Penny's, and realize Charlie died." Oh, and I really hope that the flash forwards are only going to a possible future, because I really don't like how it's shaping up. Come on, does everyone become a basket case once they get off the island? So far only Kate seems to be holding it together, and that seemed tenuous, given her season-ending conversation with Jack last year.

Shelly had an interview yesterday at the Appeals Court where she externed last fall. Hopefully she'll get the job, as she managed to pick up a parking ticket while she was wowing the judge (apparently you can't park in crosswalks- who knew?). I think she might have a leg up on the competition, as the judge actually published one of the opinions she wrote regarding a case he presided over- Shelly showed me the other night.

We watched Memento last week. Strange movie, but very good. Rent it. Don't, however, rent Heartbreak Kid. I don't know if I've ever hated a character in a movie more than I hated Ben Stiller in that one. It gets added to Shelly's all-time worst picks, right up there with Rent and Stick It (for anyone keeping track, that ties us up- my three were Pulse, Clan of the Cave Bear, and My Super Ex Girlfriend).

We've all been there. In fact, it happens once every few weeks, or maybe once a month if you're lucky. You're scrolling through your email and BAM! - someone sent you that same survey you've been seeing since 1998. So, just to get this information out in the open once and for all (and for the very last time), here are my answers:

1. What time is it? 11:36 pm
2. What's your full name? Christopher Allan DeAdder
3. What are you most afraid of? Losing Shelly
4. What was the last movie that you saw in a theater? I am Legend
5. Where was I born? Baltimore, MD
6. Favorite food? Pizza
7. What's your natural hair color? Brown
8. Ever been to Alaska? No
9. Ever been toilet paper rolling? No
10. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes but there were onions involved
11. Been in a car accident? Only when driving with the person who sent me this survey! :)
12. Croutons or bacon bits? You have to eat salads for this to apply
13. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
14. Favorite restaurant? I think Spartacus tops my list at the moment
15. Favorite Flower? Tulips- they get in good with the wife
16. Favorite sport to watch? Ravens football or UNC basketball
17. Favorite drink? My day's not complete without a jug of moonshine...what? Oh, yeah, I forgot my parents read this... Gatorade, I guess! ;)
18. Favorite ice cream? Vanilla with chocolate chip
19. Disney or Warner Brothers? Warner Brothers
20. Ever been on a ship? Yes
21. What color is your bedroom carpet? The same nondescript brown that prevades my entire complex
22. How many times did you fail your driver's test? When I transferred to NC, none. There may have been some... "unpleasantness"... in Maryland though, those many long years ago.
23. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? American Family Association, Action Alert! The ACLU is opening a NAMBLA chapter in YOUR county! (OK, I made that last part up)
24. What do you do when you are bored? Think about calling friends and family, then fall asleep without doing so
25. Bedtime? Depends on whether or not Shelly's on the warpath about her latest brief
26. Who will respond to this e-mail the quickest? Kind of N/A- it's just my blog
27. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? See above
28. Who is the person that you are most curious to see their responses? I'd really like to see Sonny weigh in on this one
29. Favorite TV show? Lost, House,
30. Last person you went to dinner with? Well, Shelly and I brought dinner to Erika and Jason tonight, so I guess that counts
31. Who do you think will be President? Honestly? A third Reagan term'd be nice (even with the unfortunate complication of him being dead)
32. What are your favorite colors? Blue
33.. How many tattoos do you have? Zero
34. How many pets do you have? None, but somewhere south of here, scores of Canadian geese are once again winging their way towards my pond!
35. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Why must these surveys always throw in some random seemingly existential question?
36. What do you want to do before you die? Sky dive (though if things don't work out right, that could very well be the last thing I do before I die)
37. Have you ever been to Hawaii? No
38. Have you been to countries outside the U.S.? Jamaica
39. How many people are you sending this e-mail to? ARG! It's not an email, for the last time!
40. Time this survey ended? 11:57 pm

OK, you'll notice by the answer to the last question that it's getting a bit late, so I'll catch everyone later.

Surprise!

Yep, I know it's been a while, but I was so enjoying the unprecedented activity on my comment board that I figured I'd let it play out a bit.

Obviously, there are more political items to attend to, but first, a blast from the past.

Life was going well for young Fox. After a short but intense show career, he retired at the tender age of ten months, and his horizons seemed boundless. His whole life was ahead of him, retirement awaited, and who knew what the future might hold?

But something went wrong.

The details are sketchy, but something caused this promising young pup to change his name, bleach most of his face, yank a few teeth, and eventually gouge out an eye, all to escape his past. What else can explain this transition?

Confounding the confusion, early on in his quest for a different identity, the collar manufacturer transposed a vowel in his new moniker, leading some to dub him "Sonny", whilst others (perhaps also perplexed by his mincing femininity) believed him to be "Sunny"- an error that continues to be made to this day.

Whatever the reason, Fox/Sonny went from crowns of laurel leaves, mingled parties with comely females, and top of the line Purina dog chow to his current existence- launched in ballistic arcs by impatient pharmacists, psychologically tormented by family friends, and playing second fiddle to obnoxiously cute babies.

Anyway, you heard it here first.

So, now that we're a few primaries/caucuses down the line, things are a tad more settled (but just a tad). Hillary Clinton shocked the world by pulling it out in New Hampshire (me not least of all), and therefore is making a race of it. I think Obama will pull it out in South Carolina this weekend, but from there it's anyone's guess. We'll have to wait for Super Tuesday to know for sure.

Over in Republican land, John McCain continues to win where it counts (comments from my last post notwithstanding). Fred Thompson, once my favorite candidate, dropped out of the race today after a disappointed SC finish. Romney managed to save his bacon in Michigan and financially remains the best off, but I'm not really sure where he has to go from here. Romney, principled man that he is, apparently does not care about polls, which makes his departure from SC to run uncontested in Nevada virtually unexplainable. It's almost as if someone read him a poll showing him in fourth place going into the primary, but that can't be it.

I was really shocked to see that Ann Coulter actually thinks Romney is the best guy for the job. We really are an absolutely fractured party if she'd endorse him.

Just to reiterate why I think McCain's the best candidate for us at this point, here are my reasons (in vague order of importance):

1. He can win in the general election, since he alone of the Republicans has cross party appeal.


2. He supported the surge in Iraq when half the party was reading polls and ready to make a deal with the Democrats- which would have undercut the whole war effort, which I think is the single most important issue of our time.


3. He's always been against pork barrel spending, which is, again, a huge issue that needs to be dealt with. I didn't think this was an important issue before, but given the vast increase in government size and waste under Bush, it's time to get a handle on this.


4. He's made up for one of my major problems with him (immigration) by changing his stance to "Secure the Borders first". We can talk about what to do with illegals once that's done, but that has to be done first.

Yes, there is that abominable McCain/Feingold law that he authored, which hopefully the Supreme Court will gradually dismantle in the coming years, but I'm inclined to overlook that in favor of the above.

Now, I'm sure I'll get a few more broadsides for that, so let 'em commence.

So, on to other things.

I don't know whether anyone here heard about the whole Jena-6 thing (I salute you if you managed to avoid it), but back in August, one of my coworkers forwarded this email around about it. Now, I have a lot of respect for her, but reading the email at the time, and knowing how these incidents usually turn out, I was very wary of lending any support to it. Turns out my caution was well justified, as described in this lengthy article. It's amazing the sheer lack of scrutiny that the media shows when the story plays into their preconceptions.

Shelly, for her Moot Court competition, has sold her soul to the devil. OK, perhaps that's a bit dramatic. She's endeavored to deprive millions of Americans of their most basic human right. What? Still too over-the-top? OK...perhaps I'll just tell you about it.

Shelly has to write a brief defending the Collectivist Rights model of the Second Amendment for her Moot Court competition. There. I said it. And I've been (sob)... helping her.

Now, it actually is a good exercise in that you have to find out what the basis is for your opponent's point of view, and with that end in mind, it's been very illuminating. For instance, the Circuit Courts that have rendered decisions since Miller in 1939 either refuse to apply Miller as written (in Cases and Tot) or illegitimately cite to it when it doesn't say what they purport it to say. Don't believe me cause I'm biased? Go read this.

It's also refreshing to see Shelly review the material herself, and come to the conclusion that the Collectivist model is pretty much pure crap. I had feared she'd see something there I didn't. Could've been a marriage breaker! ;)

But it's her job to defend it, and I constantly find myself saying (after reading something she's written) "Well, it's about the best anyone can do with it." Love you honey!

Well, the night wears on. So much else to say, and I'm only halfway down my list of blog ideas. I guess I'll have to pick this up either tomorrow or Thursday (since Jen Glass is going to be over tomorrow- yet another thing I didn't get to mention).

So I'll at least mark one last thing off my list and leave you all with a picture of Charlotte.

(Anyone else notice that all my pictures were of the Hawkins family members? Geez, they're monopolizing my blog!)

The Iowa Caucuses!

I know not many of you care all that much, but Thursday’s Iowa results were very interesting, and I’d like to ruminate on them a bit. Also, I’m feeling a bit of the oracle today, and have a couple of predictions.

First off, to be totally honest, I’m of two minds about the results on the Democratic side. On the genuine, heart-felt side, I’m absolutely gratified that Hillary Clinton lost. I think it’s obvious to any dispassionate observer that this woman is running for the presidency simply because it’s her life’s ambition. Ever since some guy in high school told her it was stupid to think that a woman could be president, all the way through her marriage to husband Bill, their ascent through the governorship to the presidency, her overambitious and inappropriate policy making as First Lady, and everything she’s done since her husband left office, EVERYTHING points to this being her life-long dream.

That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it is if she’s doing it for herself, and not to serve the country, as the office of the Presidency obstinately does. If you don’t agree with my assessment, think about this: All the polls point to this being a "change election", and that’s how she’s running. If this were a repeat of 1988, which was very much a status quo election, do you think she’d still be running for ‘change’, or would she mold herself to the needs of the day?

However, on the coldly calculating, politically minded side, I think people aren’t stupid, and all of the above would have been obvious to the voters in the general election in November. So, therefore, I think she would have been very beatable, and facing Barak Obama in that election worries me. Of the top three Dems, I always thought he would be the hardest to beat, despite all the talk of his inexperience. He has an air of genuineness about him, and people respond to that, even if they don’t necessarily agree with him on every issue.

Moreover, I think his savvy campaigning in Iowa, and his election to the Senate in Illinois before that, reflects a competence that is very much underestimated in the media. He has a plan for New Hampshire, Super Tuesday, and the general election, and I predict that he will be the nominee for the Democrats. (Also, his election opponents have a way of having dirt on them released during the campaign and dropping out; just read this section of Wikipedia about his Senate campaign).

On the Republican side, I was again of two minds. First, I was elated to see Mike Huckabee win and Mitt Romney lose. Of all the Republicans, the only one I truly disliked was Romney, and contrary to what he might think, it has nothing to do with his Mormonism. (Personally, I think that issue has been overplayed in the press, which is always eager to cast Christians as bigoted against other faiths.) Rather, I could not stand his endless position switching, and then refusing to acknowledge the fact that he was changing them. Really, the nightmare scenario for me was Romney Vs. Hillary, because that would have put the Republicans in the exact same position the Democrats were last time around: United mainly by their hatred for the other party’s nominee, and having to defend contradictory statements that couldn’t be reconciled.

I was glad to see Huckabee win just on general principle. God-fearing man, very pro-gun: What was there for me not to like? He’s said some things I don’t agree with on immigration, and I don’t much care for his fiscal policies, but overall, he’s my kind of candidate.

Unfortunately, though, he’s been benefiting from less-than-critical press attention, who have been more interested in the fact that he’s come out of nowhere to win in Iowa against an opponent who outspent him many times over. In general, he’s fairly vague on most of positions. The media let him get away with that in Iowa, but if he’s the Republican nominee, it will turn on him with a vengeance.

It’s true that the same thing can be said of Obama. He also has been campaigning on platitudes without giving much detail- and inevitably when he has, it’s raised eyebrows (think about when he said he’d invade Pakistan to root out Osama bin Laden). But while Republicans will point that stuff out, the mainstream media by and large will not- but they will with a Republican, bet your bottom dollar.

Unfortunately, things being what they are this year, I don’t think Huckabee can win. I could be underestimating him, but I think most of his popularity right now stems from the positive attention he’s received. Once he has to ‘get serious’, it will be a whole new ball game.
I predict that John McCain will win the New Hampshire primary, and then Huckabee and McCain will split the Super Tuesday states between them. Hopefully, this will end in a McCain/Huckabee ticket, which I believe stands the best chance of a) beating Barak Obama and b) holding together the conservative coalition that Ronald Reagan built in the 1980’s.

Let’s face it: a solid conservative who’s popular with the base would not win this year. President Bush squeaked by in 2000; in 2002 and 2004, he won because he mined the Republican base for all it was worth, but it didn’t hurt that the Democrats were disorganized, dispirited, and practically incoherent in their messages. Also, the Independents split their vote between the parties.

This year, it’s Republicans that are dispirited; they know they’re down, and they don’t expect to win. Of the people who voted in Iowa, 2/3rds caucused with the Democrats. The base is unhappy with their choices for President, and in all cases, the one who’s picked isn’t going to satisfy everyone. Look at me: I spent the early Bush years absolutely despising John McCain for the McCain-Feingold bill, but now he seems like the best choice. So, my ideal choice? No, but one I can live with.

Also, if Republicans want to win, they have to get some of those Independents, and the base has to get excited and believe winning is a possibility. And we can’t attract Independents this time just by virtue of the Democrats’ ineptitude. Independents will be very enamored with the idea of electing the first black President, and in order to convince them not to, we need to have someone with cross-party appeal at the top of the ticket, someone with a lot of credibility. Someone who can call Obama out on the specifics of his posistions, and can present a credible alternative.

I think John McCain is that guy.