[ Posted Thursday, July 10th, 2008 – 14:00 UTC ]
So, to be fair, I am running a "halfway mark" check on my 2008 predictions. I wrote this column in mid-December last year. My record is not that good, I have to admit. Although the one about Iraq and the elections has so far turned out uncannily accurate, I have to say. But many of these I just got flat-out wrong. I predicted an extended primary campaign... for the wrong party. I predicted all kinds of wild things which just didn't happen. But, for your amusement, I am running the column in full, complete with my own personal self-grading. (You may want to read the column first, and then come back to this list to see how I marked it.)
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 – 14:00 UTC ]
So here is how the 2008 election looked, to me, a year and a half ago. I concentrated mostly on the Senate, and if I were dividing up the races today, obviously I would switch some of these states from one category to another. But I think my final prediction of 57 Democrats (55 Democrats plus two independents who vote with them) to 43 Republicans is still among the most likely outcomes this year. I could be off by one or two, but I bet not much more than that.
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[ Posted Friday, July 4th, 2008 – 13:09 UTC ]
I'd like to address, in as patriotic spirit as can be mustered, the wearing of United States flag lapel pins, and the inherent silliness this debate represents. Flag lapel pins are all the rage these days, but the battle over wearing the flag is older than you may have thought. Older than the battles in Congress over flag-desecration amendments to the Constitution (which stretch back to the 1980s... and which even Democrats who should know better still occasionally vote for in Congress... ahem).
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[ Posted Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 – 14:40 UTC ]
At the very least, it would be worth pointing out what we could face if we (or Israel) attacks Iran. An unnamed oil market analyst on NBC last night put the price of a barrel of oil after an attack on Iran as "name your price," and then went further with "$300, $400 a barrel." Put in perspective, this would be around $10.00 to $13.50 per gallon to fill up your car. If your tank held 15 gallons, this would cost you from $150 up to almost two hundred dollars for a single fill-up.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 – 16:13 UTC ]
As we enter the long summer days of the general election, the tradition in American politics is for the candidates to run as hard as they can to the vaunted "middle of the road." What this may mean is that by Election Day, the foreign policy positions on Iraq of John McCain and Barack Obama are going to get a lot closer and indeed may be different mainly in philosophy (rather than in substance) by November.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 – 15:53 UTC ]
And that is my point -- there is no proof. Because John McCain refuses to let the press and the public see it. And that, to me, is an issue worth exploring in someone who is trying to get elected president.
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[ Posted Monday, June 30th, 2008 – 15:30 UTC ]
For the first time in the general election campaign, I am ready to take a look at the electoral map and do some electoral math. Now, we're still pretty far out from Election Day, so likely any of these guesses will be laughably wrong when it rolls around. But we've got to start somewhere.
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[ Posted Friday, June 27th, 2008 – 17:14 UTC ]
This column was born out of my frustration with the seeming inability of many Democrats to perform well in the Sunday morning interview shows on television. It's often been said that Democrats have an inherent "herding cats" problem, so I set out to do my tiny part to help.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 – 15:22 UTC ]
George Bush's term in office will be remembered for the precedents it set, particularly in relation to the power of the presidency, and the separation of powers between the three branches of American government. Vice President Dick Cheney has been at the forefront of this effort to "restore power" to the presidency, which he believes was unjustly taken from the office in the aftermath of Richard Nixon and Watergate.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 – 12:54 UTC ]
When history books are written in the future, some of them will doubtlessly include this footnote: "As George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings of any president in the history of taking such measurements, the citizens of the city of San Francisco chose to honor him by renaming a waste treatment plant on the day he left office." Think about it -- San Franciscans could memorialize George W. Bush, forever, with every flush of the toilet.
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