23 Months and Counting
I remember when I was a kid and the day after Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Quaint idea, that. Then, for a while, seasonal Christmas decor was unveiled immediately after Halloween. Now Christmas commercialism seems to start the day after the "Back to School" sale signs come down.
The American political cycle is experiencing the same trend. Primary season used to be March - June but it's now compressing to a January-February time frame as states compete for early primary influence (and therefore candidate attention and promises).
The latest buzz is that Hillary and Obama are currently in a NH primary poll dead heat, with Obama taking the general election poll over McCain or Giuliani. I'm surprised that people seem surprised but there's a lot of distance to travel between now and NH and anything could happen. You can bet your ass that the pundit class, failing to find anything legitimate with which to nail Obama, will go into smear and ridicule overdrive. Expect to see more insinuation about his name and family history, some nonsense about his ears, some bullshit about his religion, and, of course, a dash of misleading crap about how he's the most liberal senator ever in the history of the whole wide world including Ted Kennedy (a talking point people will mindlessly repeat without understanding the context of his voting record while Republicans have controlled the House and all of the legislation that's gone to the floor since 1994).
I'm curious to see how far Obama will take it. Will he try to go the whole distance or will he step aside for the current DLC fav, Hillary, like McCain did with Bush, for a pledge of support from the DLC in 2016? I just hope he doesn't get sucked into a Clinton-Obama ticket.
The American political cycle is experiencing the same trend. Primary season used to be March - June but it's now compressing to a January-February time frame as states compete for early primary influence (and therefore candidate attention and promises).
The latest buzz is that Hillary and Obama are currently in a NH primary poll dead heat, with Obama taking the general election poll over McCain or Giuliani. I'm surprised that people seem surprised but there's a lot of distance to travel between now and NH and anything could happen. You can bet your ass that the pundit class, failing to find anything legitimate with which to nail Obama, will go into smear and ridicule overdrive. Expect to see more insinuation about his name and family history, some nonsense about his ears, some bullshit about his religion, and, of course, a dash of misleading crap about how he's the most liberal senator ever in the history of the whole wide world including Ted Kennedy (a talking point people will mindlessly repeat without understanding the context of his voting record while Republicans have controlled the House and all of the legislation that's gone to the floor since 1994).
I'm curious to see how far Obama will take it. Will he try to go the whole distance or will he step aside for the current DLC fav, Hillary, like McCain did with Bush, for a pledge of support from the DLC in 2016? I just hope he doesn't get sucked into a Clinton-Obama ticket.
posted by Logic101 at 12/26/2006 02:34:00 PM
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