Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tancredo and Regula Leave the House. Is Huckabee Packing Any Heat?

In the House, Republican Congressman, Tom Tancredo, has announced that he will not seek reelection. He has made a career out of stoking anti-immigrant fervor. What boat at Plymouth harbor did the Tancredos come in on?

Also leaving is Ralph Regula who has been a very conservative voice in education and now sees himself as a consultant to students in the future. The content of those consultations is a mystery.

More interesting is the notion that Governor Huckebee of Arkansas has been attacked for being too liberal. It appears that he is at heart a social conservative, a preaching minister, but also has taken some positions that are somewhat populist in nature, especially on the concentrating of wealth in the United States. I think that his best statement was telling Chris Matthews that the way to prevent violence on college campuses is to allow all students to pack guns. As a former college president, I can not imagine anything worse than my students packing iron on their way to psych 101 at 8 am after a bender on Thursday night. Sometimes, one has to come out of the Ozarks.

Lastly, Mike Gravel is not being allowed to be a part of the new Democrat debate on October 30.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Guiliani for the Sox and Ticket Predictions

Guiliani has decided to root for the Boston Red Sox , a peculiar turn for a guy who is supposed to be the penultimate Yankee fan. Can it be that there are a lot of Sox fans in southern New Hampshire --living there for the GOP primary? Can it also be that he knows that Hillary will carry New York anyhow??

Speaking of Rudy, he is now advertising that he is advised by some of most ferocious neocon hawks in Foreign Policy. The leader is Norman Podhoretz, former editor of Commentary, who is arguing for immediate attacks on Iran; followed by Daniel Pipes who has called for profiling of Muslims in the USA saying that it is unfortunate but they are all suspect. Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute is arguing that the US should be ending its ban on assassination especially as it related to North Korea and Iran leaders.

It is little wonder that Rudy was unable in Iowa to say if torture included waterboarding and that sleep deprivation is not torture, since he is tired also. Waterboarding which simulates feelings of drowning has been defined as torture since the Spanish Inquisition.

Also, political experts have told me that while they see my prediction of a GOP ticket of Rudy and preacher Huckabee, they cannot see Hillary and Richardson. He is seen as too much like Bill.....so they see her going to a moderate Midwestern like Bayh or the former governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack. Too bad for her that the Democrats don't control Texas, California, or Florida.

New Jersey Hall of Fame Inaugural Class Results

New Jersey Hall of Fame results are in: Historical category includes Clara Barton (?), Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein; Enterprise includes Buzz Aldrin, Malcolm Forbes, and Robert Wood Johnson; Arts and Entertainment: Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Meryl Streep; Sports are Yogi Berrra, Bill Bradley, and Vince Lombardi; General - Harriet Tubman, Norman Schwarzkopf, Toni Morrison. Can we really forget president Woodrow Wilson who so impacted the twentieth century world and Caldwell born president, Grover Cleveland

These categories make no sense, Buzz Aldrin was a great austronaut, a true adventurer; Malcolm Forbes only lives here occcasionally; Bill Bradley is really from Missouri as is Yogi (but we can give Yogi a pass for his long time in Montclair), and Toni Morrison only draws a paycheck from Princeton University for teaching six students. Certainly Joyce Carol Oates is a more significant novelist. Where is Stephen Crane by the way? And the great Count Basie of Red Bank.

Also missing is actor Jack Nicholson, a more important actor than Meryl. How about Abbott and Costello or the greatest living New Jerseyan - Danny Devito

Obama Sinking In Hillary's Wake

It looks like Barak Obama is tanking faster than Ellen DeGeneris' tearful dog adoption show. Why did a man of such charisma and promise sink? Some will say that it is because Hillary has a tremendous organization, but she also has a high set of negatives. Still, Hillary comes across as rather informed on the public policy issues before the nation. You see? Ideas still matter. Her well thought out medical care proposal won plaudits, especially in her party and among many voters concerned about costs. Yet, her proposal was very similar to John Edwards' earlier proposal which no one read. And one cannot see what Obama believes about universal medical costs; he seems preoccupied with criticizing her record on voting to give the president powers to go into Iraq. Ok, you have made the point, get on with running a campaign that is meaningful to more people.

Monday, October 22, 2007

The Cost of Congressional Healthcare and Some Predictions

Early prediction---for Democrats it will be Clinton and Richardson and for the GOP, Giuliani and Huckabee.

Hillary is doing especially well with women due to the universal medicare issue.

The New York Times argues that we all can't have the same healthcare plan as Congress and four-million feds. It is too expensive for us!!!

Brownback will quit the GOP primaries. He was the most pro-life candidate. It may be that abortion is less of an issue among conservatives.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Politically fickle Republican women...

Pollster Mark Penn has found that a quarter of Republican women will desert the party and go to Hillary.

Ron Paul is quoting Alan Greenspan about having his own doubts over whether the USA even needs a Federal Reserve Bank. How come Greenspan had none of these doubts when he was in office??

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

This Just In...

Obama will open a campaign office in West Orange. Hillary's people keep visiting Douglas College. Latest polls show that Giuliani runs better in a state with large Italian American population. And Romney is having problems with fundamentalists over Mormonism. It looks like ethnic and group politics are alive and well in the USA.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

On media and the presidential primary

Thompson will drop out of the New Hampshire race by Thanksgiving and out of the GOP primaries by Christmas.

For some reason, Time magazine wants us to know that Hillary is cold and so is her daughter. Based on what research??

Why do the cable stations insist that we must see disputes between their own media talking heads? Who really cares if Bill hates Ken and vice versa.

The New York Times features the note that the hearings against the Knight Templar misfiled for centuries in the Vatican's secret archves shows the knights were innocent of charges of heresey in the 14th century. Actually, we knew about that report in 2001.