Who’s the big bad progressive wolf in CD-2? May 12, 2008

Nobody closely following the Colorado CD-2 race would say this campaign hasn’t produced its share of laughs. (Ok, sure, they haven’t been as funny as watching Bob Schaffer implode right before our eyes.) Another laugh line cropped up in the Daily Camera on Friday.

The headline reads “Fitz-Gerald picks up PDA endorsement.”  Since you haven’t heard of them, the PDA is the Progressive Democrats of America (who?) and the endorser was the local CD-2 chapter (who? who?).  So whazzso funny?  This: as progressive as she may be, Ms. Fitz-Gerald is decidedly not the progressive candidate of this campaign. It is a campaign that pits three libs/progressives against one another, and their “progressive differences” might be measured in millimeters instead of kilometers, but if those differences matter to an organization that ostensibly cares about them, you wonder how they’d pick the least progressive of the three. The only answer I can come up with is that she got to them first and, probably, alone. Not being courted by Will Shafroth or Jared Polis, they endorsed Joan. Oh well, that’s politics. But don’t you think that if they were really after a “progressive” candidate (that is a major part of the organization’s name, after all) that they would at least do their homework first?

The layers peeling away May 9, 2008

I first used the word “inevitable” on February 10.  Nothing along the way, through the ups and downs in momentum for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, has made me alter my perception.  Barack’s nomination  became inevitable after SuperTuesday and became a near mathematical certainty by the end of February.  No amount of HillarySpin or wins in coal mining states was going to change that.

Now that Obama has yet again soundly won a big primary day in popular votes and delegates, the layers on HRC’s campaign that had slowly, slowby been peeling away are starting to come faster and faster.  The SuperDelegates are turning and the hole in the dam grows daily.  Bill Richardson’s endorsement started the flow and by this past Tuesday BO had just about caught up to HRC in spoken-for SuperDelegates.  Not only had Obama been gaining SD’s far faster than HRC, many SD’s were switching to Obama after having declared for Clinton.  After this Tuesday’s results the hole in that dam has gone from pea-sized to baseball-sized.  In the next two weeks the flow will continue and Barack Obama will have overtaken HRC in the SuperDelegate column.   Hillary may stick it out through early June (the last primary is Puerto Rico on June 7 — this post has the list of remaining primaries) but the race’s results are as inevitable now as they were two months ago.

If you’re really bored…. May 2, 2008

Sorry dear readers, but I’ve been decidedly un-bored for the past two weeks. In fact, I’ve been underwater mostly with little time to post. That will change shortly, I hope.

In the meantime, check out CQ’s new VP Madness game. Somebody at CQ (i.e. intern) had nothing to do so took 32 possible running mates for McCain and paired them into a March Madness-like bracket. You get to play along and the result gets sent to McCain. And I’m sure he’ll take the public up on it because, well, because VP picks are always totally logical, aren’t they?

Some of the 32 are totally laughable (Tom Coburn???) but hey, they had to fill the field somehow.  My 1st round picks were Hagel, Graham, Sanford, Blackburn, Pawlenty, Powell, Barbour, Hutchinson,  Palin, Thompson, Steele,  Pence, Cantor, Lieberman, Thune,  and Crist.