Erin Burnett: Voice of the People

Financial reporters revere Wall Street as much as national security reporters revere military and CIA officials
Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday, Oct 5, 2011
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/05/erin_burnett_voice_of_the_people/

On her new CNN show on Monday night, host Erin Burnett was joined by Rudy Giuliani’s former speechwriter John Avlon and together they heaped condescending scorn on the Wall Street protests while defending the banking industry, offering — as FAIR documented — several misleading statements along the way. Burnett “reported” that while she “saw dancing, bongo drums, even a clown” at the protest, the participants “did not know what they want,” except that “it seems like people want a messiah leader, just like they did when they anointed Barack Obama.” She featured a video clip of herself explaining to one of the protesters that the U.S. Government made money from TARP, and then demanded to know if that changed his negative views of Wall Street.

This is far from the first time Burnett has served as spokesperson for Wall Street; it’s basically what her “journalistic” career is. She angered Bill Maher a couple years ago when arguing that the rich have suffered along with the poor and middle class as part of the financial crisis, and that it would be wrong to “soak the rich” because they’re already paying so much taxes. She caused Rush Limbaugh to gush over her when she argued on TV in 2007 that all Americans benefit when the rich get richer: “the majority of Americans directly benefit from what happens on Wall Street,” she proclaimed, just over a year before the financial collapse.

In an interview last year with Vanity Fair, she insisted that people on Wall Street do not have private planes and that “there are a lot of stalwart, solid people on Wall Street. There are just a few shady people providing the fodder for big budget movies”; when asked: “When was the last time you interviewed somebody on Wall Street and said, ‘Enough of your lies, we deserve the truth goddammit?!’”, she would only say in response: “I’d never use the word ‘goddammit’ in an interview.” And then there’s this two-minute video from her 2009 appearance on Meet the Press, compiled by Progressive Change Campaign Committee, in which she repeatedly heaps patronizing scorn on criticisms of Wall Street while defending its virtue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLWPj5hTkio

Here’s some background about this former NBC News business reporter and current CNN news host, from an article last week:

[Burnett] is set to tie the knot with Citigroup executive David Rubulotta...

The American-born journalist started her career as a financial analyst for worldwide investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs.

During her time at the company she was headhunted by CNN for the position of writer and booker for the network’s hit show Moneyline.

When Burnett later became Vice President of Citigroup/CitiMedia, she met Rubulotta, who currently serves as an executive with the company.


Last week, as MediaBistro reported, “CNN feted its newest anchor [] at Robert restaurant at The Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle, just a few hundred feet from CNN’s NYC headquarters, overlooking Columbus Circle and the southwest corner of Central Park.” Among the many fabulous guests celebrating Burnett’s new “news” program was JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Do you think any of this might have anything to do with her scorn for Wall Street protests and her perpetual defense of the nation’s oligrachs? Would it ever occur to CNN that perhaps a former Wall Street banker at Goldman Sachs, currently engaged to a Citigroup executive, might not be the best person to cover those protests? Of course not: that’s exactly the bias that makes her such an appropriate choice in the eyes of her Time Warner bosses.

Meanwhile, Burnett’s CNN colleague, business reporter Alison Kosik, was encouraged on Twitter to ask the Wall Street protesters to explain the purpose of the protest in 140 characters (the limit for Twitter). As NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen documented, this is how that CNN journalist replied to the suggestion:

"Purpose in 140 or less: bang on the bongos, smoke weed!"


After numerous people criticized her for that, she ignored the criticisms but deleted the tweet without comment; what a brave and intrepid thing for a reporter to do. But while that tweet is deleted, she left this comment, after a staff member on CNN’s Piers Morgan Show wrote: “Occupy Wall Street should go mainstream and protest debit-card fees. Or would that be too corporate?":

"the list of whines is too long already"


Kosik then went on CNN last night and assured everyone that Wall Street traders empathize with the (whining, bongo-beating, pothead) protesters because — echoing Burnett — traders are suffering like everyone else.

Needless to say, Burnett and Kosik consider themselves to be opinion-free, objective “reporters.” Indeed, this is what Burnett said in the Vantiy Fair interview when asked if she sympathizes too much with the Wall Street plutocrats on whom she purports to report: “My job isn’t to give an opinion but to try and explain what’s happening.” But just like Andrew Ross Sorkin and his protection of and subservience to his “CEO-of-a-major-bank” friend, these people are oozing bias and opinion from every pore of their being. They are so devoted to and immersed in the insular oligarchical world of which they are desperate to be a part that they know and care about nothing else. Expecting them to provide objective, critical assessments of business elites is like expecting a heroin addict to rat out his dealer.

Financial reporters like these have the same relationship to Wall Street titans as most national security reporters have to miltiary and intelligence officials: subservience, reverence, and a desperate desire to identify with them. Last night while looking for something else, I happened to stumble into the contentious interview I had last year with CNN’s Jessica Yellin and Fran Townsend about WikiLeaks – when those two, like most media figures, competed with each other to see who could be more scornful and contemptuous of Julian Assange — and realized that the parallels were clear. People like Yellin and Townsend hated WikiLeaks because the group challenges and subverts those whom they most revere (National Security State officials); it’s exactly the same reason that people like Burnett, Kosik and Sorkin are so contemptuous of Wall Street protesters: because the protesters have targeted the high priests of their world (Wall Street executives) with denunciations and opposition.

I’d bet that these two CNN personalities, along with Sorkin, would genuinely find the suggestion that they are not objective to be baffling and offensive. That’s because their world begins and ends with Jamie Dimon, Citigroup executives, and Columbus Circle corporate galas. To them, Truth is what is found in that world and nothing else. When someone like Kosik sneers at concerns over mass joblessness, hopeless debt, foreclosures, and oligarchical control of the political process, she’s not being a conscious propagandist; she’s just being honest. Those problems don’t exist in their world except as abstractions.

The only people they think are worth talking to are people who view the protesters as dirty rabble and their concerns as whiny irrelevancies. They’re serving as spokespeople for the political and financial elites on whom they pretend to report: that’s their job. Listen to Burnett in that Maher appearance linked above; to her, the real victims, the only victims, are the wealthiest who tragically pay so much in taxes and whose net wealth has decreased over the past few years — such as herself, her Citigroup-executive fiancée, her Time Warner bosses, and Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “CEO of a major bank” assignment editor: the only people who really exist in her universe and who matter (do you think Sorkin would have been as responsive to a call from, say, a person suffering long-time unemployment and foreclosure as he was to his “CEO of a major bank”?).

It’s the opposite of surprising that large corporations which own media outlets want to hire people to play the role of journalist on the TV who are slavishly devoted to their culture and their agenda. But that’s the point: the pretense that these people are “objective journalists” delivering opinion-free facts is so discredited that they should just stop pretending. It’s embarrassing already. Few things have exposed their deep, embittered biases as much as their snide, defensive reaction to these Wall Street protests.

Obama's 2012 insurance policy?

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/09/30/obama_2012_republicans/index.html

Thursday, Sep 30, 2010
Obama's 2012 insurance policy?
It's remarkable how many of the Republicans in the '12 mix are spectacularly unelectable
Steve Kornacki

What may be most notable in the new Gallup poll on the 2012 Republican presidential race is the significant distance between Mitt Romney, who leads the crowded pack with 19 percent, and the next candidate without obvious and glaring general election liabilities. Just consider the results:

Romney 19%

Sarah Palin 16%

Mike Huckabee 12%

Newt Gingrich 9%

Ron Paul 7%

Tim Pawlenty 3%

With the disclaimer that anything is possible (and the obligatory acknowledgement that many Democrats didn't believe until the very end in 1980 that Ronald Reagan could ever actually win the Whitre House), it's hard to imagine Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich or Paul winning a general election in 2012, even if the economy hasn't improved significantly. They just carry too much baggage, and nominating one of them would likely produce something like what we're now seeing in Delaware, where a radioactive GOP nominee is about to cost the GOP a seat it would otherwise win.

I can't remember so many poiosnous general election prospects near the top of the GOP field at this stage in any recent contest. Last time around, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and (sort of) Romney were all near the top of the pack early. All of them passed the November electability test. (Sure, McCain fell flat against Barack Obama, but that was more a testament to the political climate; that same race in the climate of, say, 2004, could well have produced a different result.) Back in the 2000 cycle, the big GOP fish included George W. Bush, Elizabeth Dole and McCain. For 1996, we had Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, and in 1988, George H.W. Bush, Dole and Kemp. Sure, there were some toxic prospects in these cycles (Dan Quayle figured prominently in '96 talk and actually ran -- briefly -- in '00), but in each race had more than one general election heavyweight out front early. Not so for 2012.

Moreover, as NBC's First Read noted this morning, Romney's grip on the frontrunner's slot is unusually tenuous. The GOP's conservative base is markedly cooler to him than it was to McCain at this point in the '08 cycle and Dole at this point in the '96 cycle, even as that same base seems to be warming up even more to Palin, Gingrich and Huckabee. Factor in the most alarming GOP Senate primary results this year -- a Republican electorate in Delaware that willfully committed political suicide, for instance -- and it's fair to questions the assumption that the GOP primary electorate of 2012 will be as pragamtic as it's been in the past. Don't forget: the last time the Republican base was as angry at its own establishment as it is now was in the late '70s. Back then, the favorite of the restive right for the next GOP nomination also happened to be the next-in-line guy: Reagan. But Romney, to borrow a tired expression, is no Ronald Reagan. To the New Right of the late '70s, Reagan was practically a god. To the Tea Party, though, Romney is just a somewhat likable, extremely ambitious office-seeker.

This should provide at least a little comfort to Barack Obama. I've written before that his 2012 fate will rest on the economy. If it improves significantly between now and then, he'll win, no matter whom the GOP nominates. And if it doesn't, he'll be in serious trouble. But the evolution of the GOP in the Obama era suggests a third possibility: that the economy will be weak enough to give the GOP a winnable race in 2012 -- but that they'll nominate a candidate who's incapable of taking advantage of it.

Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki

Cenk Uygur Debates 'Wingnuts' Author John Avlon

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/cenk-uygur-debates-wingnuts-author-john-av

Cenk Uygur Debates 'Wingnuts' Author John Avlon
Heather
Sunday Jun 27, 2010

Cenk Uygur took on one of my least favorite pundits, John Avlon, in this segment on The Young Turks and did what you never see anyone in the our "mainstream media" do when allowing this hack to come on their shows, which is to call him out for the fact that there is no one on the left that you can honestly compare to the ultra-crazies we have on the right side of the aisle right now. The best Avlon could muster without going back to the 60's was to call unions left wing extremists.

Cenk made some other really great points like just how far to the right our country has moved when it comes to what you'd call a "centrist" these days and does a good job of attempting to explain to Avlon that what he calls "centrist" is actually "corporatist" and that when it comes to the issues that really matter to most Americans and what is causing to get hammered economically, unlike the wedge issues that get everyone riled up, people on the left and progressives are losing those battles, whether it be the bank bailouts, health care reform or tax breaks for the rich and for corporations. He also did a really good job explaining just how far what used to be called the center has shifted to the right where the positions of those on the left are what used to be considered moderate and that a lot of Republicans from past eras would be run out of today's Republican Party.

My only quibble with Cenk about this interview would be that he allowed Avlon to filibuster him a bit too often. He did finally have enough of it later in the interview and stopped him so he could make his points. He also allowed him to be portrayed as "independent" and didn't point out to his viewers that he worked for Rudy Giuliani.

That said it was a breath of fresh air to see this guy get challenged in the manner he deserves for once and premise of his book, which tries to paint people on the left as extremists when they're not and that calls centrism giving corporate America anything it wants, called a bunch of nonsense, which it is. Avlon finally showed his true colors with being an anti-union zealot in this interview with Cenk. It doesn't surprise me one bit but makes me dislike him even more than I did before listening to him call us "extremists" who are destroying America and the Democratic Party.

It's a long interview, over twenty minutes but if you've got that time to spare it is well worth is watching the king of the false equivalencies get his talking points taken apart for once. Good for Cenk. It would be nice to see MSNBC give him a job if they allowed him to do the type of interviews he just did here instead of just having him on Ratigan's show to debate wingnuts in a five minute debate box with Ratigan controlling the narrative. I'd say this interview ranks right up there with his take down of S.E. Cupp and Wayne Allyn Root.

To view the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbrkvbsUfYw

The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud

http://salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/21/libertarianism
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010
The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud
By Glenn Greenwald

There's a major political fraud underway: the GOP is once again donning their libertarian, limited-government masks in order to re-invent itself and, more important, to co-opt the energy and passion of the Ron-Paul-faction that spawned and sustains the "tea party" movement. The Party that spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years and was diametrically opposed to most of his platform now pretends to share his views. Standard-issue Republicans and Ron Paul libertarians are as incompatible as two factions can be -- recall that the most celebrated right-wing moment of the 2008 presidential campaign was when Rudy Giuliani all but accused Paul of being an America-hating Terrorist-lover for daring to suggest that America's conduct might contribute to Islamic radicalism -- yet the Republicans, aided by the media, are pretending that this is one unified, harmonious, "small government" political movement.

The Right is petrified that this fraud will be exposed and is thus bending over backwards to sustain the myth. Paul was not only invited to be a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference but also won its presidential straw poll. Sarah Palin endorsed Ron Paul's son in the Kentucky Senate race. National Review is lavishly praising Paul, while Ann Coulter "felt compelled [in her CPAC speech] to give a shout out to Paul-mania, saying she agreed with everything he stands for outside of foreign policy -- a statement met with cheers." Glenn Beck -- who literally cheered for the Wall Street bailout and Bush's endlessly expanding surveillance state -- now parades around as though he shares the libertarians' contempt for them. Red State's Erick Erickson, defending the new so-called conservative "manifesto," touts the need for Congress to be confined to the express powers of Article I, Section 8, all while lauding a GOP Congress that supported countless intrusive laws -- from federalized restrictions on assisted suicide, marriage, gambling, abortion and drugs to intervention in Terri Schiavo's end-of-life state court proceeding -- nowhere to be found in that Constitutional clause. With the GOP out of power, Fox News suddenly started featuring anti-government libertarians such as John Stossel and Reason Magazine commentators, whereas, when Bush was in power, there was no government power too expanded or limitless for Fox propagandists to praise.

This is what Republicans always do. When in power, they massively expand the power of the state in every realm. Deficit spending and the national debt skyrocket. The National Security State is bloated beyond description through wars and occupations, while no limits are tolerated on the Surveillance State. Then, when out of power, they suddenly pretend to re-discover their "small government principles." The very same Republicans who spent the 1990s vehemently opposing Bill Clinton's Terrorism-justified attempts to expand government surveillance and executive authority then, once in power, presided over the largest expansion in history of those very same powers. The last eight years of Republican rule was characterized by nothing other than endlessly expanded government power, even as they insisted -- both before they were empowered and again now -- that they are the standard-bearers of government restraint.

What makes this deceit particularly urgent for them now is that their only hope for re-branding and re-empowerment lies in a movement -- the tea partiers -- that has been (largely though not exclusively) dominated by libertarians, Paul followers, and other assorted idiosyncratic factions who are hostile to the GOP's actual approach to governing. This is a huge wedge waiting to be exposed -- to explode -- as the modern GOP establishment and the actual "small-government" libertarians that fuel the tea party are fundamentally incompatible. Right-wing mavens like Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin and National Review are suddenly feigning great respect for Ron Paul and like-minded activists because they're eager that the sham will be maintained: the blatant sham that the modern GOP and its movement conservatives are a coherent vehicle for those who believe in small government principles. The only evidence of a passionate movement urging GOP resurgence is from people whose views are antithetical to that Party. That's the dirty secret which right-wing polemicists are desperately trying to keep suppressed. Credit to Mike Huckabee for acknowledging this core incompatibility by saying he would not attend CPAC because of its "increasing libertarianism."

These fault lines began to emerge when Sarah Palin earlier this month delivered the keynote speech to the national tea party conference in Nashville, and stood there spitting out one platitude after the next which Paul-led libertarians despise: from neoconservative war-loving dogma and veneration of Israel to glorification of "War on Terror" domestic powers and the need of the state to enforce Palin's own religious and cultural values. Neocons (who still overwhelmingly dominate the GOP) and Paul-led libertarians are arch enemies, and the social conservatives on whom the GOP depends are barely viewed with greater affection. Sarah Palin and Ron Paul are about as far apart on most issues as one can get; the "tea party movement" can't possibly be about supporting each of their worldviews. Moreover, the GOP leadership is currently promising Wall Street even more loyal subservience than Democrats have given in exchange for support, thus bolstering the government/corporate axis which libertarians find so repugnant. And Coulter's manipulative claim that she "agrees with everything [Paul] stands for outside of foreign policy" is laughable; aside from the fact that "foreign policy" is a rather large issue in our political debates (Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia), they were on exactly the opposite sides of the most intense domestic controversies of the Bush era: torture, military commissions, habeas corpus, Guantanamo, CIA secrecy, telecom immunity, and warrantless eavesdropping.

Part of why this fraud has been sustainable thus far is that libertarians -- like everyone who doesn't view all politics through the mandated, distorting, suffocating Democrat v. GOP prism -- are typically dismissed as loons and nuts, and are thus eager for any means of achieving mainstream acceptance. Having the GOP embrace them is one way to achieve that (Karl Rove: some "see the tea party movement as a recruiting pool for volunteers for Ron Paul's next presidential bid . . . . The Republican Party and the tea party movement have many common interests"). Additionally, just as the Paul-faction of libertarians is in basic harmony with many progressives on issues of foreign policy and civil liberties, they do subscribe to the standard GOP rhetoric on domestic spending, social programs and the like.

But that GOP limited government rhetoric is simply never matched by that Party's conduct, especially when they wield power. The very idea that a political party dominated by neocons, warmongers, surveillance fetishists, and privacy-hating social conservatives will be a party of "limited government" is absurd on its face. There literally is no myth more transparent than the Republican Party's claim to believe in restrained government power. For that reason, it's only a matter of time before the fundamental incompatibility of the "tea party movement" and the political party cynically exploiting it is exposed.

Narrowing List of Presidential Prospects

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/25/pub-gop-presidential-prospects/

For Republicans, a Narrowing List of Presidential Prospects
Nevada Sen. John Ensign's and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's extramarital affairs are the latest blow to the GOP as the Republican presidential herd thins fast -- leaving many to wonder who will lead the party in its attempt to reclaim the White House.
By Cristina Corbin
FOXNews.com
Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Grand Old Party's 2012 presidential pool isn't looking so grand these days.

Add Nevada Sen. John Ensign's and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's extramarital affairs to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's unconvincing TV speech and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's family dramas, and the Republican presidential herd is thinning fast -- leaving many to wonder who will lead the party in its attempt to reclaim the White House.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels are the names now being whispered in Republican circles as potential winners -- although observers admit political speculations can change overnight.

"It's way too early to be playing the name game," said Dana Perino, former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.

"I believe it will be a governor," said Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association.

Ayers also stressed that it is far too early to make projections, but he said Pawlenty, Jindal and Romney are among the most promising prospects.

But, he added, "The list goes on and on."

Ayers said Republicans are well-positioned for a comeback in 2012, but focusing on a candidate short list now is "totally irrelevant to the rebuilding of the party."

He added that the nomination could very well go to someone with little name recognition.

"When George W. Bush got re-elected in 2004, Barack Obama was a state legislator," Ayers said.

Still, as Republicans continue to battle a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House as well as recent scandals within their own party, talk naturally falls to who will emerge as the GOP nominee.

Barbour's appearance in New Hampshire for a party fundraiser on Wednesday got some attention.

Barbour, who has replaced Sanford as chairman of the Republican Governor's Association, has been on a tour of New Hampshire and Iowa this week, the nation's first primary and caucuses states, and arguably a make-or-break destination for presidential candidates.

Barbour told FOX News he has "no plans to run for president" even as he warned: "never say never."

The Mississippi governor, who once served as Republican National Committee chairman, was elected to office in 2003 and re-elected in 2007. He was praised for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

But a would-be candidate also faces the prospect of a Romney run. The former Massachusetts governor has earned credit for his business credentials and budget management.

Romney, who worked as a CEO of a management consulting firm and co-founder of a private equity firm, has a formidable resume -- one some political observers say may be the best weapon for a party looking for a comeback.

Jindal, perceived by many as a rising star within the party, has also been named a possible choice. But the 37-year-old son of Indian immigrants was roundly criticized for what many perceived as a childish and weak televised response to Obama's address to the nation in February.

Daniels, 60, gained praise for his commencement speech at Butler University in Indianapolis, in which he blasted baby boomers as self-indulgent. The Indiana governor, who served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under the Bush administration, also won a second term overwhelmingly in a state carried by Obama during the election.

In a May 2009 FOX News poll, the majority of respondents said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani would likely be the top contender -- followed by Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Palin.

Giuliani said in May he has not ruled out the possibility of launching a second bid for the presidency.

But as the GOP searches for its most promising candidate, the party will need to find someone who can address public perceptions of the party as intolerant and irrelevant, not to mention marred by politicians who on the one hand are caught up in extramarital affairs while on the other they preach of family values.

Insiders say the party need not be shaken by Ensign's and Sanford's recent confessions or a seemingly slim presidential list.

"The Sanford and Ensign stories are unfortunate, but they don't define Republican principles -- those are well-defined, and we need to focus on them: keeping the country safe, keeping the country capitalist and free, and keeping focused on solutions for energy and health care," said Perino.

The Political Machine 2008

Thanks to About.com's ( http://compsimgames.about.com/ ) Computer Sim Games Guide for alerting The Konformsit of the following game.

The Political Machine 2008

Description: The Political Machine 2008 puts players in control of the 2008 presidential campaign. Play as the campaign manager for a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch. Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds and are off on the campaign trail to face a host of challenges including fund raising, talk show appearances, hiring spin doctors and winning endorsements. The game is won on Election Day by the player who gets the necessary electoral votes to become President. The Political Machine is both a single and a multiplayer game - players can either compete against the computer or against others online.

***

http://www.politicalmachine.com

Welcome to the new Political Machine!

Ever thought you could run for President? Now's your chance with The Political Machine. Pick a candidate (real or imaginary) or design your own from scratch. Then choose a political party and start your campaign.

The Political Machine is a strategy game that takes the real world mechanics of political campaigning and uses it to create an award-winning strategy game. Raise money, hire spin-doctors, win the endorsements of important groups, go on TV interviews, take out ads, fight off smear merchants and much more in your quest to win the 270 electoral votes you need to get into the white house.

Your opponents can be controlled either by human players over the Internet or by a diabolical computer AI designed by Stardock's renowned artificial intelligence team. With multiple maps and scenarios to choose from, a candidate editor and much more, The Poliltical Machine is not just a timely bit of fun during the campaign season but a strategy game that will stand the test of time.In between your gaming exploits, hang out here on PoliticalMachine.com, discussing the issues of the day on a non-partisan site where people of all political persuasions can advocate their positions.

***

From Wikipedia.org:

Presidential candidates

Democrats

Fmr. President Bill Clinton (D-AR)
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Fmr. Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)
Fmr. Vice President Al Gore (D-TN)
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)
Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM)
Fmr. President Jimmy Carter (D-GA)
Fmr. President John F Kennedy (D-MA)
Fmr. President Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX)
Fmr. President Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
Fmr. President Thomas Jefferson (D-VA)
Fmr. Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

Republicans

Lord Kona (fictional)
President George W. Bush (R-TX)
Vice-President Dick Cheney (R-WY)
Fmr. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY)
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
Fmr. Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA)
Fmr. President Ulysses S. Grant (R-OH)
Fmr. President Richard Nixon (R-CA)
Fmr. President Ronald Reagan (R-CA)
Fmr. President Theodore Roosevelt (R-NY)
Fmr. President George Washington (VA)
Fmr. President Abraham Lincoln (R-IL)
Fmr. Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR)

***

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thepoliticalmachine2008/news.html?sid=6191527

The Political Machine 2008 Q&A: Tackling the Issues
The election simulation and satire is back in 2008. Who wins?
May 23, 2008

The Political Machine was a tongue-in-cheek look at North American politics released just in time for the 2004 presidential election. Using John Kerry, George W. Bush, or any number of fantasy candidates such as Ulysses S. Grant, you didn't simply tackle the issues; using spin doctors, PR machines, celebrity endorsements, and negative advertising, you ran right over them. Now The Political Machine is back, revised for 2008 with a new list of issues, a new list of candidates, and some pleasant surprises, like the 1860 election, which was informed by slavery and the Civil War. For the latest on The Political Machine 2008, we sat down with Brad Wardell, the lead designer as well as the president and CEO of Stardock Corp. Here's what he had to say (and mud in your eye).

GameSpot: The 2004 election was intense, to be sure, but nothing in American history rivals what we've seen in 2008 in terms of media coverage, political trickery, and outright passion. Have you intensified the action in The Political Machine 2008 to capture such a charged political climate?

Brad Wardell: Definitely. Players can bring in spin doctors, smear merchants, media consultants, fixers, and more to help get themselves elected. We've created a custom candidate maker, scenarios, better multiplayer, more operatives, etc.

GS: In addition to creating your own candidate, which real-life candidates will we see? You also had a great cast of fictional candidates in 2004, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is there any chance of an unlockable Al Gore, John Kerry, or Bob Dole?

BW: Absolutely. One of the nice things about a game like this is that it lets us do some fun things with the release. For instance, as the political season heats up this summer and fall, we'll be releasing free candidates up on PoliticalMachine.com for users to download and add in. The game comes with most of the big names, either as default or unlockable, but we plan to continue to add more and more as the election nears.

GS: Any candidate-specific special attacks in the Machine? A Hilary "crying button"? A McCain war-story dialog tree? Huckabee dancing minigame?

BW: Haha. No, we have tried to stay away from anything that might give the impression that the game is rooting for any particular candidate.

GS: Certainly many of the issues in 2004 have changed, while many have sadly remained the same. What are the hot-button topics candidates will touch on this election, and what are some of the best strategies for handling them?

BW: There are some interesting topics that have come up this time. You still have the war in Iraq, and the economy is right at the top too. But this time we have things like alternative fuels being a hot topic, as well as freezing mortgage rates and other things in which the political parties differ on.

One of the biggest changes is that we have scenarios. So we not only have the 2008 US election, but we include a Civil War scenario with the issues from 1860. We also include "Europa," which is Europe as seen by a typical American tourist (i.e., highly politically incorrect satire); "Germania," "that little country by Poland"; "Australia" (as opposed to Austria), with the issues being, well, let's just say not accurate.

And of course, this time you can finally run for Emperor of the Drengin Empire. Are you pro slavery or pro genocide? These are the tough issues that Drengi politicians have to deal with.

GS: Aside from the issues, The Political Machine was a great satire on political media coverage, featuring fiery talk-show hosts and endorsements from celebrities. How have you updated this for 2008?

BW: Big time. This time we have a satire on the Colbert Report. It's a big upgrade.

GS: One issue we had with the original game is that the AI candidates didn't always focus on the most important states. Tell us how you've updated the AI and some of the different political strategies we'll see from them.

BW: This is one of those things where time helps. We've had a lot more time to focus on the computer AI to master the strategy. When I program computer AI, I'm playing the game and learning the game, and then incorporate those strategies into the computer players. When we did the 2004 edition, I hadn't had much time to play the game, so my strategies weren't as far along as they are now.

GS: The 2004 edition was somewhat of a crystal ball in that it predicted 48 of the 50 states, and also George W. Bush to defeat John Kerry. What factors are you looking at, and why do think the game predicted the outcome so accurately?

BW: For the most part, it's all about demographics and issues. The election is really decided by issues and turnout. It's not as sexy as the media might like it to be, but at the end of the day, it's really just about a) getting your base out to vote, and b) getting independents to care about an issue that makes you different from your opponent. Last time, the game got every state right except for Ohio and I think Iowa (and that was in June of 2004, prior to the Swift Boat advocacy).

This time it's a lot more complicated because the candidates are not quite as different as they were in 2004. McCain has a number of atypical positions for a Republican. There is also a significant difference in financial resources between the parties this time. On the other hand, Obama has weaker demographic support in key electoral states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which the Democrats have to win.

GS: We haven't seen many blue states go red in the general election, or vice versa. How can a candidate like Obama win Texas? Is it even possible?

BW: In The Political Machine, anything's possible. In the real world, candidates play as true experts. But in The Political Machine, players can do gambits that just would never happen in the real world. For instance, with enough spin doctors, advertisements, and other operatives, I've won California with McCain, which is certainly not going to happen in November.

GS: Thanks for your time.

***

http://www.gamepro.com/article/reviews/195968/the-political-machine-2008/

Review
PC - Simulation - The Political Machine 2008
By Andrew Dagley June 30, 2008
We take a look at Stardock's latest political sim!

Political junkies have had one hell of a ride these last few months. The recently concluding primary season has been perhaps the most bitterly contested, but still vicariously entertaining spectacles of the last few decades. So it comes as no surprise that when The Political Machine 2008 landed on my desk I was more than a little excited - what exciting matchups could I concoct? Barack Obama vs. John McCain? Bill Clinton vs. Richard Nixon? Woodrow Wilson vs. Theodore Roosevelt? Sufficed to say, The Political Machine doesn't disappoint, offering an excellent improvement over the last version released four years ago - but it's ultimately hamstrung by some nagging issues and the lack of full-fledged improvements.

The Political Machine ships with four full scenarios - the 2008 campaign, 1860, a hypothetical (and highly amusing) European Union scenario, and a scenario based of Stardock's successful Galactic Civilizations series in which you play as a candidate for the highly militaristic Drengin Empire. It is a nice mix of scenario's and does give players an interesting mix of potential what if's. These can often manage to descend into the realm of pure amusement that comes only when you can pit Bill Clinton against Dick Cheney in 1860, where Clinton makes speech after speech supporting slavery, or Al Gore setting up TV ads across Europe extolling his hatred of America and love of partying.

Most campaigns take place over a period of 41 turns - one turn per week - you'll select your candidate who has their own specific statistics (McCain is old for instance, and has less stamina, and therefore can't do as much per week), and thereafter begin attempting to sway individual states over to either the Democratic or Republican parties. While many of the states are swingable the game does keep many safely in the realm or either party - it's unlikely you'll ever get Massachusetts to swing Republican for instance. Each turn candidates can make appearances in individual states, giving speeches on individual issues, fund-raising, creating ads, or gaining endorsements. During the scenario for this years election you'll find just about all current issues popping up on the campaign trail, allowing you to take positions on subjects such as the War in Iraq, Health Care, Climate Change, and smaller (often state specific issues) such as farm subsidies or Katrina relief. Each candidate has his own values for each specific issue - Obama is naturally going to have the upper hand on McCain on the economy for instance, and vice-versa when it comes to Iraq and the War on Terror. You'll find different issues in all four of the scenarios, and each time you play a campaign - even with the same candidates - things such as the importance of issues in each state are randomized just enough to keep things interesting. One election the topic of high gas prices might be the key to winning, but attempting to do that a second time might backfire as the important issues have changed.

This all works fairly well and creates its own dynamic campaigns. As noted, you'll never experience the same campaign twice, but the AI has some significant limitations. For one it frequently manages to ignore the most important swing states or states in which its human opponent is paying the most attention. Moreover computer candidates often pay too much attention to areas in which you're not going to be competitive or aren't visiting - Republicans paying visits to Alaska every four or five turns to name one such oddity. Besides this there are a few other disappointments. Only the top candidates of either party this year are represented in the game - it would be nice to play a campaign as Mike Gravel, Tom Vilsack, or Sam Brownback. More importantly, after this years important and highly engaging primary season the lack of a primary season, no matter how short, is a disappointment in game. Endorsements, gained through political clout, while a good idea - giving candidates bonuses to certain issues - are also little used, being too few and so cheap as to limit their effectiveness to early in the campaigning season only. Vice Presidential running mates also don't feel as fleshed out as they could have been.

These issues are, however, ultimately minor. As it stands The Political Machine 2008 is a fine follow-up to Stardock's earlier political gem. Though most games only last an hours or two, the game offers enough to keep potential candidates coming back from just one more campaign. Political junkies will almost certainly find themselves sucked in, along with those who have only a smattering of knowledge about the American political process.

Beast of the Month - March 2008

Beast of the Month - March 2008
Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney & Fred Thompson, Class of '08 Loser GOP Candidates

"I yam an anti-Christ... "
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"

If one looks at the 2008 Presidential Campaign as a horse race, it has already been a very exciting contest. The conventional wisdom at the start of the year was that it was going to be Hillary vs. Rudy, and that already has been proven to be half false. Further, it was expected that the GOP race was going to be the real boxing match, with Ms. Rodham cruising to an easy victory. Instead, it's the Republican contest fully settled with Clinton trailing Obama in a contest that looks likely to be dragged out.

Still, we at The Konformist prefer not to look at the prez battle as a horse race. For one, that is precisely how the talking heads in the media want us to look at politics, free of content and ideas and full of petty battles between personalities. But if one must make shallow analogies to equate the current political race with, we suggest a reality television show fits the bill, and not even a particularly good one. Think The Hills or Keeping Up with the Kardashians, with less impressive hairstyles and wardrobes.

Be that as it may, there is a big difference in the storylines being followed by the Pagong and Tagi tribes in this battle. While Obama (a man of wasted oratory skills that masks empty policies under the banner of "hope") and Hillary (perhaps the most shameless pandering politician alive) may have their faults - and no doubt in some future date a BOTM prize will discuss those in further detail - they're nothing compared to the glaring flaws evident in the big five mainstream GOP candidates in the class of '08. Indeed, while Barack and Clinton may not be the Democratic candidate that could really give hope to The Konformist staff (that would be either John Edwards or Dennis Kucinich) we'll concede that among the narrow margins given by the establishment, they have run surprisingly good campaigns that have incorporated some good ideas along the way (even if they were all lifted from Edwards and Kucinich.) Meanwhile, the Republican big five - Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney & Fred Thompson - all have been so inept in running for president, we would recommend their contest be named The Biggest Loser if it were indeed a reality series, if only the title had not already been used for another show. And it is these five who share The Konformist Beast of the Month.

(A word of note: while Duncan Hunter was at least officially a presidential candidate, he never was taken seriously by the mainstream, media, and thus neither shall we. Thus, he is eliminated from sharing the BOTM trophy simply because he was too much of a loser to even qualify as a Beastly loser.)

Let's start with Fred Thompson, who would be voted in the '08 class as "Most Likely to Play Hooky to Take a Nap." That's because when he launched his campaign last September on Jay Leno (imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger's strategy for winning the California governorship) many thought he'd use his public persona as an actor (featured most recently in that crappy Law & Order TV franchise) to charm the public into ignoring his right wing politics and support his bid for Commander-in-Chief, a la Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately for Thompson, he's no Gipper or Arnold. For one thing, he was regularly lambasted for being overtly sloth-like and without excitement on the campaign trail. This is so astounding it needs to be dwelled upon: the GOP, a party that has in the recent past had both Reagan and George W. Bush as their symbolic leader (two dudes who would certainly qualify for the Slacker Hall of Fame) found Fred Thompson to be too lazy and sluggish even for their tastes. It didn't help that on the campaign he was, despite his career as a character actor, extremely unconvincing. The telling moment: while appearing at the Iowa state fair to schmooze voters with his "awe shucks" persona, he was wearing Gucci loafers, not the best way to come off as an everyman. But perhaps his biggest problem is that his message was just too gloomy for people who wanted a rerun of Reagan's "Morning in America" sales job. Soon, his run came to a quick and embarrassing end, and it appears Grandpa Fred will spend the free time he now has taking Viagra to have sex with his young hot wife (who most likely is the real reason he ran for prez in the first place.)

Let's follow this up with Rudy Giuliani, voted "Most Likely to 9/11 9/11 9/11." As noted before, he was the odds on favorite at the start of the year to take the GOP title, with his combination of social moderation and law and order justice appealing to independents and Democrats. And indeed, being the only winner of Time's Man of the Year in the group, it was expected he would receive plenty of media support. The problem was in every state that voted early on he bombed miserably. Even more telling, it seemed the more time "America's Mayor" spent in a place, the less popular he was, as apparently voters found the real Rudy to be a rather repellant individual. Quickly he descended into desperation, trying to remind voters again and again (in case they had forgotten) of the fact he was NYC mayor of September 11, leading Senator Joe Biden to crack, "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11." After finishing a disappointing third in Florida (a large state he bet his entire run on after fumbling in earlier races) he got a clue, and wisely dropped out, leading some to label his presidential campaign the biggest dud in American political history. On the plus size for Rudy, he'll have more free time to dabble in cross-dressing.

Coming in next is Mitt Romney, who wins "Most Likely to Blow $35 Million of His Personal Fortune to Convince Others He Should Be President." Of the big five, his campaign seemed to have the weakest raison d'etre in the race, based on the twin supposed qualifications that he was rich (a net worth estimated at up to $500 million) and physically handsome a la Reagan (albeit in a bland, Wonder Bread way.) Unfortunately for him, even in this field of jokers, it wasn't deemed enough. Even worse, in his own desperate bid to become a force in the race, he flipped on previous held positions (most notably changing from pro-choice to anti-abortion, and backing away from universal health coverage, a central part of his greatest achievement as Massachusetts governor) to morph from a "moderate" Republican to a true blue conservative. Along the way, he became even more of the "pro-torture" candidate than even Rudy G was, cheerfully endorsing waterboarding and bluntly declaring "We ought to double Guantanamo." Ironically, what may have done him in was his Mormon faith, which was deemed a turn-off to evangelical Christians who view it as a false cult. To counter this, he gave a speech last December in Texas, where he declared: "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." In sum, the contents of his speech were the opposite of JFK's famous 1960 address, where Kennedy strongly advocated the separation of his Catholic religion from his political duties: instead, Romney tried to link his Mormonism to the right-wing Christian theocracy movement. Meanwhile, though he believes his religion of dubious foundations should be included in the acceptable pantheon, he bluntly declared that Muslims would be excluded from his own cabinet. In the end, all his attempts to pander to the right-wing base that dominates the GOP failed, and Romney became just another GOP loser.

This leads us to Mike Huckabee, who wins "Biggest Hype." Let's give him some credit: unlike the other nominees here, Huckabee actually is an engaging person, holding his own in humorous appearances on The Colbert Report. And it's hard to rip a guy when his biggest supporter is the highly esteemed thespian talent Chuck Norris. (Though if having action heroes as support is the sole criteria for being prez at this point, we think McCain still has him beat with both Arnold and Sly Stallone in his corner.) And, if you need arguments of greater substance, he deserves credit for actually discussing issues like economic justice in his campaign, a no-no viewed as fomenting "class warfare" in the Republican playbook. Still, one has to look at his political base of Christian fundamentalists to realize that beneath his charm is a likely closet demagogue, one who advocated in 1992 the forced quarantine of all AIDS victims during a Senate run. This demagoguery also became on display last December, when a not-so-subliminal cross (created by lighting on a bookshelf) appeared behind Huck during a winter holiday commercial where he celebrated "the birth of Christ." Commenting on the ad, fellow Republican Ron Paul bluntly declared: "It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He said: 'When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.'" But it appears that what really killed Huckabee is lack of support from the GOP establishment, who were scared that, unlike every GOP candidate since Reagan who merely mouthed support for the Christian right agenda, he was a true believer who would turn off the Democrat and independent electorate with his extreme views. Despite his scrappy campaign, the money wasn't there, and eventually he conceded he was indeed a campaign loser as well. Hope to see you on Colbert again soon, though!

And this leads us to our final winner John McCain, who gets the title of "Biggest Loser of All." For though McCain is the winner of the GOP sweepstakes, his reward, to face either Hillary or Obama, makes it a dubious victory at best. True, as the New England Patriots will tell you, you need to play the game before the champion is declared, and its hard to dismiss the possibility that McCain (generally well-liked by the media elite) can't pull off an upset over the Democratic pick, especially if the Dem's contest becomes as protracted and bitter as many suspect it might. Still, one has to look at (for all their faults) the enthusiasm both Clinton and Obama have raised among voters and compare it to the lack of joy for McCain among the electorate to realize he's in for a fight he may not be up to snuff for. He also faces the same problem the entire Republican field faces in November: being tied to a leader (George W. Bush) and a cause (Iraq) which are now even bigger undeniable losers to the American public. Making matters worse is that McCain has personally tied himself to the Iraq war more than any other candidate. Indeed, his performance nearly a year ago (fittingly on April Fool's Day) strolling through a Baghdad market under the protection of 150 US soldiers, 20 Humvees, three Black Hawk helicopters and two Apache gunships to supposedly "prove" that things were improving in Iraq was so bizarrely surreal, it was widely lambasted even in the mainstream press and viewed as the likely death of his 2008 campaign. In any normal year, that would have been true, but in this race of buffoons, it only became a momentary slip.

McCain hasn't helped his own cause with revelations that he had a very close, very personal relationship with a powerful lobbyist (Vicki Iseman) who happens to be a hot-looking blonde clone of his hot-looking blonde wife (albeit younger and not worth over $20 million.) Though the implications that he was having an affair with her have produced howls of outrage among right wing pundits (amusing since until he clinched the GOP nod, these same mouthpieces repeatedly dissed him for not being conservative enough) it is important to note the source of this speculation: his own personal advisors, who believed at the very least it would be a logical suspicion based on the facts. Of course, considering he was hanging out so closely with a lobbyist who had clients McCain was actively pushing favors for, the explanation that he was merely having sex with her would be the least politically suspicious.

Alleged affairs aside, McCain is the biggest loser of all because of what he has already lost: any sense of deserved public admiration. Gone is the "Straight Talk Express" and so-called "Maverick" reputation he had from his 2000 Presidential run. True, most of this was bogus hype even then, but one must admit that McCain, besides being the rare war hawk who actually risked his own ass in combat, was a sympathetic victim for the crude attacks on his character by the Bush minions. (And one must concede that, for all his faults, the world would be a much better place right now if McCain had occupied the White House the last eight years instead of Shrub.) But apparently McCain learned his political lesson in defeat: gone is any criticism of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Bob Jones University, gone is any deviation from the Republican agenda, gone even is his strident opposition to the use of torture by the US military (even though as a Vietnam POW he personally understands the inhumanity of violating the Geneva Convention.) And for what? All to win the support of a political base that probably will amount to a pyrrhic victory? After all, however heated the Democratic battle gets, come November, the main thing on most voters minds will be the failures of the last eight years, and how McCain has pathetically tied himself to both Iraq and Dubya to win the Republican race. Even if he wins given those circumstances (and The Konformist highly doubts it) you have to wonder if it was worth him giving up his political integrity in the process.

This brings us back to Ron Paul, the sole remaining GOP Presidential candidate that we have omitted from this prize. Granted, the Paul-mania that has gushed from his political followers is a bit amusing to The Konformist editorial staff, considering his brand of conservative libertarianism is to the right of most of our tastes economically. And perhaps now would be a good time to point out, despite the suspiciously cult-like rapture of some of his disciples, Ron Paul can't cure cancer, walk on water or defeat anything short of Kryptonite. (Then again, when it comes to political fantasies, The Konformist thinks the Obamaheads are even more delusional when they pretend this smooth-talking establishment mouthpiece is the next JFK or MLK.) Still, let's look at some of the unwavering stands Paul has taken in his campaign: no on the Iraq War, no on the Patriot Act, no on military torture, no on illegal spying on Americans. These are no's without any asterisk attached to the end. Frankly, these are positions The Konformist wish one of the two Democratic contenders would embrace without exception, much less a Republican. This is why Paul, despite being ignored or mocked by the political establishment, has become a force of politics that deserves to be reckoned with. True, Paul may have lost the battle for the 2008 GOP crown, though he has done far better than the political establishment either hoped or expected. But hopefully he has started a war to change the twisted ideology that has become conventional thought among the so-called "conservative" movement. If he has done that, then no matter happens in November, he will be the greatest winner of them all.

In any case, we salute Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney & Fred Thompson as Beasts of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, dudes!!!

Konformist FeedBack: Ballot Bowl

Konformist FeedBack: Ballot Bowl

Hi Robert,

Thanks as always for Konformist. I would like to point out, however, that the proposition that John McCain actually won all 170 delegates from Kalifornia is absurd. Calli is not a "winner take all" state, so McCain would have to have taken every congressional district for that to be true. The proportions of Republican voters voting for each Republican candidate has been reported as being the SAME in every single congressional district but two! With Rudy Giuliani having dropped out of the race, scoring higher than Ron Paul everywhere. Even here in Santa Cruz, in Sam Farr's liberal/progressive district, where I personally know many Dems who re-registered to vote for Rep. Paul, and where despised is not too strong a word for how folks generally feel about Rudy.

I have to suspect that things are just as "massaged" in many other states. They are STILL recounting New Hampshire, where Bev Harris has documented severe irregularities in the way the Secretary of State is conducting the recount. It would seem impossible to begin to straighten out the many irregularities anecdotally reported across the country at this point.

Ron Paul has just stated that he will absolutely not be mounting an independent campaign should he not gain the Republican nomination, and that he thinks McCain will have a lock on it before the convention opens. Still, he's going to continue to mount the most serious campaign possible until that happens. It seems clear that the "contradictions" of our current "system" are emerging across the board everywhere. In the face of the looming failures, only one candidate is willing to talk about the big lies that undergird current arrangements, based almost entirely on disinfo and deception, and that's Ron Paul. Whatever disagreements we might have with aspects of his thinking, he's the only one who will talk open-mindedly about freedom, or talk about such initiatives as ending debt financing of the federal government or stopping the progress toward the North American Union, otherwise basically a done deal. "They" can't live with a president like Paul. The selection of any other candidate seems, however, to mean an unbraked slide into the abyss.

Bruce

Fox News is in for a very rough 2008

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200801290001

Fox News is in for a very rough 2008
by Eric Boehlert
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

My guess is that Fox News guru Roger Ailes has been reaching for the Tums more often than usual early in the New Year, and there are lots of reasons for the hovering angst.

Let's take an extended multiple choice quiz. Right now, which of the following topics is likely causing the discomfort inside Ailes' Fox News empire?

A) CNN's resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The incredible shrinking candidacy of Fox News' favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded, anti-war GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates' blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O'Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidante Dan Cooper posting chapters from his a wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. ("The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.")
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson's recent heartless attacks on actor Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his "exclusive" that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, and then refusing to correct the record.

I'd say it's A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. (I doubt Gibson's grave-dancing or Garrett's whopper caused Ailes a moment's concern.)

Bottom line is that Fox News is in for a very rough 2008. And the umbrella reason for that is quite simple: Eight years ago the all-news cable channel went all-in on the presidency of George Bush and became a broadcast partner with the White House. Proof of that was on display Sunday night, January 27, during Fox News' prime-time, "Fighting to the Finish," an "historic documentary" on the final year of Bush's presidency. Filmed in HD and featuring "unprecedented access," according to the Fox News press release, the show was pure propaganda. (I must have missed Fox News' "Fighting to the Finish" special back in 2000, chronicling the conclusion of President Bill Clinton's second term and his "extraordinarily consequential tenure.")

The point is that Fox News years ago made an obvious decision to appeal almost exclusively to Republican viewers. The good news then for Fox News was that it succeeded. The bad news now for Fox News is that it succeeded.

Meaning, when the GOP catches a cold, everybody at Fox News gets sick. As blogger Logan Murphy put it at Crooks and Liars, "Watching FOXNews getting their comeuppance has been fun to watch. They made their bed, now they're having to lie in it and it's not too comfortable."

The most obvious signs of Fox News' downturn have been the cable ratings for the big primary and caucus votes this year, as well as the high-profile debates. With this election season generating unprecedented voter and viewer interest, Fox News' rating bumps to date have remained underwhelming, to say the least.

For instance, on the night of the big New Hampshire primary, CNN, which habitually trails behind Fox News in the prime-time race, attracted nearly 250,000 more viewers than its top competitor, marking a changing-of-the-guard of sorts.

The turnaround was striking when you consider that in 2004, even with no Republicans running against Bush, Fox News was still able to draw 200,000 more viewers than CNN on the night of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Yet in 2008, with a very competitive GOP field, CNN was the ratings winner from New Hampshire.

And just look at the ratings for January 19, which featured returns from the Nevada caucus coming in during the late afternoon, and then fresh returns from the South Carolina Republican primary being posted during prime time that night. In the past, Fox News would have absolutely owned that night of coverage, as conservative news junkies flocked to their home team -- Fox News -- to see the results. But no more. CNN grabbed nearly just as many prime-time viewers for the Republican South Carolina returns as did Fox News.

The problem for Fox News is that it's the Democratic race that's creating most of the excitement, yet Fox News has been forced to mostly watch the race from the sidelines. That's because last winter, after Fox News tried to smear Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for purportedly attending a radical Muslim school as a child, liberal bloggers launched an initiative to get Democratic candidates to boycott a debate co-sponsored by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party. (The boycott, powered by Foxattacks.com, was later extended to any and all Fox News debates.)

The point of the online crusade was not to simply embarrass Fox News or rattle Nevada Democrats for being out of touch with the grassroots masses that distrusted and despised Fox News. The point, instead, was to begin chipping away, in a serious, consistent method, at Fox News' reputation. To spell out that Fox News was nothing more than a Republican mouthpiece and that Democrats need not engage with the News Corp. giant.

The lack of Democratic debates for Fox News has meant a huge setback for the news organization from a ratings perspective. Just look at the grand slam CNN hit last week when, on January 21, it broadcast the much-talked-about Democratic debate from South Carolina. The CNN event not only creamed Fox News in the ratings, nearly tripling its audience that night, but the debate set a new cable news mark for the most viewers ever to watch a primary debate.

In fact, of the 10 most-watched debates this election season, Fox has aired just two, compared to CNN's five. Of the 10 most-watched debates, six have featured Democrats; four Republicans.

CNN is virtually guaranteed another monster ratings win this week with a pair of high-profile debates staged in California -- the Republicans on Wednesday night and Democrats on Thursday.

No wonder CNN's so giddy these days. Here's the spin CNN president Jonathan Klein put out following its New Hampshire ratings win: "There's a freshness and exuberance to our coverage that the others just aren't matching. ... Fox almost seems downright despondent in their coverage."

So I'm not the only one who feels like Fox News coverage, especially of the Republican field, often feels like a televised wake. Or maybe that's just been Fox News' collective, subconscious mourning of the Giuliani campaign.

After all, Sean Hannity serves as Fox News' official ambassador to the Giuliani campaign; a campaign that Ailes and Fox News were hoping to ride back into the White House. Yet despite showering Giuliani with all kinds of laudatory coverage, both Hannity and Ailes have been powerless, as they've watched Giuliani's rudderless campaign go nowhere for months.

Even an all-out Fox News marketing blitz to label Giuliani "America's Mayor" never got traction. In fact, it ranked right up there with the launch of New Coke, in terms of branding success. (Watch this clip to see the Fox News absurdity up-close.)

In the meantime, the rise of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and especially Mike Huckabee, with his populist streak, has caused all sorts of consternation at Fox News. Even the conservative Weekly Standard took notice. The magazine recently wrote that "A lot of conservatives have problems with both Huckabee and McCain. Last night on Fox, for example, Sean Hannity could barely conceal his distaste for both pols."

And don't even mention Ron Paul's name to the folks at Fox News, who have stepped outside their role as journalists to try to kneecap the anti-war GOP candidate. The most blatant slap came right before the New Hampshire primary, when Fox News refused to include Paul in a televised GOP debate, despite the fact that just days earlier Paul grabbed 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus, nearly doubling the tally Giuliani posted.

Paul's Republican supporters became so incensed by the snub that they literally chased Sean Hannity through the New Hampshire night chanting "Fox News sucks!" and captured the scene in a homemade clip that really has to be seen to be believed. (To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O'Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that's a week to remember!)

Oh, and we can't forget the wildly hyped launch of the Fox Business Network, which, News Corp. execs bragged, would dethrone longtime cable business news champ CNBC. Of course, that might happen one day. But the early ratings for Fox Business Network have been unbelievably weak.

After two months on the air, Fox Business Network, available in 30 million homes, was attracting, on average, just 6,300 viewers on any given weekday, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was good for a nearly invisible .05 rating. (By comparison, CNBC during that period was attracting 265,000 viewers.)

Making matters worse for Ailes was the fact that on January 22, as fears mounted about a possible global financial crisis, CNBC posted its best ratings in seven years, attracting 401,000 viewers that day.

The hurdle for Fox Business Network has always been simple: Why would investors and day traders in search of reliable business information turn from CNBC over to the Fox brand, which is so well-known for passing along one-sided information? News Corp. always assumed Fox News would help launch the business channel. But Fox News is taken seriously by so few people, it may be hurting the business launch.

After all, Fox News continues to embarrass itself with a type of journalism that nobody else in the industry would dare call professional. And for proof of that look no further than Major Garrett, who is supposed to be one of the channel's nonpartisan, serious journalists. He landed a recent scoop about how former advisers to Bill Clinton, Paul Begala and James Carville, were getting set to join Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Carville immediately shot the story down, telling Talking Points Memo's Greg Sargent that very same day, "Fox was, is and will continue to be an asinine and ignorant network. I have not spoken to anyone in the Clinton campaign about this. I'm not getting back into domestic political consulting."

Begala did Carville one better and directly emailed Garrett to deny the story -- a story Garrett never bothered trying to check with Begala or Carville before it was broadcast. Garrett's response to Begala's blanket denial? Garrett told the Democratic operative that he would take his denial "under advisement." [Emphasis added.]

Garrett then went back on the air and repeated the same story, and added the fact that Begala had been on a conference call the day before with Clinton advisers, which was also false. And no, despite his earlier email exchange with Begala, Garrett never bothered to try to confirm the conference call story with him before reporting it on Fox News.

On his Fox News blog, Garrett did acknowledge the Begala email and claimed he'd be updating the fast-moving story soon -- which, he told readers, would likely be confirmed the next day when the Clinton campaign made the Begala/Carville announcement. But the next day when the story imploded, Garrett simply ignored the embarrassing gaffe.

Recounting the whole Kafka-esque charade at the Huffington Post, Begala wrote, "I've never had a more surrealistic day. If this is what one of Fox's best and most respected reporters is doing, what are the hacks up to?"

They're watching CNN capture the campaign ratings crown.

UPDATE: Fresh Nielsen numbers show Fox News' ratings woes continued over the weekend. During Saturday night's 8-10 p.m. ET coverage of the Democrats' South Carolina primary results, Fox News not only got trounced by CNN among viewers 25-54, but lost to MSNBC as well.

Schwarzenegger backs McCain for GOP nomination

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/31/mccain.endorsements/

Schwarzenegger backs McCain for GOP nomination
1-31-8

Story Highlights
NEW: Expert says endorsement provides enormous boost in momentum for McCain
NEW: McCain says Texas governor plans to endorse McCain later in day
Rudy Giuliani threw support to McCain after dropping out of the GOP race
McCain's Florida win cements front-runner status before Super Tuesday

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he is endorsing Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

In endorsing McCain, Schwarzenegger lauded the Arizona senator's crusade against wasteful spending, his national security credentials and his environmental and economic stewardship.

Flanked by McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed McCain on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said he was giving McCain his blessing "because I am interested in a great future and I think Sen. McCain has proven over and over again that he is reaching across the aisle in order to get things done."

"He's a great American hero and an extraordinary leader," the governor said.

Schwarzenegger made the announcement at a solar technologies company in Los Angeles, a day after the four Republican candidates debated at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

McCain is also set to receive the endorsements of Georgia's two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, in the next two days, according to two GOP sources involved in the planning. McCain said during Thursday's news conference that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would endorse him later in the day.

California and Georgia are two of the 21 states holding GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday next week. California boasts the most delegates and the most electoral votes in the nation.

Schwarzenegger's endorsement could be key to McCain winning California's delegates. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement of the Arizona senator was cited in exit polls as a key to his winning there. McCain solidly beat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and gained momentum with the win.

Momentum is essential in a race like this, especially in the GOP, and it could trump other factors, including campaign donations, said Dr. Christopher Hull, a Georgetown University adjunct professor and author of "Grassroots Rules," a book on the presidential primary process.

"The party will coalesce around the front-runner to defeat the insurgent candidate," Hull said. "It is a loyalist party at its roots."

California represents an enormous prize for McCain, not only because of the 170 Republican delegates, but also because of Schwarzenegger's support base.

Though observers aren't privy to the level of access, Schwarzenegger's endorsement could come with e-mail, mailers and phone calls encouraging the governor's supporters to get behind McCain.

"If McCain gets access to that organization, he gets a very strong tactical boost," Hull said.

Schwarzenegger has an impressive approval rating among California's self-declared Republicans, said Lynn Vavreck, an assistant professor of political science at UCLA. His popularity, along his fundraising ability, should represent a boon for the McCain, she said.

Vavreck added that McCain's endorsements are especially important among Republicans who have not yet chosen who they will vote for. Undecided voters often look to their party leaders for direction on how to cast their ballot.

"If voters were unsure about how to vote, their party leaders are not giving them signals about which candidate to rally around," Vavreck said. "All of [McCain's] endorsements reduce voters' uncertainty and ultimately help to coordinate their behavior."

On Wednesday, McCain got Giuliani's endorsement as the former mayor announced he was dropping out of the race.

"This is a man who is prepared to be president," Giuliani said of his "old friend."

Giuliani said McCain gives the Republican Party the best chance to hold onto the presidency. Giuliani made the announcement two hours before the Republican's final debate preceding the Super Tuesday contests next week.

Giuliani, who had staked his presidential campaign on a Florida win, had a disappointing third-place finish in the state's Republican primary Tuesday night.

McCain's Florida win essentially turns the GOP presidential race into a two-man contest between him and Romney.

CNN's John King and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.

John Edwards and the art of losing well

http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=1231

John Edwards and the art of losing well

With John Edwards withdrawing from the race, I think it’s important to take note of something sort of extraordinary: he’s leaving with his reputation not only intact, but actually enhanced.

When you think about it that almost never happens. Today, we tend to be a one shot society politically — hell, in every respect, really. But sticking with politics, look at the tattered bodies scattered across the field of honor: Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John Kerry, Bob Dole, Joe Lieberman (please try not to cry for poor Joe), Michael Dukakis and so many more. All were once serious presidential candidates, people given a real chance of winning, and all suffered damage to their public reputations, in some cases severe damage, as a result of running for and losing the presidency.

But not so John Edwards. Edwards leaves the race, if anything, more highly regarded by the Democratic rank and file than he was before. He remains a viable political figure.

Why? It’s about running and also losing with grace, I think. It’s about running on the side of the poor and the working class, instead of just trying to pile up huge mounds of cash from special interests. It’s about running on issues that matter, rather than personalities and negative imagery.

I’m showing my age here, but I remember reading a book (when it was new) written by Alistair Cooke 30 years ago, titled Six Men. It was made up of a series of short biographies of six men Cooke had known in his life who had a great impact on him, one of whom was Adlai Stevenson. He said at the end of the chapter on Stevenson, as I recall — and this isn’t an exact quote — that there are sometimes honorable reasons for someone not becoming the President of the United States.

John Edwards may never be president, but by conducting his campaign with honor he’s left both the Democratic Party and the nation at least a little better off for his having tried.

Thank you, John. We here at The Last Chance Democracy Café wish you and your family the very best.

This entry was posted by Steve on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

McCain, Clinton win Florida primaries

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/mccain-clinton-win-florida-primaries/story.aspx?guid=3A3D7C9B-B046-4F72-A701-14469F07B289&dist=SecMostRead

McCain trumps Romney; Giuliani seen exiting race after finishing third
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
Jan. 29, 2008

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- John McCain of Arizona won a closely fought battle with Mitt Romney to win Florida's Republican primary Tuesday night, propelling his candidacy mightily forward to the 24-state Super Tuesday contest on Feb. 5.

But it was apparently the end of the fight for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani who placed a disappointing third in Florida's Republican race after staking much of his run for the nomination on the Sunshine State. Giuliani was reportedly set to drop out of the race and endorse McCain on Wednesday.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton handily defeated rival Sen. Barack Obama in an expected win. The New York senator, however, won't pick up any delegates from her victory on Tuesday night since the Democrats had theirs stripped as punishment for scheduling the primary earlier than usual.

Speaking to supporters in Miami, McCain said he's getting close to winning the nomination.

"Our victory might not have reached landslide proportions but it is sweet none the less," McCain said. Looking to Super Tuesday, McCain said "I intend to win it and be the nominee for our party."

With his victory on Tuesday, McCain gets a big boost towards the 24-state contest, said University of South Florida Prof. Susan MacManus.

"It's like winning an overtime game and heading into the next season," MacManus said. "He just really came from behind" in the campaign.

Sen. McCain edged out ex-Massachusetts governor Romney 36% to 31% while Giuliani was a distant third with just 15% of the vote. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee lagged with 13%.

Exit Giuliani

Losing Florida's contest appeared to spell the end of Giuliani's bid for the nomination. The former mayor banked much of his campaign on winning large numbers of votes from New York-area retirees in Florida.

Giuliani's stinging defeat immediately raised speculation that he would soon pull out of the race. But in his concession speech, Giuliani was non-committal about his future, saying "the responsibility of leadership doesn't end with a single campaign...If you believe in a cause, it goes on and you continue to fight for it, and we will."

With 58% of the precincts reporting, Clinton had garnered 51% of the vote compared to Sen. Barack Obama's 31%. Former senator John Edwards got 15%.

The Democrats' contest was widely described as a "beauty contest" since no delegates were awarded and they weren't permitted to campaign in the state. Despite Clinton's win, losing Florida neither helps nor hurts Obama or Edwards in the delegate tally.

Speaking to supporters in Davie, Fla., Clinton said she'll work to ensure that Florida's delegates are seated at the Democratic convention in August.

"I'm going to take your voices, your concerns, your hopes, your dreams" to the White House, Clinton pledged.

McCain will take home 57 delegates, giving him the lead in the delegate tally. A candidate will need 1,191 to secure the Republican nomination.

Clinton is ahead of Obama and Edwards in the delegate tally on the Democratic side.

Economy stressed

Campaigning in Florida, candidates from both sides have stressed economic issues. The state has been hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis. On Tuesday, Florida homebuilder TOUSA Inc. filed for bankruptcy, with its chief executive saying the step "is necessary to reflect the realities of today's homebuilding market."

In interviews before the primary, residents cited housing as a drag on the state's economy. Orlando, for example, ranked 27 on a list of foreclosure activity in the U.S. in the third quarter, according to foreclosure-listing service RealtyTrac. The Tampa area ranked 19 and Fort Lauderdale was fourth.

Clinton is calling for $30 billion in assistance to states to help them fight foreclosures, as well as a 90-day moratorium on subprime-loan foreclosures and a five-year freeze in rates on subprime adjustable mortgages. Obama and Edwards have also vowed to help struggling families with mortgage payments and unemployment benefits.

McCain and Romney stepped up their attacks on each other over issues including immigration, energy and campaign-finance.

Immigration is also a hot topic in Florida, the state with the third-highest number of illegal immigrants in the country.

With a voter population split evenly among Democrats and Republicans, Florida will also be a key state in the general election. Moreover, Florida's 2.1 million independents will also determine how the Sunshine State goes in the November general election.

Robert Schroeder is a reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.

Tight election races lead to brokered conventions?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/25221.html

Could tight election races in both parties lead to brokered conventions?
Matt Stearns McClatchy Newspapers
January 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — What happens if the primaries don't produce presidential nominees for one party — or the other — or both?

For Democrats, the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama race could continue through the primaries. If John Edwards stays in, he could win enough delegates to prevent either Clinton or Obama from securing enough convention delegates to win the nomination.

On the Republican side, the once implausible seems possible. Three candidates — Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney — each have won important early contests. All show strength among disparate party constituencies. A fourth candidate, Rudy Giuliani, hasn't seriously competed in any primaries yet. It's possible that the four could split primary wins — and delegates — all the way through the primary season, leaving none with a majority of delegates.

Suddenly those summer conventions — ridiculed in recent years as four-day parties with scripted outcomes — could matter: Delegates might have to stay awake and sober long enough to choose a nominee.

"It's not so amazing," said R. Craig Sautter, who's written three books on presidential nominating conventions. "Any time you have more than two candidates who are strong, you have the possibility of nobody going into the convention with enough delegates."

It hasn't been that way for a long while.

The last truly contested convention was 1976, when Republicans gathered in Kansas City. Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan fought President Gerald Ford all the way through the primaries. Ford had just enough delegates to win entering the convention. Reagan worked hard to woo some away; Ford worked equally hard to keep them. Ultimately, Ford won by a slender margin on the first ballot of delegates.

The last time a convention went beyond the first ballot for the top spot on a ticket was in 1952, when it took three ballots for Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson to win the Democratic nomination. Republicans went three ballots in 1948 to give New York Gov. Tom Dewey the nomination over Ohio Sen. Robert Taft.

Such excitement was once the norm, in an era when primaries mattered little because powerful local bosses controlled vast numbers of delegates who generally were party hacks. Back then, conventions were vehicles to wield power and settle scores.

Even Franklin Roosevelt had to wheel and deal his way to the Democratic nomination on four ballots in Chicago in 1932. (Until 1936, Democrats required nominees to have the support of two-thirds of the delegates; now, both parties require simple majorities.)

In 1924, Democrats went through 103 ballots over nine days in New York to settle on John W. Davis, a Wall Street lawyer, one-term congressman and former ambassador to Great Britain. That ended the brutal duel between the two leading candidates, New York Gov. Al Smith and Californian William McAdoo, a former secretary of the Treasury, which was heightened by the fact that many delegates were Ku Klux Klan members virulently opposed to Smith, a Roman Catholic.

``They were exhausted; people were exasperated," Sautter said. "The party was being torn apart on national radio. Davis was a person who was above the fray. He was respected by all, and the party turned to him."

Davis then lost the presidency to Calvin Coolidge, winning only 29 percent of the vote.

It's unlikely that 2008 would see a return to bosses sitting in smoke-filled rooms choosing compromise nominees like Davis. (Another such nominee, Warren G. Harding, was chosen after 10 ballots by Republicans in 1920.) Party reforms of the 1970s ensure that most delegates are committed to individual candidates, not controlled by party leaders.

Such reforms came about after 1968, when after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Democrats nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, even though he hadn't really competed in primaries.

"A combination of the civil rights era, the war in Vietnam and the fact that the boss era was ending" sparked reforms, said Terry Madonna, the director of the Center for Politics & Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. "It was an effort to open (conventions) up to a wider group of constituents, more demographically balanced."

As primaries gained importance, conventions became little more than marketing opportunities for the political parties.

Still, a candidate would have to make deals to get over the top in a brokered convention this year. Most likely, candidates in third place or lower in the delegate count would agree to throw their support to the first- or second-place finishers on the second ballot in exchange for ... something.

Democrats also have 796 "super-delegates," generally elected officials who likely would want to ensure a clean win for the nominee and avoid a nationally televised fracas at the Denver conclave. Unlike delegates chosen in primaries, they're officially unpledged — even if they've endorsed a candidate. Democrats require 2,025 delegates for the nomination.

Republicans don't have super-delegates, but the rules on how delegates vote are basically left to the state and territory parties. More than 650 GOP delegates could arrive at the Minneapolis-St. Paul convention unpledged to any candidate, while more could be only informally bound to vote for a candidate, according to Jay Cost, a University of Chicago political science graduate student writing for http://www.realclearpolitics.com/. Republicans require 1,191 delegates for the nomination.

"Super-delegates could be described as an elitist check on the Democratic electorate, while the Republican side is more a maze of 54 different schemes," Cost said.

The result, Madonna said: "Not only do we not know who would broker a convention without the old bosses. We're not even sure what would happen on a first ballot."

Knock Knock Joke of the Month

Knock Knock Joke of the Month

Knock Knock!
Who's there?
Rudy Giuliani!
Rudy Giuliani who?
9/11!!!

No Standard Bearer

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120045531986293771.html

No Standard Bearer
January 16, 2008; Page A12

Mitt Romney finally won the "gold" yesterday, as he so effusively puts it, and the result is a Republican Presidential battle that is more muddled than ever. The most important story out of Michigan is that Republicans are still looking for a standard bearer.

Mr. Romney has the immediate bragging rights with his victory, salvaging his campaign in the process. He was able to win in his native state, and to do so convincingly among Republican voters of all stripes. He helped himself by stressing the economy in a state that has lagged behind U.S. growth for years, even if he did go over the top with his pandering to the auto industry. Mr. Romney can't stop jobs from leaving the state, no matter how often he claims he can. But the economic message suits the former entrepreneur better than his previous reinventions as a social conservative and a Tom Tancredo immigration restrictionist.

The result is a blow to John McCain, who was coming off a victory in New Hampshire and had won in Michigan in 2000. The Arizona Senator lost again among Republican voters, who seem to admire him as a man but have doubts about him on the issues. It didn't help in Michigan that Mr. Romney could attack Mr. McCain for his support for tougher fuel-economy standards and a "cap and trade" regime on global warming. The Senator's "straight talk" on issues is admirable, but it sometimes has the result of convincing voters they don't agree with him enough to vote for him.

Mike Huckabee's distant third means that he hasn't yet been able to capitalize on his surprising Iowa victory. His political religiosity didn't play well outside of evangelical precincts in either New England or the Midwest, and his attacks on President Bush's foreign policy and corporations have pushed away parts of the GOP coalition.

The candidates now head into Saturday's South Carolina primary for what can only be called a free-for-all. Rudy Giuliani is delighted, because the lack of a clear frontrunner means the race might still be jumbled on January 29 in Florida, where he has staked his claim.

Another winner yesterday was Fred Thompson, who is competitive in South Carolina and is running as the conservative who can unite the GOP's fractious wings. The former Tennessee Senator has laid out an impressive policy map, but he's suffered in early contests because his heart and energy didn't seem to be in the race. That has changed in recent weeks, especially with his pungent, quick-witted debate performances. If he can do better than Messrs. Romney and Huckabee among conservatives, he could surprise in the Palmetto State and give himself a genuine chance at the nomination.

The abiding lesson from the last two weeks is that GOP voters are still sifting the field, searching for their next leader. In their wisdom, the voters are looking for someone who can rise to the occasion.

Obama, Clinton tied in 2008 Democratic race

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080116/ts_nm/usa_poll_politics_dc

Obama, Clinton tied in 2008 Democratic race
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
Wed Jan 16, 2008

Barack Obama has erased a once substantial deficit to climb into a virtual tie with Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Among Republicans, John McCain charged to the front of a shifting presidential field, shooting past Mike Huckabee and a fading Rudy Giuliani as the opening contests of the 2008 White House campaign dramatically reshaped the races in both parties.

Heading into potentially crucial contests in Nevada, South Carolina and Florida, the campaign to choose candidates for the November election to succeed President George W. Bush has shown deep volatility.

Wins in Iowa by Obama, an Illinois senator, and Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, gave both candidates jolts of momentum in the race.

But the momentum was short-lived as New Hampshire comeback wins by Clinton, a New York senator, and McCain, an Arizona senator, five days later set up potentially lengthy Democratic and Republican nominating battles.

"This the definition of a hard-fought race," pollster John Zogby said.

The poll was taken on Thursday and Friday, before Tuesday's Michigan Republican primary, in which former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney beat McCain by 39 percent to 30 percent. Huckabee came in third with 16 percent.

Democrats also held a primary in Michigan but a dispute over the date of the vote led the national party to strip the state of its delegates to this summer's presidential nominating convention, making the contest meaningless.

The survey found only marginal support for a potential independent candidacy by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has flirted with the idea of a third-party run for the White House while officially denying any interest.

Clinton, a former first lady who would be the first woman U.S. president, held a 21-point edge over Obama in October. He cut that to 8 points by last month, and the new survey gave her a 39 percent to 38 percent edge.

Her 1-point lead was well within the poll's margin of error of 4.7 percentage points.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, and Clinton were essentially deadlocked among a variety of groups, including men, women, Democrats and independents. Obama led substantially, 65 percent to 15 percent, among black voters.

Obama barely led among voters under age 24, a substantial drop in support from last month, but led Clinton among voters aged 55 to 69, normally one of her strengths.

'UNBELIEVABLY CLOSE'

"This is an unbelievably close race at almost every level," Zogby said.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the only other major Democratic contender still in the race, was a distant third at 9 percent in the national poll.

Among Republicans, McCain led Huckabee by 28 percent to 23 percent as the pair took advantage of their wins in the first two nominating contests.

It was a 16-point jump for McCain from last month and a one-point increase for Huckabee, who had already begun his climb by mid-December.

"Clearly this is a post-Iowa, post-New Hampshire bounce," Zogby said.

Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister whose rise has been fueled by support from religious conservatives, led 34 percent to 22 percent among those who described themselves as "born-agains."

McCain led among independents 45 percent to 13 percent and among moderates by 53 percent to 13 percent, while McCain and Huckabee tied among Republican voters.

In third place was former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at 14 percent, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 13 percent.

All of them shot past Giuliani, the leader in national polls for much of the year. His support has been steadily dropping, from 29 percent in November to 23 percent last month and just 9 percent this month.

The slide has raised questions about Giuliani's strategy of bypassing the early voting states to concentrate on Florida's January 29 primary and the February 5 "Super Tuesday" round of 22 state contests.

"This is what happens in a sequential process when you don't win," Zogby said. "You have to win somewhere and he hasn't."

The national survey had Republican Rep. Ron Paul at 4 percent and California Rep. Duncan Hunter at less than 1 percent.

Asked about Bloomberg, about 60 percent said it was very unlikely they would support the New York mayor, with another 16 percent saying it was somewhat unlikely. Just 4 percent said it was very likely they would back him, with 15 percent saying it was somewhat likely.

The poll surveyed 459 likely Democratic primary voters and 427 likely Republican primary voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points for Democrats and 4.8 percentage points for Republicans.

(Editing by David Wiessler)

(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)