As the primary election season sinks slowly in the West (South Dakota and Montana, to be exact), we turn our eyes (finally!) to the general election campaign against John McCain.

Before we move forward, though, allow me to make my penultimate primary pick for Sunday's vote in Puerto Rico: Hillary Clinton wins by fifteen points.

Up until now, we've been playing the politically wonky game of predicting the division of delegates, pledged and super alike. But just because primary season's over doesn't mean there aren't other political insider games to play for the next few months. The biggest of these, for now, is to guess the Vice Presidential pick for McCain and Obama. But once that's over with, everyone's going to start looking at the electoral map in earnest.

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Barack Obama has started talking about his first 100 days in office. This may be wildly premature, but in Obama's defense, he was directly asked the question and actually responded instead of brushing it off. From a Reuters news blog:

During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama -- a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School -- was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office.

"I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution," said Obama.

Other goals for his first 100 days: work out a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq; make progress on alternative energy plans and launch legislation to reform the health care system.

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Actors are a superstitious lot. Among the many good-luck and bad-luck rules they follow is one known to the general public, due to its near-universality: actors are never supposed to say the name of the play "Macbeth." They refer to it as "the Scottish play," or the "play about the Scotsman," or some other roundabout terminology which avoids mentioning Macbeth's name.

One would think that politicians everywhere would likewise avoid mentioning the word "assassination" -- ever -- on the campaign trail. Especially if it's not even germane to the point you are supposedly making. One would think. One, apparently, would be wrong.

But, rather than leap into the fray over Senator Clinton's recent remarks on Robert F. Kennedy's assassination (and what month it happened in), I would like to revisit a remark she made earlier on the campaign trail which referenced his brother, President John F. Kennedy. Because I still think it was the turning point for her entire campaign. At the time I raised the possibility that it would be seen as her "Dean Scream" moment, and intervening events have done nothing but reinforce that analysis for me.

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There is an American flag flying in front of my house today. I am not right-wing, I am not pro-war, I am not making a political statement of any kind by flying Old Glory. I was brought up to respect and honor the flag, but not to treat it as a sacred object. "Sacred" is in the realm of religion. The flag is not a religious item, therefore "sacred" is a word which just cannot apply. But while I do honor the flag, and the soldiers who fought under it for our country, I am appalled that it has become a politicized object, as if it belonged to only one political party. It does not. It belongs to all of us. It belongs to soldiers and pacifists. It belongs to those for whom America can do no wrong, and it belongs to those who only see the bad in what America does in the world. It belongs to an 18-year old leftist, voting in his first election ever, and it belongs to a cranky old right-winger who has voted since the Great Depression. It belongs to Democrats, and yes, to Republicans.

Never forget that -- the flag belongs to all of us, and many display it for many reasons, so don't just automatically make an assumption about anyone who chooses to fly it in front of their house, or for that matter, someone who doesn't always wear a flag pin on his lapel. Patriotism is an intensely personal thing, and it manifests itself differently in different people.

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President George W. Bush, asked in a press conference why Republicans in the House and Senate are increasingly defying him, proven by the fact that dozens of them joined with the Democrats this week in order to overturn his recent veto, replied:

"Quack! Furthermore -- quack, QUACK!!"

Well, no, actually, I made that up. The Leader of the Free World did not, in fact, quack like a duck. It was the product of a (gleeful) overly active imagination on my part. I apologize for such frivolity.

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General David Petraeus, testifying before Congress today (in the hopes that they will approve his promotion), may just have thrown a serious monkey wrench into the Republicans' election strategy, by killing one of their best hopes for an "October Surprise."

I wrote about this scenario two months ago in an article titled "Democrats Beware: 'October Surprise' Announced In Advance." The plan was to have Iraq hold its provincial elections this October, one month before our own. Images of Iraqis waving purple fingers and happily voting were to be the order of the day.

However, during a hearing before Congress today, General David Petraeus just shot down that plan. He said the elections would likely be delayed, and would not meet the October deadline.

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Last Thanksgiving, I took a vacation from the blog and (while I was gone) I ran a series of speech transcripts from all eight of the Democratic candidates for president. It was an interesting process, since I had to contact all the campaigns to get their permission to do so, and to get them to select which speech to use. I did it as a public service, something that newspapers used to do back when they were interested in their civic duties as members of a free press (say, the early 1960s, at a guess).

After the series ran, I was contacted by Professor Kenneth Janda, who asked if he could use the speeches as data for his project examining the language of such political stump speeches [PDF of a Chicago Tribune article on the subject]. I told him "sure, go right ahead," since I already had permission from the campaigns to use the speeches publicly.

Since we are about at the halfway point in the 2008 elections -- with the last dust settling from the nomination race and the general election campaign gearing up -- I thought it would be a good time to talk to Janda again. I am not professionally trained in political science (I just pretend to be, on the internet), so I thought it would be interesting to hear from someone who is.

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With a title like that, you might be expecting Marc Antony-like irony ("Brutus is an honorable man"), but I'm actually serious. I like 527s, and wholeheartedly support the concept. Sure, it could use a little more openness, but the basic idea is sound. Three examples from the campaign trail today show why.

But before we get to that, let's start with some definitions. A 527, for those of you who don't already know, is an organization (it's more properly called a "527 group") that raises money and then spends it to further their own political agenda. It is called a 527 because of the section of the IRS rules it exists under. If you want to make a political point -- any political point -- you can form a 527, raise money from donors, and then spend that money on a print, radio, or television advertisement campaign. You find some deep-pocket donor, get him or her to pony up a few million bucks (or raise it from small donors online), and then you air ads on television saying whatever you want. Well, that's not 100% true, as there are limits to what you can say. You can't, for instance, come out and say "vote for Obama," because that puts you in a whole different section of the IRS tax code. But other than advocating for one particular candidate, you can pretty much say whatever you want.

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Guests on Sunday morning talk shows are supposed to follow a few unwritten rules. They're supposed to be party supporters, and put a positive spin on anything which could be damaging to their party, or their party's chances in the next election. They're not supposed to be brutally honest. Which is why, when it happens -- especially when it comes from a Republican -- it's worth noting.

Bob Schieffer on CBS News' Face The Nation this week had Florida Governor Charles Crist and Republican consultant Ed Rollins on the show, to talk about the state of the Republican Party heading into the 2008 election season. Ed Rollins has an absolutely sterling pedigree in Republican politics, since he worked for Ronald Reagan, and ran Reagan's re-election campaign in 1984. When he talks, in other words, Republicans listen.

Rollins is not very upbeat about Republicans in general, George Bush, Republicans' chances in 2008, or indeed the whole future of the Republican Party. He says the party "has kind of lost its way." He bemoans the fact that young people are flocking to the Democratic Party as a "death knell for the long term." George Bush has to realize "he's no longer on the ballot." As for the Bush administration, "the quicker this page is turned by many Americans, including a lot of Republicans, the better." He later returns to this point, and makes it even more forcefully: "This administration is pretty tired right now and I think even the most die-hard Republicans are ready to move on."

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Borah Peak, at 12,662 feet high, is the highest point in Idaho.

[That may sound like a strange place to begin this column, but please bear with me.]

It was named for Senator William Borah, known as "the Lion from Idaho." He had an impressive political career, even running for president at age 71, the first Idahoan ever to do so (of any age). Borah was a progressive, and clashed with his party over his often left-wing stances. He was even friendly toward Russian communists, while he was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also a Republican.

But we speak of Borah today not for his lofty namesake peak, but because he also set the mark for senatorial shame from Idaho. Not even Larry Craig, the sitting (with a wide stance, no doubt) senator from Idaho is a bigger black eye for the state, in one respect. William Borah actually fathered a child with Teddy Roosevelt's daughter -- while they were both married to other people. Top that, Senator Craig!

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