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As we wend our way through the Republican primary season, at times predicting the outcome of a single state's race is very hard to do. At other times, it is actually pretty easy. Florida looks to be one of the latter.
Well, that was an eventful week in politics, wasn't it?
Newt Gingrich may win the Florida Republican primary.
OK, to be completely honest, we just felt like beating up on some Republicans today.
It's still early days to even know if the economy is truly about to enter a strong recovery or not. A few data points on a graph do not always a trend line make, to put it another way. But from what I have personally seen in previous recessions, there always seems to be a real "tipping point" where American businesses collectively decide that things are going to be better soon -- and then they start hiring people and fulfilling their own prophecy. This could indeed be such a turning point.
If either Gingrich or Santorum (or even Perry) had managed to cement their status as the alpha "not-Romney" in the race at this point, they might have had a chance in that fabled "two-man race" (or, more properly, "two-man-plus-Ron-Paul race"). Adding Gingrich and Santorum's support in South Carolina easily shows that Romney could have been defeated here, if the field had narrowed. Florida would even be in play, likely.
O'Malley makes a good point. President Obama's re-election team should heed it.
Not a whole lot has been happening in Washington, due to Congress being out on one of their countless month-long vacations. Not a whole lot of Democrats have been in the news, either, since the Republican primary season is sucking all the oxygen out of the political arena right now.
Two hundred and thirty-six years ago this week, a pamphlet was published in Philadelphia. There is some disagreement among historians over the exact date (variously given as January 9th or 10th), and the pamphlet's title page itself only lists the year, 1776. Whatever the actual date, though, Thomas Paine's Common Sense hit the American consciousness like a bombshell -- one which would reverberate for years to come.
What struck me about New Hampshire's contest, being in the midst of historical research into such things, was the old-school nature of the Union Leader, a very conservative New Hampshire newspaper. It struck a lot of the media as interesting as well, but I didn't see anyone else commenting on such historical context.