Category: Politics & Elections

Guess who got the most time to talk on last night’s Democratic candidate debate?

Moderator Tim Russert, of course.

Chris Dodd for President has a chart.

There has got to be a better way.

Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic a year ago:

In Iowa, Giuliani was up to principle No. 2 (“Follow your hopes and dreams”) when he was interrupted. From down in the audience, just beyond the stage, he heard a cell phone ring. He stopped in the middle of telling a story. “It’s okay, you can answer your cell phone,” he said. “You won’t interrupt me.” The woman whose phone had rung was mortified; he had just embarrassed her in front of 18,000 people. In the “town hall” meetings he used to conduct as mayor of New York, through a radio show, Giuliani was not known for his good-natured populism. He was known for making fun of constituents who called him with what he thought were petty problems. This is the dark Giuliani, and here he was, making an unwelcome appearance. He shifted to a long digression about the scene in Dr. Strangelove where General Buck Turgidson answers a call in the middle of a crisis and whispers sweet nothings to his girl on the phone, as the nation’s political and military leadership looks on impatiently. “Just tell him you love him so I can go on with my speech,” Giuliani said. No one was laughing. Giuliani actually waited for the woman to hang up. Then, after a painful minute or so, he was back in candidate mode, talking about Vince Lombardi and the mind of a champion.

CNN report last week:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani gets a call from his wife Judith he takes it, even if it happens in the middle of a speech to hundreds of people.

The New York Republican presidential hopeful was delivering a speech to the National Rifle Association Friday in Washington when his cell phone began to ring. He was in the middle of discussing the importance of the 2nd amendment.

“Let’s see now, this is my wife calling, I think,” he said as he answered the phone.

“Hello dear, I am talking to the members of the NRA right now, would you like to say hello?,” he asked, as the crowd sat mostly silent.

She apparently did not.

“I love you and I will give you a call when I am finished, OK,” he said, trying to wrap up the call. “Have a safe trip, talk to you later dear I love you.”

Latest poll of New Mexicans:

Approve Domenici — 41%
Approve Bingaman — 58%

SurveyUSA News Poll

Bingaman voted against the Kyl-Lieberman amendment today (one of 22) — you don’t even need to know what it’s about to know with Kyl and Lieberman supporting it, it’s bad. Domenici, of course, voted for it. (The amendment endorses war with Iran.)

Bingaman also voted against the anti-free speech Petraeus resolution last week (one of 25). Domenici, of course, voted for it.

What this reflects, in turn, is the odd fact that income levels seem to matter much more for voting in the South. Contrary to what you may have read, the old-fashioned notion that rich people vote Republican, while poorer people vote Democratic, is as true as ever – in fact, more true than it was a generation ago. But in rich states like New Jersey or Connecticut, the relationship is weak; even the very well off tend to be only slightly more Republican than working-class voters. In the poorer South, however, the relationship is very strong indeed.

Paul Krugman

The political party may have changed, but I think that class distinction in the South is pretty consistent with history.

Views of Hillary Clinton are more sharply drawn than those of other leading candidates in either political party. As many as 67% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say Clinton is the Democratic candidate who first comes to mind when they hear the word tough and more than half (52%) associate Clinton with the word smart. No other candidate – Democrat or Republican – comes close to Clinton in being linked with each of these traits.

The Pew Research Center has all the details.

I wonder if Senator Clinton is afraid of horses.

Functional Ambivalent posted this a year ago and I linked to it then. It resonated with me again today as I reviewed past entries. You should still go read Tom’s whole post, but here’s the essence:

If you’re a libertarian and you vote Republican because you like lower taxes, you’re empowering people who would ban books, set up a huge federal broadcast censorship aparatus, give the President the power to arrest and imprison without evidence or appeal, and empower everyone in the medical supply chain to decide who gets treatment based on their own standard of moral worthiness. You’re almost literally selling your freedoms for a few dollars in after-tax income. That’s what you vote for every time you vote Republican.

(CBS) Americans are divided as to whether Hollywood celebrities ought to get involved in politics, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

Forty-nine percent of those surveyed say celebrities should stay out of politics, while 46 percent think they should get involved if they choose.

Democrats and liberals are much more welcoming of celebrity involvement in politics than Republicans and conservatives. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans said celebrities should stay out of politics, compared to just 33 percent of Democrats.

CBS News

NewMexiKen realizes that “should stay out” isn’t the same as “must stay out,” and who knows how the polling question was worded, but don’t celebrities have the same rights — obligations — as other citizens?

WASHINGTON, DC—Veteran character actor and Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson expressed worries to reporters Tuesday that a successful White House bid could spell “total career death.”
…

Recent polls have placed Thompson among the GOP frontrunners, with many voters citing the value of his experience as U.S. president in the 2005 docudrama Last Best Chance.

The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

In the debate, held at the University of Miami, the candidates’ responses were simultaneously translated into Spanish for the broadcast.
…

Richardson, one of two candidate[s] who speak fluent Spanish, objected to the debate rules that required all candidates to answer in English. The rule was designed to make sure that no candidate had an advantage in appealing to the Spanish-speaking audience.

AP via Guardian Unlimited.

The debate was organized by Univision, the Spanish language network. Aren’t debates intended for candidates to show their advantages? It’s an election, not a quiz show, right?

Sioux City, Ia. – God’s will is for Iowa to have the first-in-the-nation caucus, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson told a crowd here Monday.

“Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary,” Richardson, New Mexico’s governor, said at the Northwest Iowa Labor Council Picnic. “And I want you to know who was the first candidate to sign a pledge not to campaign anywhere if they got ahead of Iowa. It was Bill Richardson.”

Des Moines Register

The way-too-serious crowd, especially the left bloggers, have nary a clue about Richardson. He has, it is true, put his foot in his mouth, but this is so obviously a joke, how could anybody but the terminally serious not enjoy the show?

I’d like to see Richardson’s top 10.