Irish Trojan in Tennessee

The future, Conan? Looking past Feb. 5

By Brendan Loy

With all the talk about the Democratic race stretching on beyond Super Tuesday, I think it's instructive to actually look at the calendar to see what lies ahead after February 5.

On February 9, Louisiana (56 delegates) and the mighty U.S. Virgin Islands (3 delegates) have primaries, and Nebraska (24) and Washington (78) have caucuses. The next day, February 10, Maine (24) has its caucuses. Then comes the "Beltway Primary" two days later, as D.C. (15), Maryland (70) and Virginia (83) all vote on February 12. So that's 353 delegates at stake in eight primaries and caucuses over the course of a week.

After that, things get a bit more chronologically sparse. One week after Beltway Tuesday, Wisconsin (74) has a primary and Hawaii (20) has caucuses, both on February 19. Then we get two weeks off before the potentially decisive primaries on March 4 -- the original Super Tuesday -- in Texas (193), Ohio (141), Rhode Island (21) and Vermont (15).

It seems pretty likely that the race will effectively be decided either on Beltway Tuesday or on Old Super Tuesday (a.k.a. Longhorn/Buckeye Tuesday). But if it still remains competitve, the calendar then starts to get really weird.

The great Democratic state of Wyoming (12) is all by itself with caucuses on March 8. Only a dozen delegates, but oh, the momentum! (Just ask Mitt Romney! Oh wait...) That will be followed by the Mississippi primary (33) on March 11.

And then.. nothing! For over a month!

The next vote is on April 22, when Pennsylvania (158) holds a primary. If the race is still going at that point, residents of the Keystone State will get to find out what it's like to be Iowa and New Hampshire: they will become the center of the political world from March 11 until April 22. Who'd have thunk it?

Leaving aside the primary in Guam (3) on May 3, there will effectively be another two-week break before voters in Indiana (72) and North Carolina (115) go to the polls on May 6. If they're still battling by then, I imagine Hillary and Barack would both visit South Bend, causing me to become extremely jealous. Next comes West Virginia (28) on May 13, then Kentucky (51) and Oregon (52) on May 20. Wrapping things up are Puerto Rico (55) on June 1, and South Dakota (15) and Montana (16) on June 3. (All of the May and June races are primaries, not caucuses.)

In my judgment (which, I remind you, is always, always, always, always, always wrong), Super Tuesday is likely to produce one of two scenarios in the overarching campaign storyline. Either: 1) Hillary wins enough states -- close delegate counts notwithstanding -- that she re-emerges as a "near-inevitable" candidate, and the Beltway Primary a week later comes to be seen as "Obama's last stand." Or: 2) Obama wins enough states that the commentariat continues to regard the race as legitimately close, and conventional wisdom will rapidly coalesce around the idea that March 4 is the new Big Important Day When Everything Will Be Decided. In other words, Old Super Tuesday is the new Super Tuesday!

But what if the race is still in flux when all the March 4 votes are counted? Some math is necessary here: according to the Green Papers, there are a total of 4,049 delegates (not counting Florida and Michigan), of which 3,253 are "pledged" and 796 are unpledged superdelegates. A total of 2,208 delegates are needed to secure the nomination. By my count, 2,643 pledged delegates will have been awarded through March 5, while 610 will still be outstanding. So, to secure the nomination with pledged delegates alone, a candidate would need to have won roughly 84% of the pledged delegates awarded between January 3 and March 4. Obviously, with a proportional-allocation system, that's not going to happen.

However, let's say the pledged delegate count when March 5 dawns looks something like Clinton 1,600, Obama 1,000. Hillary would still be a good 600+ short of clinching the nomination with her pledged delegates alone, but the fickle superdelegates would have begun flocking to her in droves (she's already got 186 of 'em) and the pressure on Obama to drop out would become enormous. Game over -- maybe not mathematically, but for all practical intents and purposes. Same deal, methinks, if it's around 1,500 to 1,100.

On the other hand, what if it's more like Clinton 1,400, Obama 1,200? That's a bit more interesting. Or how about Clinton 1,350, Obama 1,250? Now we're talking. Nobody's going to hound Barack out of the race with numbers like that. Hillary will get some more superdelegate commitments, but so will he, and suddenly, everyone will start focusing on the all-important April and May primaries in Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky and Oregon. Imagine.

Of course, if we get to that point, it will already have become impossible for either candidate to clinch the nomination with pledged delegates alone. And proportional delegate allocation means that those April, May and June states will only be able to nudge the delegate race a little bit in one direction or the other, not dramatically alter it, let alone end it. Basically, it'll be a battle to get as many delegates firmly in your corner as you can, while also starting the pre-convention posturing and politicking, lobbying the undeclared superdelegates and fighting over those Michigan and Florida delegate slates.

In the unlikely event that the race remains undecided to the bitter end, it'll be three very long months between the South Dakota and Montana primaries on June 3 and the first day of the convention in Denver on August 25.

(Information via NPR and Wikipedia.)

Mano-a-womano

By Brendan Loy

The great debate is underway on CNN. I may not be able to do much liveblogging because I'm trying to calm a fussing baby while I watch, so consider this an open thread.

UPDATE: Hillary says that, with regard to our Iraq policy, we need to "send several messages at once." Well, if there's anyone I trust to do that, it's the Clintons! ;)

UPDATE 2: Oooooh, she played the "gravitas" card!!

UPDATE 3: Obama's response a few minutes later to Hillary's "day one" rhetoric was excellent, though: "it's important to be right from day one." Notwithstanding our differences on Iraq specifically, I think that's exactly what Obama needs to do. When Hillary says she'll be "ready to lead from day one," Obama needs to invite to voters to ask, "But where will you lead?" This actually feeds into the broader Clinton character issue as well, because in actuality, the Clintons don't really "lead" so much as follow public opinion and poll numbers. Obama needs to make the case that whereas Clinton may be the so-called "experience" candidate, Obama is not just the "change" candidate but also the "leadership" candidate.

UPDATE 4: Clinton has an unfortunate habit of sounding like the Wicked Witch of the West when she laughs.

Loyette is one month old!

By Brendan Loy

I almost forgot to mention: today is Loyette's one-month birthday! In some ways, it's hard to believe it's been that long, and in other ways, it's hard to believe it's only been a month. It already feels like the little one has been a part of our family forever.

As I write this, Becky is sitting on the other side of the couch with Loyette in her lap, reading aloud the epilogue of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment -- which Becky checked out from the library as part of her quest to read the 100 greatest novels of all-time. (UPDATE: Becky points out that Crime and Punishment isn't actually on that list. She is planning to try to get through the list, though.)

Loyette seems to be enjoying hearing about Raskolnikov's adventures more than she enjoyed herself the one time I tried to read her the Balrog scene from Lord of the Rings... though I maintain that she was just coincidentally fussy at that particular moment. :)

Rove to join Fox News

By Brendan Loy

Drudge: "FLASH: Karl Rove will join FOXNEWS as contributor; likely used throughout Super Tuesday coverage..." Heh. I would say this will make liberals hate Fox even more, but I'm not sure that's actually possible.

Rove, incidentally, has an article in today's WSJ about the "new rules" (and some old rules) of presidential politics.

Super Tuesday held on Fat Wednesday in coastal Alabama

By Joe Loy

Yes, not wanting their annual Good Times Role :> to get Stuck Inside of Mobile due to some damn ol' Primary date changed by those idiots up in Montgomery, south Alabamians said to hell with That and voted yesterday :) ~

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) Feb 25 — Don't mess with Mardi Gras in Alabama.

Voters in two coastal counties — Baldwin and Mobile — will vote Wednesday even though the state primary is six days later on Feb. 5. The reason: Feb. 5 also is Fat Tuesday when throngs of people celebrate Mardi Gras on the Gulf Coast. The frenzied end to Carnival is an official holiday in the two counties in Alabama.

When the state legislature moved up the presidential primary from June 3 to Super Tuesday, it discovered belatedly that it fell on Mardi Gras. In Baldwin and Mobile counties, government shuts down and crowds by the tens of thousands jam the port city's streets for parades.

The legislature's solution was to let voters in those two counties go to the precincts six days early. The votes cast will be sealed and counted with the others on Super Tuesday.

...Mobile County, which has the most parades and balls, will have all its regular polling places open Wednesday and one place open in Mobile on Feb. 5. Baldwin County will have one polling place open on Wednesday and then all its regular polling places open on Feb. 5.

Yesterday's Mobile County turnout was reportedly strong, perhaps in response to Tuesday's wise editorial advice from The Press-Register:

If Mobile County residents want a say in who will be the party nominees for president of the United States, they need to say so tomorrow.

...On Tuesday, Feb. 5, the day of Republican and Democratic presidential primaries in Alabama, a large number of voters are going to be celebrating Mardi Gras. As the Press-Register's legendary Masked Observer reminds us, "Revelry mixed with democracy can only lead to unbridled insanity."

Only one polling place will be open on Feb. 5, at the Revenue Commissioner's Office at Michael Boulevard and Azalea Road, well away from the packed streets of downtown. If everyone waits until then, lines are likely to be long.

So avoid the Super Tuesday rush; if you live in Mobile County, you should vote on Wednesday.

:)

Poll shows Hillary landslide in Tennessee; Obama gaining ground nationally

By Brendan Loy

Some more new polls today, and the news is mixed on the Democratic side. In Georgia, which is supposed to be solid Obama country, InsiderAdvantage shows the Illinois senator with a big lead, 52-36. Obama gets 73% of blacks, 54% of Hispanics, and 33% of whites.

But here in neighboring Tennessee, which is supposed to be a hotly contested tossup/lean-Hillary state, the same firm's polling shows Clinton with a huge lead, 59-26. The poll was taken yesterday, and thus may reflect a shift of Edwards voters into the Clinton camp (though 7% still prefer "other"). But what's really surprising is that Clinton isn't just winning the white vote, 64-19; she's also winning the black vote, 46-43!

Moreover, Clinton has almost identical margins among men and women; she wins big in all age groups (with her biggest margin of all, 81-14, among 18-to-29-year-olds!!); and she is favored by self-identified Democrats, Republicans and Independents. So either this is a screwy poll, or Obama-mania really just hasn't caught on at all here in the Volunteer State. If Obama's internal numbers are showing a similar trend, maybe that explains his conspicuous absence -- this supposed battleground state may be, for whatever reason, a lost cause for him.

InsiderAdvantage also released a poll on the Republican race here in Tennessee, and it's much tighter, with McCain leading Huckabee and Romney 33 to 25 to 18. Thirteen percent are undecided.

UPDATE: On the bright side for Obama, he's setting fundraising records, and is already buying ads in post-Super Tuesday states. Barring an enormous Hillary sweep on Tuesday that re-establishes her "inevitability" and thus causes a paradigm shift in the media storyline, this race will go on for a while. As this chart shows (context here), there are a ton of delegates at stake on Tuesday, but a ton more after Tuesday, too.

Meanwhile, the very early returns from Rasmussen Reports suggest that Edwards's departure is helping Obama nationally:

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, it’s now Hillary Clinton 42% and Barack Obama 35% [in the three-day average]. Last night was the first night of interviews without John Edwards in the race. For last night’s data alone, Clinton and Obama were essentially even. Samples for individual nights are very small and results should be interpreted with caution.

The daily history shows that it was 41%-32% Clinton (a 9-point lead) from January 28-30; now it's 42%-35% (a 7-point lead) from January 29-31. The big question is what happens tomorrow and the next day, when we'll see a three-day average that is entirely after Edwards's withdrawal. Gallup's tracking poll will also be worth watching closely; they had the race slightly closer (6 points) even before Edwards bowed out.

UPDATE: Gallup's new data is out. It shows the Clinton-Obama race narrowing further, from 42-36 in yesterday's three-day average to 43-39 in today's three-day average -- just a 4-point lead for Hillary!! However, Gallup's write-up says that "Wednesday night's numbers (the first with Edwards excluded from the ballot) show no clear indication that either candidate is benefiting disproportionately." I guess that means Obama's 2-point gain between Jan. 27-29 and Jan. 28-30 is an indication that Jan. 27 was a good day for Hillary, rather than an indication that Obama cleaned up among former Edwards voters on Jan. 30.

Kansas falls; USC-Arizona tonight

By Brendan Loy

#1 Memphis -- a winner at Houston last night -- is the only unbeaten left in college basketball, after #2 Kansas lost at #22 Kansas State, the Wildcats' first home win over the Jayhawks since the first Reagan Administration. (See, I can inject presidential politics into any post!)

You know what this means: North Carolina is in line to ascend to #2, and Duke to #3. We're getting closer and closer to that 1-vs.-2 matchup for Dukie V's big return. Duke just needs to win at home against N.C. State and Miami, UNC just needs to win vs. BC and at Florida State... and, oh yes, Memphis needs to lose at home against UTEP on Saturday. That last part is the major obstacle to this scenario. :)

Speaking of unbeatens, Drake is 10-0 in the Missouri Valley, and 19-1 overall. Unreal.

On tap tonight, a whole bunch of intriguing games, including a nationally televised USC-Arizona game at 10:30 PM on FSN. ESPN's Bubble Watch has the Trojans in the "work left to do" category (though that was before their win at Oregon) and the Wildcats in the "should be in" category. Joe Lunardi gives USC a #8 seed and UA a #5 seed at the moment. Both teams are 4-3 in the Pac-10, in a three-way tie with ASU (who USC also plays this weekend) for fourth place. Anyway... Fight on Trojans, Beat the Wildcats!

And now for something completely different

By Brendan Loy

Every single post on the homepage right now is about presidential politics. Ick. Overkill. As Obama might say, time for a change!

Let's see... how about a pretty picture of an Iridium flare?

I took that from a random roadside spot in Loudon last Monday. My parents were in town, and I wanted to show them what an Iridium flare is, so we drove out and watched it. We also dragged Jay and Ashley out to watch, so they got to meet my parents. The flare itself was somewhat less impressive than I expected, given its predicted negative-7 magnitude, but it made for a very nice photo, especially with the thin, wispy clouds all around. Here's the wider view.

Previous Iridium flare posts can be found here, here, here and here. Explanations of the flares can be found here and here.

Unless you're a serious dork like me, Iridium flares probably aren't worth a drive out to some random spot -- but if one happens to take place where you are, it's well worth a look up to the sky in the proper spot at the proper time. Heavens-Above can tell you when flares will happen near you. (It also has predictions for lots of other stuff, including when and where you can see that decaying spy satellite pass overhead, though you'll need a darkish sky for that.)

More O-mentum!

By Brendan Loy

Following on the heels of that tied Connecticut poll, a new Massachusetts poll -- conducted on the night Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama -- shows Hillary's lead at just 6% -- down from 37% a week earlier (in a poll by a different polling firm, but still).

Also, Hillary is only up by 12% in her home (er, "home") state of New York. Obama could pick up a pretty big chunk of delegates in the Empire State.

UPDATE: Obama's within 3% in California!

This is sounding more and more like a trend. But Obama needs something to put him over the top. Like, say, a strong performance in tonight's debate, followed by a John Edwards endorsement tomorrow morning.

Obama is the electable Democrat

By Brendan Loy

A lot of John Edwards supporters are doing some soul-searching right now, trying to decide which of the remaining Democratic contenders to get behind. People had various different reasons for backing ol' Johnny Boy, but one thing that the vast majority have in common, presumably, is that they desperately want a Democrat to win in November. Assuming they do indeed feel that way, Edwards supporters (and, for that matter, those currently backing Hillary Clinton) ought to seriously consider jumping on the Barack Obama bandwagon, because as best as I can tell, Hillary Clinton is quite possibly the only person in the known universe who is capable of uniting the Republican base behind John McCain.

McCain, of course, is almost certainly going to be the Republican nominee for president. He's got Rudy and Ahnold on his side now, with more endorsements to come, no doubt, and his momentum appears unstoppable -- the GOP establishment is already getting into "rally around the winner" mode. And perhaps not unrelatedly, it appears that the Mitt Romney is pretty much giving up the ghost, at least in terms of TV ads.

So it'll be McCain for the Republicans. This is an extremely significant fact because a substantial chunk of the Republican base hates John McCain. I mean, really despises the man. They respect his foreign policy chops, but not much else; on domestic policy, they don't consider him a true conservative or a real Republican. On the contrary, they view him as an apostate on several core issues (immigration, taxes, campaign finance, interrogation, etc.) and a disloyal, MSM-loving sellout who cannot be trusted to uphold their principles. As such, they have no interest whatsoever in voting for him. Thus, on November 4, many of them will stay home.

Unless Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.

Needless to say, pretty much the entire Republican base hates Hillary Clinton with the heat of a thousand suns. By contrast, the anti-McCain segment of the base only hates McCain with the heat of, oh, perhaps five or six hundred suns. So if he's running against her, many of the McCain Derangement Syndome folks will do something they wouldn't do in virtually any other potential matchup: they'll hold their noses and vote for McCain. Whatever it takes to stop Hillary.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Rudy Giuliani says he is ending his bid for GOP presidential nomination, endorsing Sen. John McCain.

O-mentum?

By Brendan Loy

More good polling news for Barack Obama:

Barack Obama has now cut the gap with Hillary Clinton to 6 percentage points among Democrats nationally in the Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day average, and interviewing conducted Tuesday night shows the gap between the two candidates is within a few points. Obama's position has been strengthening on a day-by-day basis. As recently as Jan. 18-20, Clinton led Obama by 20 points. Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking is based on interviews conducted Jan. 27-29, all after Obama's overwhelming victory in South Carolina on Saturday. Two out of the three nights interviewing were conducted after the high-visibility endorsement of Obama by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy.

Clinton's lead in the three-day average is now 42% to Obama's 36%. John Edwards, who dropped out of the race Wednesday after Gallup conducted these interviews, ended his quest for the presidency with 12% support. Wednesday night's interviewing will reflect the distribution of the vote choice of former Edwards' supporters as well as the impact, if any, of Hillary Clinton's popular vote win in Florida on Tuesday.

TNR's Ben Wasserstein -- responding not to this poll, but to the general feeling of Obama momentum in the media and such -- is wary: "There are too many echoes of the post-Iowa period for me to be confident in the media narrative of Obama's ascent. ... [I]t's all starting to look like New Hampshire Redux to me."

Meanwhile, Edwards adviser Joe Trippi says the Clinton and Obama campaigns are "banging down the doors" for an endorsement:

"I don't expect him to do anything today," Trippi said. "His will be a very coveted endorsement. He's got a fairly large following in the party, both on line and off, and I can't think of anybody else who would be bigger or more coveted."

Asked if an endorsement was possible before Feb. 5, something that could have a huge impact, Trippi declined to rule out the possibility. "I'll let him speak to that himself," Trippi said. ...

Asked about the sudden timing of Edwards' decision to leave the race, Trippi declined to elaborate on what precipitated it.

Hmm. As for the question of who Edwards's supporters will naturally gravitate towards, John Judis writes, "I think it's very inconclusive. Clinton will pick up votes from Obama in some Southern states like Georgia that Obama should win anyway—and Obama will pick up a few votes in middle Atlantic or Midwestern states that Clinton will probably win anyway." Fair enough, but remember, none of the Democratic primaries are winner-take-all, so picking off votes here or there actually does matter.

2 out of 2 Democratic candidates agree...

By Brendan Loy

...that John Edwards is awesome!

Man, oh man, there is going to be some serious John Edwards butt-kissing at tomorrow night's Barack vs. Hillary debate in Los Angeles.

Hillary opens up shop in Knoxville

By Brendan Loy

One day after the Obama campaign opened a Knoxville headquarters, the Clinton campaign is doing the same this evening.

If you missed them, here are my photos from yesterday's Obama grand opening.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Former Sen. John Edwards is quitting the presidential race, CNN has learned.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: Edwards "will not immediately endorse either candidate," according to the AP. Good lord, what's the holdup? He needs to endorse Obama before Super Tuesday! Boyz 4 Change!! Boyz 4 Change!!

P.S. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the timing of this announcement seems odd. That's right -- I question the timing!! :)

Why is Edwards doing this now? Surely he wasn't depending on a strong showing in Florida's delegate-less "beauty contest" to rejuvenate his candidacy? And if he based this decision on South Carolina, well, what took him so long? That primary was four days ago, which is a political eon. When he didn't announce anything on Sunday or Monday, you had to think he was staying in the race through Super Tuesday. Instead he bows out now. Why?

Isn't it possible that he's already cut a deal with the Obama campaign? Yeah, I know, he "will not immediately endorse." But that could be an elaborate smokescreen to make it seem like they didn't cut a deal. It all depends on what the definition of "immediately" is! (Right, Bill?) It seems entirely possible that Edwards and Obama have already agreed to terms (vice president, attorney general, whatever), but part of Johnny Boy's end of the deal is that he must drop out today (to distract media attention from Hillary's Florida "win," thus decreasing any momentum boost) but wait until, say, Friday to endorse Obama -- thus maximizing the impact of the big "Boyz 4 Change" announcement (and decreasing Hillary's window to recover from the blow) by placing it closer to Super Tuesday, while also spacing out the two developments (i.e., Edwards's withdrawal and his endorsement of Obama) far enough apart to prevent people from suspecting a shady back-room deal (which doesn't exactly fit the image the "politics of change").

Like I said, call me a conspiracy theorist! But it's at least plausible, yes?

P.P.S. One thing's for sure: Edwards's departure makes tomorrow night's Democratic debate a lot more interesting. (I even added it to my sidebar!) Finally, it'll be Clinton vs. Obama one-on-one, mano-a-womano! Hillary against Barack for all the marbles! May the best senator win! 

But, now, hmm... Obama is generally better in stump speeches than he is in debates. He's not terrible in debates, but they're not his strength. I daresay they are Hillary's strength, at least sometimes. What if Obama "loses" the debate? Hillary's momentum coming out of a clear "win" could be killer, potentially dominating the news cycle for 24-48 hours...

...unless, of course, Obama has some sort of a shock-and-awe-inducing, momentum-stopping "firewall" up his sleeve... like, say, a Friday morning endorsement announcement by a certain former opponent? Just saying!

If Hillary wins the debate, Obama could stop her momentum cold with a Boyz 4 Change announcement. And if Obama wins the debate, he'd multiply his own momentum heading into the weekend. It's a win-win!

UPDATE: Just when I thought CNN's Suzanne Malveaux was throwing cold water on my endorsement speculation (reporting that Edwards "hasn't any plans to endorse" -- no modifiers like "immediate"), I read this from TPM:

An Edwards adviser confirms to me that John Edwards won't be making any endorsement "for the moment."

However, this source refused to rule out the possibility of an endorsement before Feb. 5th, which is six days away.

The board is set, the pieces are moving...

There's also this non-denial-denial from Obama yesterday.

If Edwards endorses Obama on Friday, it will more than make up for all of my previous incorrect predictions this election season.

P.P.P.S. On second thought, maybe Saturday would be better -- unless Obama really does tank in that debate -- because Saturday is the day before the Super Bowl. Nobody will be paying any attention to politics on Sunday! So Edwards endorses Obama, the media laps it up, then everyone stops paying attention so Hillary has no chance to respond. The next thing you know, it's Super Tuesday Eve, and Obama's an unstoppable freight train again.

Michigan & Florida "delegate" counts

By Brendan Loy

According to the Green Papers, Florida's pledged delegates -- if they are seated at the convention -- would break down like this: Clinton 108, Obama 77. Clinton also has 5 (hypothetical) superdelegates from Florida; Obama has 2. Eighteen Florida superdelegates have yet to declare an allegiance. (This raises an existential question: if you're an unpledged, undeclared, unallied "delegate" from a state that has no delegates, aren't you basically a nonexistent nonentity?) So the total Florida delegate (or rather, "delegate") tally is Clinton 113, Obama 79, undeclared superdelegates 18.

Combine that with Michigan (73 pledged to Hillary, 55 for Uncommitted, 6 superdelegates for Hillary, 1 superdelegate for Obama, 1 superdelegate for Edwards, and 20 undeclared superdelegates), and you've got the following combined breakdown of the two disputed delegate slates, including the declared supers: Clinton 192, Obama 79, Edwards 1, Uncommitted 55, undeclared superdelegates 38.

A big question that I don't know the answer to -- but maybe someone out there does -- is whether Michigan's 55 "Uncommitted" delegates will be Obama delegates by any other name. Certainly, most of the voters who cast their ballots for Uncommitted on Yooper Tuesday were Obama supporters, but does that necessarily mean that the Uncommitted delegates will be Obama loyalists? It depends on Michigan's delegate selection process (i.e., not the process of allocating the numerical delegates, but the process of choosing the individual humans who fill the allocations), and I don't know how that works.

Assuming for the sake of argument that the Uncommitted delegates favor Obama, and further assuming that Edwards eventually throws his delegates (or rather, in this case, his delegate) to Obama, the breakdown would be Clinton 192, Obama 136, undeclared superdelegates 38. That's Obama's best-case scenario, and it's still a substantial edge for Hillary. Heck, even if every single undeclared superdelegate eventually backs Obama, which seems highly unlikely, we're still looking at a 20-delegate Clinton edge.

Like I said, if the Democratic nomination comes down to a knock-down, drag-out fight over whether these delegates get seated, it's going to be a big stinkin' mess.

P.S. Another important question that I don't know the answer to, at least not for sure: if the delegates from Michigan and Florida aren't seated, does that change the total number of delegates needed to win the nomination?

Normally, the Democratic nominee needs 2,208 delegates (50.01% of the delegate total, 4,415) to win the nomination. With Michigan and Florida excluded, the total number of delegates needed is reduced to 4,049. Presumably, that reduces the nomination-winning "magic number" to 50.01% of 4,049, which is 2,025. Or does it? The Green Papers assumes (or perhaps actually knows) that it does, but is this actually a settled issue, I wonder? It can't have come up too often before!

Suppose the expected breakdown coming into the convention is something like Clinton 2,100, Obama 1,949. Clinton's total would be 52% of 4,409, but only 48% of 4,415. Could Obama try to insist that the winner needs to get a majority of the pre-sanction delegate total -- in other words, that Hillary needs 2,208 delegates after all (the original "magic number"), which would amount to 54.5% of the delegates actually seated? It seems like a battle Obama would probably lose in that scenario, but it's just another example of how this thing could be a huge mess.

UPDATE: As noted in the post above, John Edwards has dropped out of the race. Politico's Ben Smith writes that Edwards's departure "makes a long race, and a brokered convention, far, far less likely. ... If it's one-on-one, the road to an absolute majority is a lot clearer."

Clearer, yes, but still not totally clear. If the "winner" gets less than ~65% of the pledged delegates, he or she will be dependent on superdelegates to secure a majority at the convention. The superdelegates are notoriously fickle, and will want to "back the winner." If Hillary beats Obama in the pledged delegate count (or, less likely, vice versa) by something like 60% to 40%, this won't be much of an issue, because the superdelegates will back the presumed winner. But if it's 51% to 49%, it will still be a brokered convention, because it'll be up to the unpleged superdelegates to decide who wins.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Two GOP sources tell CNN that Rudy Giuliani will drop out, endorse Sen. John McCain for GOP presidential bid.

Hillary Clinton doesn't get it

By Brendan Loy

Hillary Clinton, on CNN, just said, "I will do whatever I can, if I'm the nominee, to get the Florida delegates seated." Wolf Blitzer responded by sensibly noting something that so many in the media seem not to understand: "if this is a very close contest in Denver at the Democratic Convention, a brokered convention, those Florida and Michigan delegates could be decisive." He then asked Hillary, "Would you go to court to get them seated?"

Hillary's ridiculous response: "Oh, Wolf, this is all pretty premature. We don't even know who the nominee's going to be yet."

Did she honestly not understand the question? Of course we don't know who the nominee's going to be yet -- and in Blitzer's scenario, when the time comes to decide whether or not to seat those delegates, we still won't know! And the very matter at issue -- whether the delegates get seated -- could itself play a potentially huge role in determining "who the nominee's going to be"!

Hillary, along with most of the media, has it completely backwards. The prevailing theory -- that the nominee presumptive will insist on the delegates being seated -- only works if there's a nominee presumptive. The far more interesting scenario is the one Blitzer astutely raised, and Hillary flatly ignored. And it's getting to be a very realistic scenario.

It's going to be a huge stinkin' mess if that happens.

Obama, Clinton tied in Connecticut

By Brendan Loy

So says the latest Rasmussen poll, taken on Sunday -- the day after South Carolina, the day before Ted Kennedy. Obama 40%, Clinton 40%, Edwards 11%, Other 3%, Undecided 6%.

This is great news for Obama, as it's the first empirical evidence that Obama's recent momentum is actually translating into increased support in a Super Tuesday state. Previous polls, including a Hartford Courant poll 10 days ago, had Clinton leading by double digits.

The big question is whether this will start a trend. RCP's Latest Polls page will be worth watching in the coming days, to see whether other post-S.C. (and post-Teddy) polls in Super Tuesday states also show Obama gains.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN is projecting Sen. John McCain as the winner of the GOP primary in Florida.

McCain wins; Rudy to endorse him?

By Brendan Loy

With 54 percent of the precincts reporting, McCain leads Romney 36% to 32% in Florida. In comments, Ed writes, "Barone reported that the strongest county (Orange), in theory, for Romney already reported and Romney won it by less than 100 votes."

Giuliani is a very weak third with 15%, and has apparently come to the end of his road. He will reportedly endorse McCain as early as tomorrow. So much for me winning that dinner bet.

UPDATE, 9:18 PM: The networks are calling it for McCain.

P.S. Watching (and blogging) primary returns is fun. It's even more fun when you've got an adorable baby sleeping on your shoulder throughout. :)

Barock the Vote

By Brendan Loy

I went down to the grand opening of Obama's new Knoxville headquarters after work this afternoon to take some pictures:

And I met Rebecca Loy!

Becky's namesake seemed very nice. :) I also met Kevin Barry, vice chairman of the Knox County Democratic Party. (He's the guy in the blue shirt here, here and here.) Kevin walked up to me and asked if I'm Brendan Loy -- he's read my blog before, via InstaPundit. Heh.

Full gallery here.

McCain, Romney very close; Rudy toast

By Brendan Loy

The polls are closed in most of Florida. According to NRO and Drudge, the first wave of exit polls shows a razor-close race with McCain barely ahead: McCain 34.3%, Romney 32.6%, Giuliani 15.3%, Huckabee 12%. That's way too close between John and Mitt to draw any conclusions from the exit poll alone. I think it's safe to conclude, however, that Rudy is done for. But hey, at least he's on track to beat Ron Paul this time! :)

Those numbers supposedly (somehow) include early/absentee votes -- which reportedly favored Romney, proving once again that every single thing I predict this election season is wrong. :)

P.S. Hey, wait a minute, this has potential! I predict Hillary will win the nomination! Heh. There. You can thank me in your inaugural address, Barack.

Obama to open Knoxville HQ

By Brendan Loy

Barack Obama is opening a Knoxville headquarters at 5:00 PM today. It may open with a bang; severe thunderstorms are expected this afternoon.

Up until now, Obama's only Tennessee HQs were in Nashville and Memphis. Hillary Clinton's only TN headquarters at the moment is in Nashville. The only candidate to visit East Tennessee so far is John Edwards, who was in Chattanooga yesterday.

Meanwhile, one of Obama's main organizers in the Knoxville area is named Rebecca Loy. Not my Rebecca Loy (though she likes Obama too), but someone else by the same name. Weird!

Early voting could create a Rudy surprise

By Brendan Loy

The polls are open in Florida, where Mitt Romney and John McCain are in a knock-down, drag-out fight for Republican front-runner status. Even Rudy Giuliani says the winner of the Sunshine State's primary is likely to win the nomination -- a statement that has many folks speculating that Rudy will drop out if he loses, which polls suggest is extremely likely; he's in a battle for a distant third place with Mike Huckabee.

A word of caution about those polls, though. The polls are snapshots; the Florida primary is not. Floridians have actually been voting for weeks already. Absentee voting began in late December, and "early voting" started on January 14. As of last Friday, a whopping 400,000 Republicans had already voted. [UPDATE: Make that 474,000 through Sunday.] To give you an idea of how significant a number that is, a total of 699,500 voters cast ballots in Florida's 2000 GOP primary. Now, turnout will probably be much higher in 2008, since this year's primary is much more significant and hotly contested. (The 2000 primary was held a week after Super Tuesday; McCain had already conceded.) But even if the raw turnout total doubles, we're still talking about something on the order of one-third of the electorate having voted before election day. (Florida has 3.8 million registered Republicans. If 1.4 million of them vote, that'd be a 37% turnout -- which would be quite high for a primary.)

Giuliani's campaign has specifically tried to get their candidate's supporters in Florida to vote early (though hopefully not often), in hopes of "locking them in" before the inevitable decline in Rudy's momentum and poll numbers as the early-state results took their toll. As far as I know, the other candidates -- who, unlike Giuliani, actually focused their resources on competing in those early states -- have not focused on early and absentee voting nearly as much. So if Rudy does much better tonight than the current polls indicate, the reason is probably early voting.

[UPDATE: In comments, Derek suggests that I'm overstating the impact of early voting, as many of the pollsters have taken it into account. I didn't realize that.]

The state of the baby is strong!

By Brendan Loy

In honor of President Bush's final State of the Union address (which is now underway; liveblogging below), Loyette wore a very Republican-looking outfit today:

I'm not sure she likes President Bush, though:

Don't worry, darlin', most Americans feel pretty much the same way. :)

P.S. Loyette is four weeks old today!

State of the Union liveblogging

By Brendan Loy

powered by Hipcast.com

UPDATE: Above, you can listen to a live audioblogged clip of President Bush being introduced.

In case you're wondering, CNN reported that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is the odd man out of the State of the Union tonight, preserving the line of succession in case the unthinkable happens.

I wonder if Kempthorne was as momentarily alarmed as I was when the TV signal, on CNN at least, appeared to cut out for a split-second. It came right back on, but my heart skipped a beat there. If somebody blew up the Congress, that's how it might look on TV, no? Everything's normal, and then -- [no signal].

Anyway... President Bush just said if we don't pass new trade agreements, it will "embolden the purveyors of false populism in our hemisphere." You mean like Mike Huckabee and John Edwards? :)

UPDATE 2: Heh. Great minds think alike. Or something.

UPDATE 3: Did I just hear some guy loudly yelling something at the tail end of the round of applause for the success of the surge?

UPDATE 4: Hopefully next year at this time, we'll have a president who can say "nuclear."

UPDATE 5: "Our message to the Iranian people is clear: When Iran gets her freedom, boy, you'll get your motor car!"

UPDATE 6: "America opposes genocide in Sudan"?!? Well that's a relief! Here I thought we supported it! Seriously, what kind of weak-ass language is that... ridiculous!

UPDATE 7: A-ha... it sounded dumb because he flubbed the line, plus there was an inappropriate applause break. He was supposed to say, "America is opposing genocide in Sudan and supporting freedom in countries from Cuba and Zimbabwe to Belarus and Burma."

UPDATE 8: BOB DOLE!!!

UPDATE 9: Mark it down: he said "he State of Union will remain strong" ... at 10:02 PM. It was the second-to-the-last sentence of the speech.

Lame.

UPDATE 10: Who are these dorky congresspeople kissing Bush's ass on his way out? "You make me proud to be an American"? Gag me. Methinks the audio feed is a bad idea for the maintenance of these people's dignity...

UPDATE 11: I agree with Fox's Fred Barnes -- the best line of the speech was: "Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm, and I am pleased to report that the I.R.S. accepts both checks and money orders." Heh. I laughed out loud.

UPDATE 12: Bush just almost shared a Lieberman-like kiss with Barney Frank! Teehee.

UPDATE 13: Charles Krauthammer is the creepiest-looking person on earth.

UPDATE 14: OMG! Nancy Pelosi was "mouthing"!

Looks more like she was chewing gum or something.

UPDATE 15: Good opening to Sebelius's speech. All about bipartisanship, etc. Very Obama-esque!

UPDATE 16: Here's the text:

I'm a Democrat, but tonight, it really doesn't matter whether you think of yourself as a Democrat...or a Republican...or an Independent. Or...none-of-the-above.

Instead, the fact you're tuning in this evening tells me each of you is, above all...

...an American, first.

You are mothers, and fathers. Grandparents, and grandchildren. Working people, and business-owners. Americans, all.

And the American people - folks like you, and me - are not nearly as divided as our rancorous politics might suggest.

In fact, right now, tonight, as political pundits discuss the President's speech - chances are, they'll obsess over the reactions of Members of Congress.

"How many times was the President interrupted by applause? Did Republicans stand? Did Democrats sit?"

And the rest of us will roll our eyes and think, "What in the world does any of that have to do with me?"

And, so, I want to take a slight detour from tradition on this State of the Union night.

In this time, normally reserved for the partisan response, I hope to offer you something more:

An American Response.

A national call to action on behalf of the struggling families in the heartland, and across this great country. A wakeup call to Washington, on behalf of a new American majority, that time is running out on our opportunities to meet our challenges and solve our problems.

UPDATE 17: A possible reason to vote against McCain: we'd be replacing a guy who pronounces "nuclear" "nukular" with a guy pronounces "Washington" "Warshington."

Rats deserting the Clintons' ship

By Brendan Loy

Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton was the "establishment candidate" in the Democratic presidential race. But Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama today is only the latest crack in that foundation, writes ABC's The Note:

It's not just the Kennedys who are falling into line for Obama, as the non-Clinton Democratic establishment...coalesces (along with with scattered red-staters -- and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan., is next, after she delivers the Democratic response to the State of the Union) to try to steer a party into a new direction.

Obama spoke both for them and to them, in an interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. "There is no doubt that I think that in the '90s, we got caught up in a slash-and-burn politics that the American people are weary of," Obama said. "And we still see it in Washington today."

It's been a long time coming, The New Republic's Noam Scheiber reports in the magazine's new issue. "For people like [John] Kerry and [Tom] Daschle and especially their former advisers, the Clintons' continued presence at the center of Democratic politics has sometimes chafed over the last eight years," Scheiber writes.

"It may not be apparent beyond the Beltway, but the Clintons kept their grip on Democratic Washington long after leaving the White House. . . . If you've looked for a job in the Democrats' government-in-exile lately, chances are you've hit up a Clintonite."

How did the Clintons burn so much goodwill so quickly? Why is the establishment candidate facing a revolt from inside the establishment?

Start with persistent concerns that Sen. Clinton's candidacy would guarantee a revival of the pitched partisan battles of the past two decades. Sprinkle in Bill's performance of the last few weeks, which persisted right up through the primary in South Carolina with his comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson.

Add to it a broader sense of how Hillary was running her campaign -- another factor that hurt her with voters in South Carolina every bit as much as it hurt her with party regulars in Washington, Bloomberg's Al Hunt writes.

"Hyperbole is a staple of American political campaigns. Senator Hillary Clinton has crossed the line into distortion," writes Hunt (hardly a Clinton basher). "She has flagrantly misrepresented her own and her opponents' positions or statements. The general tone, more than any specifics, of the Clinton effort contributed to Barack Obama's stunning 2-to-1 victory over her in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary this past weekend."

Hunt's article is worth reading in its own right. It does a good job distinguishing between run-of-the-mill exaggeration, which all candidates are guilty of, and the Clintons' routine practice of out-and-out lying. He concludes: "Privately, some Clintonites agree that while the campaign is ugly, it's only a prelude to what Republicans will do in the general election. Perhaps, but Hillary Clinton is paying a price. There is so much to admire in her public life. Her whatever-it-takes campaign is debasing that value."

Meanwhile, echoing my "P.S." below, TNR's Michael Crowley writes, "If he wanted to, Al Gore could deliver something close to a death blow right now by endorsing Obama." I don't know about "death blow," but right now -- or, better yet, tomorrow evening, just in time to completely steal the thunder from Hillary's "win" in the beauty-contest Florida primary whose significance she is now trying to resurrect, in flagrant violation of (at least) the spirit of the party rules that she and everyone else agreed to -- would certainly be a great time for him to jump on the bandwagon.

Why Teddy matters

By Brendan Loy

Mark Halperin explains why Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama is a big deal.

Somewhat less of a big deal, but still interesting and potentially helpful: Kathleen Sebelius will endorse Obama later in the week. Sebelius is the governor of Kansas (a Super Tuesday state) and a rising political star who will be giving tomorrow night's Democratic response to the State of the Union address. Hmm... Obama-Sebelius '08? (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

P.S. As long as we're talking about Obama endorsements... what about Al Gore?

Disabled satellite tumbles toward Earth

By Brendan Loy

Somebody call Bruce Willis:

A 10-ton American spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in the next few weeks, government officials said today.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. ...

[Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said,] "Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."

He would not comment on whether it is possible for the satellite to perhaps be shot down by a missile. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss any specifics at this time.

A senior government official said that lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation. ...

[John] Pike, director of the defense research group GlobalSecurity.org, estimated that the spacecraft weighs about 10 tons and was the size of a small bus.

See also here.

USB voltage woes

By Brendan Loy

Can any of my techie readers suggest a bus-powered USB 2.0 external hard drive that will actually work with my PowerBook and its 500 mA bus?

(Yes, I realize I could get a special cord that would allow me to plug a drive that isn't getting enough power into both USB ports simultaneously. But that's not a good option, because my computer only has two USB ports, so such a setup would make it impossible for me to, say, transfer files between a bus-powered drive and a second external USB drive.)

Alternatively, are there any bus-powered FireWire hard drives out there that aren't obscenely expensive? (To give you an idea of my price and gigabyte range, I bought the Western Digital 250GB Passport for $139.99 at Best Buy tonight, only to discover that it doesn't get enough power from my computer's USB bus.)

9 days and counting

By Brendan Loy

With Obama's 25 to 12 to 8 South Carolina win in the rear-view mirror, MSNBC's Mark Murray handicaps Pooper Scooper Tuesday:

With Clinton and Obama splitting the first four contests, we head into Tsunami Tuesday in a Democratic nominating race that seems entirely up for grabs. From our vantage point, these are Clinton’s base states: CA, NY, NJ, AR, MA, and OK. Obama’s are: AK, ID, KS, MN, ND, GA, AL, and IL. The toss-ups appear to be: AZ, CT, CO, DE, MO, NM, TN, and UT. Among those toss-ups, AZ and CT might lean towards Clinton, since they’re closed to independents, and TN -- where Clinton is today -- probably leans her way, too. Of course, Obama will make plays in CA, MA, and NJ, and sources tell us that he is going up with ads in Philly (NJ) and New York City (NY, NJ, CT). Also, Edwards will go heavily after OK and TN.

[UPDATE: The Associated Press says "both campaigns consider Missouri and Tennessee major battlegrounds." Sweet! Maybe one or both of them will actually campaign in East Tennessee!]

Well I, for one, will be voting for Obama in TN. As I explained in a rambling comment last night, I'm at the point of being completely fed up with the Clintons and absolutely ready for something different. That doesn't mean I'd necessarily support Obama in the general election -- I'd be undecided between him and McCain -- but for heaven's sake, get the Clintons off the stage. Enough already. Or, as Mike's brother Matt put it:

Hilary and Obama are about equally likely to screw things up. But, at least in Obama's case, he'll be trying to do the right thing in the process. If he puts into place programs that turn out to be wrong, well, at least his heart was in the right place. Whereas Hillary's a coniving, self-aggrandizing carpetbagger who cares nothing whatsoever about the damage she does, as long as she makes herself look good in the process. So, even if we take the worst case, at least in Obama's case I won't be disgusted as things go wrong. I also think the potential upside of Obama's vastly higher. If things go well with him, and he receives good advise to help with his inexperience, he could help heal much of the divisions in this nation. On the other hand, Hillary has no such outcome. With her, we're certain to continue the pathological hatred both parties have for each other. As best as I can tell, there was actually a time when the elder statesmen types were widely respected, both in Congress and amongst the general public, regardless of party affiliation. Whereas now we have maybe Jimmy Carter in that position, and he gets it primarily by having done so little as President it's hard for Republicans to truly hate him. So, overall I'm pulling for Obama to be the Dem's candidate, even if I'm not sure I'd vote for him in November. At least I feel I could vote for him without hating myself for it.

Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy will endorse Obama tomorrow. That'll make him the second Kennedy to do so; Caroline Kennedy jumped on the Obama train with a New York Times op-ed today, saying he would be "A President Like My Father."

And more good news: Obama is taking the high road in response to Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson comment. This is exactly what Obama -- and his surrogates -- need to do: let the Clintons' prevarication, triangulation and race-card-playing speak for itself. It does so loud and clear. Obama needs to rise above it and focus on the positive rationale for his candidacy, rather than fighting the Clintons on their turf. See also here:

“Do you think President Clinton was engaging in racial politics there?” George Stephanopoulos asked Obama on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Illinois senator, who won almost four out of five votes from African-Americans, didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he talked about health care, college costs, the credit crunch and the subprime-mortgage mess. “As long as we were focused on those issues, we thought those would transcend the sort of racial divisions that we’ve seen in the past,” Obama said.

Trojans top Ducks in OT

By Brendan Loy

USC 95, Oregon 86 in overtime. Sweet! That's a huge road win for 'SC, which is now 4-3 in the Pac-10 after starting 0-3.

'Twas a good day on the road for both the Irish and the Trojans.

Obama's money quote

By Brendan Loy

"It's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future."

UPDATE: Here's the full speech.

UPDATE 2: Here's the video:

Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Cohn say it may have been Obama's best speech yet.

P.S. When Bill Clinton called Barack Obama's position on Iraq "a fairy tale," he wasn't playing the race card. On the other hand, when Bill Clinton said this...

Huh? Who said anything about Jesse Jackson? Why would his mind happen to wander there, pray tell?

Ugh. It's pretty obvious what the Clintons are up to here. Obama's people played right into their hands by making race an issue when it wasn't -- re: the "fairy tale" and MLK comments -- but that doesn't diminish the disgustingly cynical nature of what the Clintons are now plainly trying to do. The underlying strategy of their campaign has evolved into making the public perceive Obama as the "black candidate," thus creating a white backlash. Will it work? God, I hope not. But I fear it may be enough to tip the scales in Hillary's favor.*

Obama's victory speech tonight shows that he's doing exactly what he needs to be doing: rising above it all, or at least positioning himself so it seems like he's rising above it all. Put another way, it now behooves Obama to look more "presidential" than the ex-president -- and the way Bill's been acting, that shouldn't be too hard. Obama's shots at the Clintons need to be veiled but effective, something he pulled off effortlessly tonight. As Eric Scheie puts it, "I'm very impressed at his ability to go for the jugular in a respectful manner." (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

For me personally, the Clintons' recent behavior has caused a major tipping point my personal outlook on this race and my plans for how I'll vote on February 5. I've gone from tentatively favoring Obama over Clinton, but leaning toward voting in the GOP primary (probably for McCain), to a solidly committed Obama supporter and voter. I will proudly cast my vote on Super Tuesday for the senator from Illinois -- end of discussion. Obama is far more liberal than I am, and I do still have concerns about his inexperience; I'd enter a McCain-Obama general election thoroughly undecided. But I desperately want the Clintons to move off the damn stage. Good grief: Enough! I've always been anti-dynasty in principle, but now I feel it much more deeply than that. They need to go. They're bad for the party, bad for the country, and bad for my stress levels. It's time to get rid of them. We can salute them for their service at the convention... and then let's nominate and elect somebody else, for the love of God.

*I suspect that only a minimal amount of "tipping" is needed, if any. The Super Tuesday format favors Hillary anyway. Obama does better when voters get to see a lot of him, and of his opponent. Hillary does better campaigning from afar; the more voters see of her, the less they like her. But voters in California won't be seeing nearly as much of her (or of the uber-charismatic Obama) as voters in, say, Iowa and South Carolina did. This bodes well for Hillary.

P.S. On a more optimistic (for Obama) note, Noam Scheiber's analysis is worth reading.

And then there's the NRO reader who writes, "I would argue that a black man winning 25% of the white vote in good ol' SC is HUGE." There's something to that. South Carolina is not representative of the rest of America when it comes to race relations; racial issues are, it seems to me, much more highly charged there than in all but maybe two or three other states in the whole Union. So let's not assume that South Carolina's racially polarized tallies (though not as badly polarized as some thought they might be) will be repeated to the same extent across the country on February 5. This is not the United States of South Carolina.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Sen. Barack Obama will win the South Carolina Democratic primary, CNN projects.

Obama wins big in South Carolina; Clinton second, Edwards third

By Brendan Loy

So says ABC News:

7 pm ET: ABC IS CALLING THE RACE RIGHT AT POLL CLOSING TIME. From our decision desk: "Based on exit poll data, ABC News projects that Obama will win the South Carolina Democratic primary. We do not yet have enough information to project who will be second or third, but based on the exit polls Clinton is leading over Edwards in a race for second."

This would SUGGEST a large margin -- networks don't call races based only on exit polls unless it's pretty convincing.

CNN has called it too. And their exit polls show Edwards narrowly winning the white vote, with Obama getting a "healthy" 25%.

Among black men: Obama 80%, Clinton 17%. Among black women: Obama 82%, Clinton 17%.

Edwards got almost zero black support, which is why Clinton will probably beat him overall despite narrowly losing the white vote to him.

The full CNN exit poll results will eventually be here, but they're not yet.

As the actual votes come in, you'll be able to see them at CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the South Carolina Democratic Party.

UPDATE: CNN's exit poll still isn't online, but MSNBC's is, and extrapolating from the gender numbers, it looks like a huge win for Obama, to the tune of Obama 55%, Clinton 27%, Edwards 18%. Which raises the question: would a 25-to-30-point margin of victory be enough to offset the potential P.R. damage from the bloc voting issue? Especially given that Obama got a quarter of the white vote?

UPDATE, 7:39 PM: CNN now projects that Clinton will beat Edwards for second.

If Edwards does end up below 20% in the state of his birth, which he won in 2004 with 45% of the vote -- beating ascendant front-runner Kerry by 15 points -- does he still keep his repeatedly promises to stay in the race all the way to the convention? I get the "kingmaker" thing, but where will the money come from? And won't this charade become humiliating exercise at some point soon? And isn't the media soon going to start totally ignoring him -- leaving him out of debates, etc.? It's completely obvious now (if it wasn't after Nevada) that this is a two-way race. With the probable exception of North Carolina, I bet this is the last time Edwards polls in double digits.

UPDATE, 9:06 PM: CNN estimates the delegate count from South Carolina as Obama 8, Clinton 4, Edwards 2. All this for a four-delegate edge? Heh.

Um, go Zags?

By Brendan Loy

Gonzaga and Memphis are underway, and so far, it's not looking promising for the Bulldogs, as the fast-breaking Tigers have jumped out to an early 10-0 lead.

UPDATE: Well, that's better. After trailing 25-13, the Zags have rallied to take a 32-30 lead! Two minutes left in the first half.

UPDATE 2: Aaaand the Zags lose all their momentum in the final minute, as Memphis goes up 35-32 on a thunderous dunk at the buzzer.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame leads #18 Villanova -- on the road -- 35-29 late in the first half.

UPDATE 3: Memphis wins, 81-73.

Obama's bloc-voting problem

By Brendan Loy

Mickey Kaus speculates that, even if Obama wins in the expected South Carolina landslide today, he could be damaged politically if the exit polls show him getting overwhelming support from blacks and overwhelming non-support from whites. (In some pre-election polls, his support among whites has dropped as low as 10%.) The fear, again, is that Obama will come to be perceived as another Jesse Jackson -- a "black candidate" first and foremost -- thus diminishing his appeal to non-blacks on Super Tuesday and beyond. Win the battle (South Carolina), lose the war (the nomination)?

Kaus thinks maybe we shouldn't pay too much attention to exit polls, though, as people can lie to them: "If you're a black South Carolinian and want to help Hillary as much as you can, you'll walk into the booth, vote for her, then walk out and tell the exit poll person you voted for Obama." Heh. Also:

There may also be non-Machiavellian peer pressure in black precincts to tell the exit pollsters the same thing (which, perversely, might hurt Obama in tomorrow night's press spin by making it look as if he received an ethnic bloc vote). In white areas similar pressure might enocourage voters to falsely tell exit pollsters they voted for Edwards or Clinton. ... I'm not sure we should pay so much attention to the exit polls! ... Presumably the real, actual official secret-ballot vote tally will reveal any bloc voting by white areas or black areas, no?

Presumably so, but don't expect the media to think about that. One thing that's always struck me as odd is that, no matter how many times the exit polls are debunked as reliable predictors of the actual vote totals (see, e.g., Gore's victory in Florida, the seven-hour presidency of John Kerry, etc.), they're still relied upon as gospel truth for their racial, ethnic, gender, etc. results -- even though that data is inevitably based on smaller sample sizes than the exit poll at large!

Obama counters e-mail lies

By Brendan Loy

Politico looks at the Obama campaign's response to that e-mail chain letter I'm sure everyone's gotten by now about how Obama is a closet radical Muslim. (Ross Perot got it, and believed it.)

Obviously, it's false, and I'm very glad Obama is addressing this head-on. The more I heard people talking about the e-mail in recent weeks, the more I became concerned about its potential impact on the race. I'm still concerned -- I think it has the potential to be far more damaging to Obama than his skin color, particularly in a general election when more casual voters (who pay virtually no attention to politics, but do get e-mail chain letters) will make up a higher percentage of the electorate -- but at the very least, it was essential that they aggressively counter it, and they're doing that. Good.

(I wonder, though: how many times can Obama basically jump and down screaming "I'm not a Muslim!! I'm not a Muslim!!" before he starts to get in trouble for offending Muslims?)

For the record, here is the Snopes debunking of the rumors.

Top Ten Obama Campaign Promises

By Brendan Loy

P.S. Older but funnier:

Attorney General Edwards?

By Brendan Loy

The Boyz 4 Change alliance emerges at last!... maybe. Quoth Robert Novak:

Illinois Democrats close to Sen. Barack Obama are quietly passing the word that John Edwards will be named attorney general in an Obama administration. ...

In public debates, Obama and Edwards often seem to bond together in alliance against front-running Sen. Hillary Clinton. While running a poor third, Edwards could collect a substantial bag of delegates under the Democratic Party's proportional representation. Edwards then could try to turn his delegates over to Obama in the still unlikely event of a deadlocked Democratic National Convention.

That's one way to do it. Another way would be for Edwards to drop out now (or soon), and to not just endorse Obama but to actually join forces with him -- before Super Tuesday. The concept of an "anti-Hillary vote" may be an oversimplification, but surely Edwards could convince a whole lot of his supporters to jump on the "Boyz 4 Change" bandwagon, as I called it two weeks ago when I suggested a similar course of action (though I assumed it would take a vice presidential carrot to bring Johnny Boy along). As I wrote then, "imagine the political power of such a development." Barack Obama and John Edwards, the kinder-and-gentler reformer and the mad-as-hell crusader, campaigning together, promising that "together they will change America. Hillary wouldn't know what hit her."

That said, if Obama and Edwards are essentially already on the same page on this Attorney General thing, but Edwards isn't dropping out, that means one of two things. Either: a) Obama is the world's worst negotiator, having offered Edwards a cabinet position in exchange for Edwards's merely "often seem[ing] to bond together in alliance" with Obama against Hillary (not a very high price!); or b) Obama thinks it's in his best interest for Edwards to stay in the race at this point, perhaps because, as suggested here, Edwards "drain[s] white male votes away from Senator Clinton." Me thinks option "b" seems more plausible (though perhaps not as plausible as option "c," which is that there is no Obama-Edwards deal, and this talk is just that: talk).

P.S. If it is option "b," there's a pretty decent argument to be made for Edwards staying in the race for, oh, about another 24 hours -- long enough to siphon off those all-important "white male votes" in South Carolina -- and then dropping out, perhaps tomorrow night, followed by... hmm... a Monday-morning endorsement splash, perhaps? ... "Up next on Today: the Boyz 4 Change!" ... Talk about a massive infusion of energy into the Obama campaign! And then, with eight days until 24 states vote on February 5, the A.G.-in-waiting would go on the campaign trail for his new buddy and future boss, doubling the pre-Super Tuesday campaign reach of the Obama/Edwards juggernaut. ... I'm not predicting anything, but if it happens, you heard it here first! :)

Go Zags, Beat Tigers!

By Brendan Loy

Big game at noon tomorrow on ESPN as Gonzaga visits #1 Memphis. Between USC losing to Memphis and Gonzaga losing to Tennessee, my teams are 0-for-2 against Jay's teams so far this year (0-for-3 if you count UConn losing to Memphis); this is my last regular-season opportunity to get a win against him. Go Zags!!

Senate threatens to meddle with tax rebates

By Brendan Loy

Prediction: the Senate will back down. Nobody benefits politically from headlines like "Senate May Scuttle Stimulus," particularly not when the public will feel that it has essentially already been promised $1,200 per couple. The Republicans need this to pass, because they'll be the ones primarily blamed for a recession, and they need the voters to think they tried to do something to stop it. And the Democrats need to avoid painting themselves into a corner where they're the "obstructionists" who prevented Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public from getting a $1,200 check in the mail. This is one issue where both parties in both houses will find some way to work together, in relatively short order.

Fire on the Vegas strip

By Brendan Loy

Whoa! Not sure where the CNN Breaking News alert is on this, but Las Vegas's iconic Monte Carlo casino/hotel is on fire. "The fire, which was reported around [2 p.m. EST], was spreading from the center section of the hotel across the roof. Flaming embers fell to the street below." Live video here.

UPDATE: The fire is reportedly contained.

Clinton fatigue, 2008 edition

By Brendan Loy

At NRO, Victor Davis Hanson writes that, as a result of Bill Clinton's antics in recent days, "liberals are waking up from their 20-year slumber and blurting out that the shameless Clintons 'will say and do anything...'." In the WSJ, Peggy Noonan sounds a similar theme, writing that "many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats ... are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so." Quoting a Nation columnist as calling the Clintons "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath," Noonan notes that this is "exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade." Now that Democrats are seeing it too, the Clintons "are tearing the party apart," according to Noonan.

TNR's Jason Zengerle rebuts Noonan, to a certain extent. But he, too, has noticed the "Clintonites against Clinton" trend. Back at NRO, Hanson says that if Billy Boy "keeps it up, it is very likely that he will alienate so many moderate voters that many could hold their nose and vote for someone like John McCain in the general election."

I witnessed this trend, albeit in microcosmic and anecdotal form, at a UT Students for Obama rally that I stopped by en route home from work yesterday afternoon. One of the student organizers for Obama was chatting with her friends about the "Barock the Vote" signs they'd made, and suddenly blurted out something to the effect of, "Maybe we should make a sign with Hillary's face on it, and people could stomp on it." Someone suggested using Bill's face instead, which was met with general approval. The student organizer then mused aloud, "This [election] is really souring my opinion of the Clintons," or words to that effect.

Of course, everybody has a different take on Bill Clinton's effect on the race. Pundits have been saying since Iowa that he's hurting Hillary, but then the exit polls keep suggesting that Democrats still love him, and he's helping. Personally, I think people's opinions of Bill Clinton are very complex, nuanced, and difficult to measure in a poll. This has been true for a long time: back in 2000, polls showed Clinton was extremely popular, yet it was clear to everyone involved that "Clinton fatigue" played a major role in hindering Al Gore's campaign. (Gore might deny it now, but his pick of Lieberman for VP proves he believed it at the time. And from what I understand, Bush's advisers are convinced that Clinton's tarnished legacy helped them eke out an election they should have lost handily.)

The truth is, a lot of people have two or three different opinions of Bill Clinton, and in many cases those opinions are not fully reconciled with one another. They fondly remember the peace and prosperity of his presidency ... they not-so-fondly remember the lies and deception and embarrassment of his scandals ... they remember their anger at the Republicans for overplaying their hand with the impeachment ... yet they're still a bit ticked off at Clinton for creating the situation in the first place ... and they're not sure if he was really as good a president as they sometimes give him credit for ... but then again, aw shucks, he felt their pain ... and he was the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy, after all ... but on the other hand, that blue dress ... etc., etc. Basically, if America in general, and the Democratic Party in particular, tried to classify its relationship with Bill Clinton in a Facebook profile, the classification would be "It's Complicated."

Mix up the unpredictable and volatile stew of Americans' (particularly Democrats') feelings about Bill Clinton with the always unpredictable and volatile stew that is race relations in this country, with a dash of gender tension to boot, and you get, well, something really unpredictable and volatile -- and not at all susceptible to resolution or understanding through a straightforward yes-or-no poll question about people's attitudes toward Bill, Hillary, etc. I think this is why Obama still seems to be tiptoeing around the issue a bit more than he potentially could: he's just not sure what will happen if he takes Bill on directly. Frankly, I don't think anyone's sure.

My instinct says that Hanson and Noonan are right, and that the student organizer at UT is representative of a broader phenomenon whereby staunch Democrats who once respected or even admired the Clintons are now becoming disillusioned with them, in a way that won't just go away after the primaries are over. But my instinct could be wrong; it certainly has been numerous times this young election season. :) I wonder, though, whether Bill & Hill have fully thought through the risks they're taking with this tactic? Or are they simply depending on fate to smile upon them once again, as it has so many times before -- opponents overplaying their hands, external conditions falling into place, etc., and making the Clintons look like geniuses? At some point, their luck has to run out.

As promised...

By Brendan Loy

...my photos of today's snow squall in downtown Knoxville:

Full gallery here.

You know you live in the South when...

By Brendan Loy

...every time somebody comes to visit you, you take them to a country/bluegrass concert.

When Adrienne came to visit us in August, we went to the Bluegrass in the Smokies festival in Sevierville. Aside from meeting the WDVX chicken, the big revelation of that concert was the wonderful Bradley Walker, a singer with a voice so rich that it seems like only a matter of time before Nashville picks him up (if he wants to go "mainstream," that is). We bought his album Highway of Dreams, which you can get on iTunes here; my favorite tracks are Should Have Took That Train and Price of Admission.

Then, when Andrew and Bea came to visit us in October, we went to the Foothills Fall Festival in Maryville (which, if you didn't know, is pronounced "MUHR-vul"). No new musical revelations there, as the acts were big-name commercial artists (Trent Tomlinson, Big & Rich, etc.), but the concert was memorable -- and not just for Andrew's and my shock and awe as we constantly hit "refresh" on our cell phones to get the latest football scores on the evening that #1 LSU and #2 Cal both lost to unranked opponents. :) The most memorable moments of the concert were the thunderous ovation that the crowd gave to a group of soldiers in Iraq during a live satellite-phone conversation with their commander (nobody does patriotism like the South), and the moment when Tomlinson introduced his cover of Ring of Fire with the utterly unprovoked statement, "If you don't like Johnny Cash, you can kiss my ass!!"

Well, the country/bluegrass trend continued this past weekend with my parents' visit. I took them to Sunday afternoon's special weekend edition of the WDVX Blue Plate Special, the wonderful daily event in downtown Knoxville that I often attend on my lunch breaks. This particular show featured Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time, and man -- they were good! Here's a clip, though it doesn't do them justice:

I knew in advance that they were at least decent, based on their current hit, '67 Chevy Malibu, which I'd heard several times on the radio. But I was definitely impressed by the consistent quality of their songs at the concert. Great performers, too! And if you've heard the song Murder on Music Row by George Strait and Alan Jackson, well, Cordle wrote it, and he and his band performed it Sunday. Great stuff. Anyway, I once again came away with a new album, Took Down And Put Up (again, iTunes link here). I haven't had a chance to listen to it all the way through yet, but I think my favorite song from that album that they played at the concert was Hole In the Ground. Then again, I have a soft spot for mining songs, for whatever reason. (I blame the Barra MacNeils.)

In any event, tomorrow I'll again take visitors to a bluegrass concert (well, half bluegrass, anyway), as I'm meeting up with Becky's parents for the Blue Plate Special featuring a "twin bill" of the bluegrass band Balsam Range and the jazz band Silver Lining. I don't know much about them, but I'm sure it'll be worthwhile; the Blue Plate Specials are almost always good, and quite often great.

The biggest musical revelation of recent weeks for me, though, came not from a concert I attended, but from a song I heard on the radio -- on WDVX, the same station that puts on these Blue Plate Specials (not to mention that chicken). The song is Wicked Twisted Road by the Texas alt-country band Reckless Kelly. It's an absolutely haunting tune; when WDVX played it during my afternoon commute, I actually made a point of pulling out my cell phone at a stoplight and texting to their studio e-mail address, "GREAT song!" A few days later, I found it on iTunes, and I've had it stuck in my head ever since. You get it from iTunes here; it's Track 1, the title track. I haven't bought the whole album, but I may have to, if that song is any indication of its quality.

Gurule backs Romney; Kucinich bows out

By Brendan Loy

Notre Dame Law School Professor Jimmy Gurule has signed on as a member of Lawyers for Romney.

In other news, Dennis Kucinich has dropped out of the race. Also, recently-departed Duncan Hunter has endorsed Mike Huckabee, causing Michelle Malkin's head to explode.

P.S. Another NDLS professor, Gerard Bradley, has endorsed McCain.

Fred never wanted to be president, only veep!

By Brendan Loy

Fox News's Carl Cameron reports that Fred Thompson's dearly departed presidential campaign actually began as a trial balloon for a possible vice-presidential bid, then spiraled out of control as the intensity of the "Draft Fred" movement took Thompson and his people by surprise:

[Back in March 2007,] several insiders told me OFF THE RECORD that [the murmurs of a possible Thompson presidential bid were] largely a trial ballon to guage his popularity and float his name as a possible vice presidential nominee. I was sworn to silence.

Those insiders have now lifted the conditions on our conversations. From March to August of 07 -- through postponed announcement days, staff changes, firings, resignations and general disarray -- the Thompson camp was stunned by the incredibly positive response and didn’t really know how to manage it. The trial balloon soared mighty high and he found himself being dragged into a race that he was not even sure how to run.

If true, that explains a lot. (Hat tip: Top of the Ticket.)

Leopard 10.5.2 coming out today?

By Jay Johnson

On the phone with Apple Care, and got a message that said that an update to Leopard is out, but it's not showing up with Software Update.

Here's a link, though 10.5.2 imminent?

If this works, I also recorded about a minute of the automated call with AppleCare, which seems to confirm the availability of the update:

Download apple_care_leopard_update_call.m4a

Let it snow!

By Brendan Loy

A pretty decent snow squall is moving through downtown Knoxville right now. (See also here.) I ran outside a few minutes ago and took some pictures, including several of snow falling in front of the Sunsphere. You don't see that too often. :) I'll post 'em later. Anyway, a light dusting is accumulating on some grassy surfaces, but the roads look fine.

UPDATE: Here's an article about the afternoon snow. And here are my photos.

Bush, Dems agree to send me money

By Brendan Loy

The White House and Congress have reached a tentative deal on an economic stimulus package:

Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed to drop increases in food stamp and unemployment benefits during a Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining rebates of at least $300 for almost everyone earning a paycheck, including low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes.

Families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an overall cap of perhaps $1,200, according to a senior House aide who outlined the deal on condition of anonymity in advance of formal adoption of the whole package. Rebates would go to people earning below a certain income cap, likely individuals earning $75,000 or less and couples with incomes of $150,000 or less.

People would have to have earned at least $3,000 in 2007 to receive the rebates, the officials said.

I don't know whether this is economically or fiscally sound, but I could certainly use $900. The big ugly red number on my budget spreadsheet thanks you, President Bush and Congresswoman Pelosi. :)

UPDATE: It sounds like some of the information in the original article was incorrect, or I misunderstood it, or some combination of the two. Money quote (literally):

Under the deal, nearly everyone earning a paycheck would receive at least $300 from the Internal Revenue Service. Most workers would receive rebates of $600 each, or $1,200 per couple. Families with children would receive an additional payment of $300 per child [up to a cap of $1,200, i.e., you can get credit for at most four children]. Workers who earned at least $3,000 last year -- but not enough to pay income taxes -- would be eligible for $300.

So, at least in theory, Becky and I should be in line for $1,500, not just $900. Sweet!

But, hmm... I wonder... are the earning floors for married couples calculated jointly or separately? Also, can we somehow make the IRS aware of Loyette's existence, which they normally wouldn't know about until April? :)

The article doesn't specify when the checks are to go out, except to say that it will happen "quickly."

In any event, this isn't a done deal yet:

Congressional aides cautioned that it was too early to say that a deal had been finalized, and the finishing touches will be made over the next day or so as party leaders try to get their rank and file to buy in on a deal. ...

With both sides conceding on issues important to their base, there is potential to upset the delicate bipartisan truce prevailing on Capitol Hill, which is why leaders of both parties want to quickly advance the package before partisan rancor tears down any negotiations. ...

There are indications already that the Senate — the world's most deliberative body — may slow things down when the stimulus package passes the House.

"There are reports that a deal may be close on the House side. The Senate will want to speak, as well," said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "We want to ensure that Congress does its utmost for the American economy and for the American people.”

P.S. The L.A. Times notes that party leaders "have set a deadline of Feb. 15 for passing the legislation."

Good lord

By Brendan Loy

Baylor 116, Texas A&M 110 in quintuple-overtime. (That's five OTs.)

Yet another top QB commits to 'SC

By Brendan Loy

USC has had an awfully impressive track record on the recruiting trail in recent years, especially in the area of quarterbacks. John David Booty was the top QB recruit of the Class of 2003; Mark Sanchez was the top QB recruit of the Class of 2005; Mitch Mustain was the top QB recruit of the Class of 2006. All three went to USC (after a brief sojourn at Arkansas, in Mustain's case).

Well, the embarrassment of riches continues: the Class of 2009's top quarterback recruit, Matt Barkley, announced yesterday that he will go to USC. (Hat tip: Andrew Leyden.)

Sweet.

Another victory for Uncommitted!

By Brendan Loy

First Michigan, now Louisiana: Uncommitted is on fire! It's the nonspecific, undefined sensation that's sweeping the nation!

P.S. And this time, it was a Republican victory. Voters' support for Uncommitted's noncommittal message is a bipartisan phenomenon! If neither party nominates Uncommitted, I think the late great Unity08 should resurrect itself and take up the cause. Uncommitted-Lieberman '08!

Kentucky upsets UT; Drake is for real

By Brendan Loy

So much for #1 Memphis and #3 Tennessee winning out until their meeting in the Jay Johnson Invitational next month. The Vols, newly dubbed by the AP as the nation's third-best team, promptly lost to sub-.500 Kentucky last night, 72-66. Not even Bruce Pearl's orange blazer could save UT from losing to the team that lost to Gardner-Webb (which, incidentally, is now 8-11 overall, 2-3 in the Atlantic Sun).

At this rate of poll attrition, Dickie V's triumphant return could be at a #1 vs. #2 game between Duke and UNC (currently #4 and #5, soon to be #3 and #4). Though I'm not sure who Memphis is going to lose to between now and then, unless maybe... Gonzaga this Saturday? Hey, it could happen. Go Zags!!

Meanwhile, Andy Katz says Tuesday's most significant result was not UK over UT, but Drake over Creighton, at Creighton, in overtime. Up the Bulldogs!

Calling all moral celebrities!

By Brendan Loy

I asked this question of a few friends, in relation to something that I'm writing about fatherhood, and I've been getting some fun answers, so I thought it might be entertaining to ask the wider blog audience:

What female celebrity or celebrities do you consider to have "good morals," in the sense that you might say of your (real or hypothetical) daughter, "I hope she grows up to have good morals like _______"? (The implicit, unspoken end to that sentence, of course, being "...and not like Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan," etc. etc.) And why?

No questioning the premise of the question, please. :) I know all individuals are unique, and I cherish my daughter's uniqueness; and further, I know that celebrity hero-worship can be toxic, especially for girls, and I'm not actually hoping Loyette grows up to be just like some celebrity or other. I'm simply trying, for analogical purposes really, to come up with a list of celebrities who people consider to be "moral," whatever that means to each of you.

P.S. Feel free to define the term "celebrity" however you like.

He's in it to win it

By Brendan Loy

Bill Clinton announces his candidacy. Heh. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

This made me giggle

By Jay Johnson

Teehee.

Icy roads cause chaos in Knoxville

By Brendan Loy

A surprise freezing-rain storm caught East Tennessee off guard yesterday, causing hundreds of fender-benders and some serious accidents, two of them deadly. It was so bad in the early morning hours that police cars and firetrucks were themselves getting into accidents while trying to drive to the scene of other accidents. (Clearly, these Southerners don't know how to handle winter weather. :) At one point, I heard a report on the radio that an ambulance had flipped over on its roof with a passenger inside -- but not to worry, more ambulances were on their way!

Before long, TV and radio anchors were busily putting out the first responders' urgent pleas to "stay off the roads if you can." As for those who had to drive, police asked them to please refrain from calling 9-1-1 about any accidents that didn't involve injuries. If they got into a fender-bender that caused damage to property only, motorists were told to just take down each other's insurance information and go on their way. Even so, the Knoxville Police and Knox County Sheriff's office responded to a combined 362 car crashes yesterday, most of them between 6:00 and 9:00 AM or thereabouts. Here's some video of the chaos:

Many schools and businesses announced delays and closures at the last minute; in some cases, school buses had already started their rounds when school was cancelled. This led to a classic case of "fighting the last war" this morning, as nearly every school district in the area had already announced a two-hour delay by the 6:00 PM news last night -- delays which proved utterly unnecessary in most of the Knoxville area, as the roads this morning were perfectly safe.

Myself, I ventured out into yesterday's icy mess with no concept of how bad it was, as it wasn't very icy at all in my apartment complex. I didn't even slip once while walking the dog! I noticed a wee bit of ice on the Camry, and I overheard somebody talking on his cell phone about "UT being closed," but I didn't think much of it. I made it to the dentist's office for my 8:30 AM appointment withuot incident -- only to discover that the office was closed because of the weather. (If I'd called ahead, I would have known that from their voicemail. D'oh!)

I then got a call from a co-worker relating our boss's directive that we should feel free to stay home until the roads improve. My dentist's office is about halfway between home and work, so I sat indecisively in the parking lot for a while -- but then I gathered from the radio that things were still quite bad downtown (where I work), so I decided to turn tail and head home. Long story short, the icy weather meant I got to spend a good chunk of the morning with my baby instead of at work. So I have no complaints. :)

UPDATE: Here's a photo of some icy branches with the Sunsphere in the background:

Sister Souljah time for Obama?

By Brendan Loy

Is Barack Obama becoming Jesse Jackson in the public's perception? Mickey Kaus thinks so, and he suggests a solution.

Conservatives for Rudy?

By Brendan Loy

I heard a commentator on CNN the other night arguing that Rudy Giuliani, if he wants to become a factor in this race, needs to appeal to the GOP's conservative base. Not hardcore evangelicals and others who care only (or primarily) about social issues (and hence support Huckabee), but rather National Review conservatives, Rush Limbaugh conservatives, etc. -- conservatives who oppose abortion rights, gay rights, the coarsening of the culture, and so forth, but who also care just as much about limited government, low taxes, the war on terror, etc.

That caveat notwithstanding, we are talking about social conservatives here (just not single-issue-voter social conservatives). And the concept of Giuliani appealing to social conservatives seems ridiculous at first -- everybody knows Rudy is the cross-dressing, gay-loving, baby-killing former mayor of godless Gotham, right? -- but I actually think it's right. (Which, given my track record this election season, undoubtedly means it's wrong.)

MacHEADS: The Movie

By Jay Johnson

Trailer for an upcoming film about the Mac community. Looks like fun.

Macheads - the movie (trailer)
Uploaded by brunogarattoni

A hypothetical election question...

By David K.

This one is geared mostly towards Republicans, but anyone can answer.

So assume either Hillary or Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, under what circumstances (if any) would you vote for one or the other so you could later say you voted for the first "insert female/black" President? Would it take a landslide showing in the national polls? The fact that your state always votes one way or the other? Something else? Nothing else? Would it be easier if it were Hillary? Easier if it were Obama? Easier if it Al Sharpton? Easier if it were Weird Al?

McCain trounces Rudy, Mitt in CT poll

By Brendan Loy

According to a Hartford Courant poll, Arizona's John McCain is supported by 39% of likely GOP voters in Connecticut, well ahead of his rivals from bordering states, New York's Rudy Giuliani (16%) and Massachusetts's Matt Romney (11%).

Connecticut's 27 pledged GOP delegates are all awarded to the winner of the February 5 primary. The state has been considered prime "Rudy Country" -- along with neighboring New York (87 delegates) and New Jersey (52), both of which are also winner-take-all -- so this is definitely bad news for Rudy. (The latest New Jersey poll shows him 2 points behind McCain in the Garden State, and the latest New York poll shows the rivals in a dead heat in Giuliani's home state.)

On the Democratic side, it's Clinton 41%, Obama 27% and Edwards 9%. Per national party rules, Connecticut's Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally.

Why should blacks "unite" behind Obama?

By Brendan Loy

An article in Der Spiegel about the purported "end of the Obama revolution" contains a revealing bit of analysis that echoes a disturbing trend I've noticed in various folks' commentaries on the Democratic race: the assumption that we ought to expect black voters to be monolithically united behind Barack Obama, simply because he's a black man. Here's the snippet in question.

[Obama] hasn't managed to attract a strong following among older people and blue-collar workers. The majority of women find him interesting, but they support Hillary Clinton. The overwhelming majority of Hispanics are opposed to Obama, partly because he is black. Even African-Americans are not united in their support for Obama.

What's telling is the way the author, Gabor Steingart, chooses to characterize the various statistical realities that he's discussing. Women, he says, "support Hillary Clinton." Well, according to a CNN poll released on Saturday, Clinton is preferred by 54% of white women and 38% of black women. CNN doesn't give a combined total for all women, but presumably it's just barely above 50%. That's a "majority," true enough. Obama, meanwhile, has the support of 59% of blacks. That's a significantly larger majority than Clinton has among women. But the Steingart doesn't say that. Instead, he imposes on Obama some sort of "interest-group supermajority" rule, whereby getting almost three-fifths of the group in question is somehow a failure. This same rule is not applied to Clinton, however. Steingart doesn't say that "even women are not united in their support for Clinton."

Why not? Because there's no particular reason why they should be -- just as there's no particular reason blacks should be united behind Obama. Voters should choose whoever they believe is the best candidate, not necessarily the candidate who happens to share their skin tone or genitalia. Yet for some reason, there's an expectation that black Democrats ought to be 100% behind Obama, or nearly so, whereas no similar expectation exists for female Democrats and Clinton.

I understand that identity politics exists, and it isn't going away. And I'm not demanding that pollsters or the media ignore it. But there's no need to overemphasize it, or to twist and tweak the data to conform with a preconceived notion that everything is about race. We ought not automatically expect voters to make identity politics their #1 criterion, and act like something is necessarily amiss if they don't. ("Black voters aren't totally united behind Obama! He must be doing something wrong!") Particularly for those whose expectations have the power to help shape reality, i.e. the media, such potentially self-fulfilling assumptions are deeply corrosive to our political discourse.

UPDATE: Condor comments that the German-to-English translation may be to blame for some of the offending phraseology.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Actor Heath Ledger has been found dead in a Manhattan apartment, New York police tell CNN.

And the nominees are...

By Victoria Lopez

Academy Award nominations were announced early this morning.  Since I will obviously be losing Brendan's annual Academy Awards pool (a little history on the curse here), this information is pretty useless to me, but some of you might be interested. ;)

Best Motion Picture:

Atonement (2007)  

Juno (2007) 

Michael Clayton (2007) 

No Country for Old Men (2007) 

There Will Be Blood (2007) 

Best Actress/Actor nominations after the jump.

Fred, we hardly knew ye

By Brendan Loy

The Associated Press is reporting that Thompson is out.

UPDATE: You can read Fred's statement here.

"That's it?" writes NRO's David Freddoso.

NDLS launches new & improved website

By Brendan Loy

Notre Dame Law School has a new, completely revamped website. "It's amazing," writes Derek, who tipped me off to the redesign. I haven't had the chance yet to look around very much, but I thought I'd pass the news along.

111,111 miles

By Brendan Loy

Another milestone for the Camry!

I figured I'd better capture this one, because somehow I don't think it'll make it to 222,222. :)

Jericho episodes leaked

By Brendan Loy

The first three episodes of Season 2 of Jericho have been leaked onto the Interwebs.

Jericho, you may recall, was cancelled after Season 1, then resurrected thanks to a nutty Internet fan campaign.

The seven-episode second season, which has two possible endings -- one for if CBS renews it again, one for it they don't -- officially debuts on February 12 at 10:00 PM on CBS.

Naptime for Bill Clinton

By Rebecca Loy

This'll help Hillary get the black vote in South Carolina:

Poor Bill. I can totally relate to sleep deprivation. :)

(Hat tip: Perez Hilton.)

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

The Fed, confronted with recession fears, cut a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point today.

Memphis, Tennessee climb the polls

By Brendan Loy

When Tennessee plays Memphis on February 23, will it be a #1 vs. #2 matchup between in-state rivals (and Jay's alma maters)? Could be, if both teams keep winning, and if Kansas loses between now and then. The Tigers and Vols are #1 and #3 in the new AP poll.

Speaking of #1 and #3, the top-ranked UConn women beat #3 UNC yesterday. w00t! Go Huskies! (#2, of course, is Tennessee.)

Boldly going where no teaser has gone before...

By Victoria Lopez

I'm sure a lot of you have had a look at the Star Trek XI teaser that is running before Cloverfield, but as it's now available online in HD (and because the movie's release is marked in Brendan's Upcoming Events), I thought I'd post a link to it here.  Enjoy!

What do you think about the new look Enterprise? Are you excited about JJ Abram's re-imagining of the franchise?  Sylar as Spock?!? You must have thoughts, so share 'em! :) 

And, if you want to talk about Cloverfield, please feel free to do so here, since it's all part of one big happy Bad Robot family.

*If you want to check out the first of what I'm sure will be many viral sites for Star Trek XI, go to NCC-1701.

Obama pulls Tennessee ads

By Brendan Loy

I've seen a couple of Barack Obama ads on TV in recent days -- they're the only political commercials I've seen, in fact -- but it seems Obama has pulled the ads. Not sure what that means. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

Issues with independence

By Mike Wiser

Stanley Fish has an interesting opinion today about why it's bad to be a political independent.  Speaking as an independent, I obviously don't think it's such a bad thing, but the article is relatively well written.  Essentially, the writer argues that humans are by nature factional, and that once you start trying to actually do anything rather than speak in meaningless generalities, you'll end up with disagreements about terms or priorities, and then you'll need to unite with like-minded people in order to accomplish something.  Further, an independent as President would face more politics in trying to get something done than a member of one of the two major parties, as that President wouldn't be able to count on a large bloc of automatic support.

These arguments are valid as far as they go.  What I feel the author has overlooked, though, is another reason why many people become independents: the fact that there is more than one political axis.  If you align things are a purely left-right axis, I come out pretty much dead center.  So does another of my college friends.  When you look at two axes, on the other hand, he and I come out as diameterically opposed, as he's essentially a populist and I'm essentially a libertarian.  We come out in the middle on a single axis because when looking at the broad scale, the number of issues on which we greatly favor the Democrats balance the number of issues on which we greatly favor the Republicans--it's just that, for the two of us, many of those positions are opposite to each others'. 

I'm sure there are some people who are independents because they gain satisfaction from not belonging to a major group, or who may feel superior to others for their lack of assumed allegiances.  The author does, however, completely ignore that some people might be independents because on the, say, 4 issues that matter the most to that person, two positions are taken by the Republicans and 2 are taken by the Democrats, and the person thus doesn't have greater loyalty to one side or the other on policy as a whole, but must make decisions more on the basis of the particular Republican or Democrat offered as a choice.  By not addressing that aspect, I see the argument as fatally flawed.  Thoughts?

A dream deeply rooted in the American dream

By Brendan Loy

Happy Martin Luther King Day -- or as Hillary Clinton likes to call it, Lyndon Baines Johnson Day! ;)

Just kidding. In all seriousness, today we celebrate Dr. King's birthday, and in his honor, I always like to take 16 minutes out of my day each year to listen once again to his greatest speech, the "I Have A Dream" speech. This year, for the first time, I'll be listening to it from the South, indeed from within the same state as one of the places he mentioned in it. Anyway, here's the video clip:

And here's the audio clip:

MP3 File

It never fails to give me goose bumps.

Norm Chow returns to southern California

By Jay Johnson

Looks like Norm Chow is headed back to southern California to assume the role of Offensive Coordinator.

For UCLA.

That is all.

Will the Pats lose? Will the Giants freeze?

By Brendan Loy

Undefeated New England leads San Diego, 14-12 heading into the fourth quarter of the AFC title game.

Meanwhile, the Packers and Giants are set to kick off at 6:30 PM EST at balmy Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The temperature is hovering around zero, with wind chills in the negative-20s, and they're expected to drop. It could be Ice Bowl II.

UPDATE: The Patriots won, 21-12, and the Giants prevailed in overtime, 23-20. So it'll be New York (13-6) vs. New England (18-0) in the Super Bowl -- the unstoppable unbeatens vs. a wild-card team, the #5 seed in the NFC, led by Peyton Manning's little brother. Hmm... would a Giants win be the biggest upset since Super Bowl III?

Why should Fred Thompson drop out?

By Brendan Loy

In the wake of John Edwards's humiliating showing (4 percent!) in Nevada yesterday, Mickey Kaus asks, "What would it take to get Edwards out?"

Of course, most of the talk of "getting out" is on the GOP side, where it's widely assumed that Fred Thompson will drop out after giving a past-tense-y speech last night in response to his weak third-place finish in his "last stand" state, South Carolina. (Hey, at least he denied Romney the bronze!) But NRO Jim Geraghty makes the case for Fred staying in:

[T]here's no reason for Fred Thompson to leave the race. He's apparently put more effort into Louisiana than the other candidates (they vote Tuesday), and there's a bunch of deep red states he can fight in on Super Duper Tuesday, including his home state of Tennessee.

If there were a clear frontrunner, and this thing was all over, I could see it. But if he really finds some of his other rivals as not-conservatives who are unacceptable to carry the Republican mantle, why not stay in this thing until the end, collect as many delegates as he can, and at the very least, throw them to the one he finds most acceptable at the GOP convention?

That makes perfect sense. It's clear Thompson isn't going to win the nomination at the polls, but: so what? The punditry is lagging seriously behind the reality here. The MSM really needs to wrap its head around the concept that this is a delegate battle now; it is not about "winning the nomination at the polls" anymore, at least not necessarily. ("McCain has momentum!" Who cares? "If McCain wins Florida, it's over!" Bulls***!) So the mere fact that somebody is stuck hopelessly in fourth or fifth place is not, by itself, enough reason to drop out of the race.

This contest could well end up more like a haggling session in the Israeli parliament than like a "one person, one vote" election. Do the minor parties in the Knesset "drop out" just because they only have a handful of members? No -- they leverage what strength they have, and sometimes they become kingmakers! Why shouldn't the minor candidates in this wildly unpredictable race do the same?

For instance, current Israeli prime minster Ehud Olmert owes his position to both the Shas Party (which controls 9.53% of the Knesset) and the Gil Party (5.92%). If either party left his coalition, he'd be toast. Fred Thompson's percentage in South Carolina was better than Shas and Gil combined! :) And if he stays in the race, there's a good chance he'll rack up at least a Gil-sized share of the delegates. (Tennessee alone would give him 2.3%, if he gets a majority here.) That might be enough to throw the nomination to his preferred candidate. If he drops out now, he suddenly goes from "undetermined, but possibly huge, amount of leverage" to "guaranteed zero leverage." So why should he drop out again?

Oh, right. To be McCain's vice president. But wait -- doesn't he help McCain more by staying in, and thus taking votes away from Huckabee? So again: why? And remember, "he's not going to win" isn't a good enough reason.

Newest addition to Inheritance Cycle announced

By JLR

Wow, I can't believe I beat Brendan to this.

The newest book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle (to follow Eragon and Eldest, for the uninitiated) will be entitled Brisingr.  The book will go on sale at 12:01 AM on September 20, 2008.  (Brendan: I expect a countdown in the "Upcoming Events" section of this blog...)

Heh.

By Brendan Loy

(Previous post here. Context here.)

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

-- CNN projects Sen. John McCain will win South Carolina primary

S.C. exit polls: McCain by 6

By Brendan Loy

McCain 33%, Huckabee 27%, Romney 16%, Thompson 15%.

UPDATE: CNN projects that McCain and Huckabee are in a tight battle for first place, with Romney and Thompson fighting for third.

WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

By Brendan Loy

USC 72, UCLA 63!!!!!!

I OWN MIKE TRAN!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I look forward to learning about Mike's man-crush on O.J. Mayo.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects Sen. Hillary Clinton will win the Nevada Democratic caucuses.

BEAT THE BRUINS!!!

By Brendan Loy

CBS is showing OSU-Tennessee here (harumph), but USC-UCLA is underway. I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the stakes. GO TROJANS!!!

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects Mitt Romney as the winner of the Nevada GOP caucuses.

Nevada, South Carolina and USC-UCLA

By Brendan Loy

I didn't realize this, but the Nevada caucuses are actually held in the morning and afternoon, local time, so results will likely be known by 3:30 PM EST for the Republicans and 5:00 PM EST for the Democrats, according to Mark Halperin. The polls close at 7:00 PM in snowy (!) South Carolina.

UPDATE: All of this pales in comparison, of course, to another event at 3:30 PM EST tomorrow: the USC-UCLA basketball game, a.k.a. Mayo-Love I, at Pauley Pavilion, which will be aired nationally on CBS. Beat the Bruins!!!

UPDATE 2: Fox News has called Nevada for Romney. He's got three golds and two silvers! Will he get his first bronze in South Carolina?

UPDATE, 2:15 PM: The CNN entrance poll suggests that Romney will get a vote percentage in the mid-to-upper 40s -- and Ron Paul will finish second with around 20%!

It also shows that a quarter of voters were Mormons (compared to just 7% of the state population), and Romney get 94% of their votes. But Paul got 63% of independents, who made up 14% of the electorate.

UPDATE, 3:03 PM: CNN's on-screen vote tally shows Obama 86%, Clinton 14%. It's a landslide! Of course, that's with 7 votes reporting. Not 7 percent of the precincts -- 7 votes. It's Obama 6, Clinton 1. [CORRECTION: I guess those are actually county delegates, not votes.]

The Civil War in four minutes

By Brendan Loy

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) [Bumped. -ed.]

The Loomer-Loys in Knoxville, then and now

By Brendan Loy

My parents are coming to town this weekend to meet their grandbaby. They're on their way right now, actually -- should be arriving any minute. It'll be their first time in Knoxville since the summer of 1982, when, on their first-ever road trip with me, en route to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Loomer in Arkansas, they (and I) stopped in Knoxville during the World's Fair. I was about eight or nine months old, give or take. Here's a photo of my mom and me in front of the various national flags:

Hey, I know where that bridge is! The flags are gone, though. :)

Alas, my parents apparently didn't take any pictures of brand-new Brendan in front of the brand-new Sunsphere. Now that would have been awesome. But after the jump, you can see a picture they took of a very shiny Sunsphere and a bunch of other fair-goers.

Anyway, who'd have thunk that, 25 1/2 years later, I -- born and raised a Connecticut Yankee -- would be living in Knoxville, with a gal from Buffalo who I met in Southern California and married in Arizona, and a brand-new baby who we conceived while living in Indiana? Heh.

Losing Bobby Fischer

By Brendan Loy

The great chess champion has died.

Carolina in my mind

By Brendan Loy

Politico on the McCain campaign's acquiescence in the MSM's obsession with South Carolina dirty tricks: "They recognize that there is sympathy to be gained by playing the victim and they’re milking it for all it's worth."

Speaking of South Carolina, Fred Thompson really needs to win tomorrow. But current polling suggests he needs to make a Hillary-like comeback at the last minute. Perhaps he should consider crying?

Vote early, vote often!

By Brendan Loy

Early voting got underway Wednesday here in Tennessee, and the Reynoldses -- InstaPundit and the Insta-Wife -- voted yesterday. Glenn reports that anecdotal evidence suggests lots of early voters for Obama and native son Thompson.

Personally, I'll wait until February 5 to vote. For one thing, who knows what will happen between now and then? (Those Thompson voters may find that their candidate is out of the race before their votes for him get counted. Same with any early Edwards voters.) Moreover, I like voting on the actual day of the election. There's something sort of romantic about it.

I wonder if any of the candidates will make it out to East Tennessee to campaign? I realize there are much bigger states voting on Pooper Scooper Tuesday, and there are also much bigger cities in Tennessee than Knoxville (namely, Nashville and Memphis), so I suppose the odds are against it... but hey, I can hope, right? I want a campaign event to blog about, like the forum in Phoenix that I went to in '04!

UPDATE: Aha! The Washington Post has a list of campaign events by state for Tennessee. That's helpful!

More racial silliness

By Brendan Loy

Like a duck in a noose.

His daddy's money, his mama's good looks...

By Brendan Loy

A look at the state of the GOP race. With everybody else running out of money, can Romney buy the nomination?

With all the other intriguing possibilities, a Mitt vs. Hillary general election would be about the most uninspiring, boring, cardboard combination imaginable -- sort like Bush-Gore, when we could have had McCain-Bradley...

The article also contains a rebuttal to my Obama-needs-Edwards-out thesis:

Who says that Edwards Hurts Obama? One constant refrain in news "analysis" of the Democratic presidential campaign is that the continuation of the Edwards campaign hurts Sen. Obama's campaign by "dividing" the "anti-Clinton" vote. Really? I would argue that Edwards helps Obama in South Carolina (and elsewhere) by draining white male votes away from Senator Clinton, thus making it all but impossible for her to win definitively in any state with significant African-American voting populations. I don't hear anyone in the Obama campaign calling for Senator Edwards to get out of the race. And for good reason.

Perhaps. I still think the Boyz 4 Change ticket (or alliance) would be politically powerful, at least for wrapping up the nomination. But I hope Ellis is right, because I don't want Barack to have to kowtow to Johnny Boy...

CORRECTION: On second thought, I hope Ellis is wrong, because I'd like to think we've gotten past the point where significant numbers of white males out-and-out refuse to vote for a black man, which seems to be what he's implying. So nevermind.

Mitt and Huck, two peas in a pod

By Brendan Loy

Stephen Bainbridge: "Mike Huckabee joins Mitt Romney on my personal list of candidates for whom I would not vote even if the only alternative is Hillary Clinton." (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

In light of his recent about-face on immigration, it appears that Huckabee may be even more of a craven flip-flopper than Romney. Now that's an accomplishment.

Lawsuit?

By Brendan Loy

The handle on my Starbucks tumbler randomly broke off this morning. Alas, I didn't spill hot coffee on myself, so I guess I won't be able to sue for millions... :)

A decade since Monica

By Brendan Loy

InstaPundit's "Happy Monicaversary" post (which contains a comparison of Matt Drudge to Edwards R. Murrow -- heh) reminds me to link to this London Times article, which I had made a mental note earlier this week to do today. Yes, it's the 10th anniversary of the day the Lewinsky scandal broke on the Drudge Report. (Here's Drudge's original post about the scandal.) "Happy Monicaversary, everyone!" writes Rogers Cadenhead. "I trust that you don't need to be told how this anniversary should be celebrated." Heh.

I wasn't reading Drudge on January 17, 1998 (it was the Lewinsky scandal that really brought him to prominence), but I remember January 21, 1998 -- the day the MSM caught up with the story -- very well. The Pope was in Cuba, the networks were falling all over themselves to cover the historic confluence of Catholicism and Communism, and then all of a sudden -- sex! lies! blowjobs! perjury! impeachment! THE END OF THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY!!! It's hard to fathom now, but it really did seem, for a while there, like ol' Billy Boy was doomed. (And if the economy had looked then like it looks now, he might have been!)

Anyway, I'm sure Hillary Clinton is most appreciative of the opportunity to engage in a bit of nostalgia. Nothing like a Monica flashback to remind us how wonderful the Cilnton years were! ;)

An even more nostalgic date will be arriving for Hillary on the day after the South Carolina primary, January 27: the tenth anniversary of the date she coined the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy." I wonder if any conservatives are planning 10th birthday parties for the VRWC?

Carroll mum on NFL rumors

By Brendan Loy

Pete Carroll isn't talking about the ongoing speculation concerning his possible return to the NFL with either the Atlanta Falcons or the Washington Redskins. But the Associated Press asserts that the Falcons' hiring of Tom Dimitroff as general manager last weekend "likely will end [owner Arthur] Blank's possible interest in Southern Cal coach Pete Carroll. Carroll has said he would have interest in an NFL job only if given the authority in personnel decisions."

Meanwhile, USC linebakers coach Ken Norton will remain at Troy instead of defecting to his alma mater, UCLA, which had tried to woo him across town. "I'm flattered," he said of the Bruins' interest. "They'll always be a team in my heart . I feel real good about Rick Neuheisel and what he's going to do there. ... The timing just wasn't right. I'm really appreciative of what Pete Carroll has done for me over here, and my business is not finished."

Knoxville's amazing talking parrot

By Brendan Loy

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Knoxville's own Einstein the parrot:

That segment aired in 2004 on Animal Planet's Pet Star (though I hadn't seen it until this morning, when my mom e-mailed it to me). Einstein was eventually voted AnimalPlanet.com's most popular Pet Star ever, and she appeared on Leno. And she's way more interesting than Fred Thompson. :) Einstein for President!

Fred's last stand

By Brendan Loy

This evening, South Carolinians will see a Fred Thompson ad blitz:

NRO Peter Robinson calls it "straightforward, down-to-earth, and, in my judgment, utterly compelling." But will it be enough? The latest polls don't look encouraging. Whither Fred-mentum?

Speaking of polls, the latest one in Florida shows Giuliani in third place. And I had forgotten this, but the Sunshine State is winner-take-all, so Rudy's gotta win it; a close second does him no good.

Don't bet yet on only one brokered convention

By Joe Loy

WashPost columnist Ruth Marcus explains why the Dems can get gridlocked, too (and by all means read the whole thing for the 1984-and-related backstory). / Hat tip: Bob Lutts, CT political Oracle & peerless constitutional Constructionist :}. / Emphases added:

...Indeed, 2008 is looking like 1984 on steroids: For the poorly organized, underfinanced insurgent (Hart), substitute a candidate (Barack Obama) with the money and organization to compete with the establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton). For a front-runner about whom the party faithful are hardly enthusiastic (Mondale), substitute a candidate (Clinton) who has a loyal, energized following.

McCain-Lieberman?

By Brendan Loy

The Comeback Codger is playing coy.

A missed opportunity

By Brendan Loy

It occurred to me tonight that, with all the talk of "Super Duper Tuesday," "Pooper Scooper Tuesday" and so forth, I really ought to have referred to yesterday's Michigan primary as "Yooper Tuesday." Alas!

My Millionaire moment

By Brendan Loy

Now that my Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? segment -- or rather, Diane's segment featuring me -- has aired everywhere it's going to air (most recently in St. Louis, ending moments ago), I think I'm safe re-posting the original blog entry that I published, then quickly yanked offline at ABC's request, in the immediate aftermath of the taping back in September.

Here's what I wrote, in a post originally titled "Millionaire update" and timestamped 4:47 PM EST on 9/11/07:

I just helped Diane get the $16,000 question right on Who Wants to be a Millionaire!

Well, really, Google and Wikipedia helped her get the $16,000 question right. But my fast typing skills helped. :)

The question was, "What does a mycologist study?" (Well, it was worded more verbosely than that, but that was the gist.) I forget what the first three choices were, but the fourth choice -- "d" -- was "fungi."

I was already on the Wikipedia page, and ready to blurt out "fungi," by the time she was done reading choice "b" (whatever it was).

They don't actually let you stay on the line long enough to hear whether they got it right (though I did stay connected just long enough to hear Meredith Viera make a bad pun about me being a "fun guy"), but she sounded like she was going to confidently go with my answer, which would mean that unless the collective tubular wisdom of the Internets is wrong, she did indeed get it right. (I sure hope the Internets aren't wrong, because I told her I was 100% sure!)

P.S. I hope there isn't anything wrong with me revealing this information. Certainly, I never signed any confidentiality agreement, nor was I asked orally or otherwise not to say what happened, so I don't see how I can be violating anything by posting this...

Heh. As I explained later that day in a 5:53 PM post, the above-quoted 4:47 PM post was a problem -- though I still maintain that I wasn't violating anything -- and I voluntarily removed it. Now, more than three months later, I'm finally re-posting it. (I briefly re-posted it earlier today, but then it occurred to me that the show hadn't yet aired everywhere, so I yanked it offline again.)

By languishing unseen behind an iron curtain of self-censorship for more than three months, the post shatters the record previously held by this post, which was embargoed for just under a month at Professor Bill Kelley's request. ;)

Anyway, the $16,000 question was the last one for today's show. Diane will be a "holdover" contestant on tomorrow's show, starting with the $25,000 question. Tune in to see what happens! (Check your local listings to find out when it airs.) Again I say: Goooo Diane, Beeeeat Meredith Viera!

New Hampshire recount underway

By Brendan Loy

The Dennis Kucinich-funded New Hampshire recount began today.

Thin is in.

By Jay Johnson

Looks like some are going to extremes to match the new MacBook Air's uber-thin profile.

Hat tip: Cult of Mac

UB boosts Gill's salary, extends contract

By Brendan Loy

Buffalo's Turner Gill gets a contract extension: "Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Gill's new salary is expected to put him in the top tier of MAC coaches."

Uncommitted wins Michigan! (sort of)

By Brendan Loy

If the Democratic Party ultimately decides to seat Michigan's currently banished delegates, Hillary Clinton will get 73 of them, and 55 will be uncommitted, according to The Green Papers.

The state also has 28 (hypothetical) superdelegates, who are by definition "uncommitted." So if you add it all up, Uncommitted wins, 83 to 73!

Of course, "winning" by a margin of 83 hypothetical delegates to 73 hypothetical delegates is sort of like being crowned the national champion of an imaginary college-football playoff. But still... way to go, Unc! (Can I call you "Unc"?) Unc all the way! Unc '08!! Yeeeeeaarrgh!!!

If only Uncommitted could give a victory speech! I'm sure it would be another transcendent political moment, a stirring celebration of yet another barrier-breaking victory:

"They said this day would never come... they said a non-corporeal entity, a mere word on a printed piece of paper, running against various homo sapien opponents, could never win this primary... but they were wrong, weren't they, Michigan? They were wrong!"

[crowd cheers, chants "Unc! Unc! Unc!"]

"You showed them that our undefined, noncommittal message is resonating with the American people! To all of my countrymen who don't know what the hell they want in a candidate, I say: join us! Together, we will take back this country for nobody specific and nothing in particular!"

Yes, as my dad says in comments, it would truly be an undefining moment in our nation's history.

Diane on Millionaire, me on the radio

By Brendan Loy

My friend Diane Krause (née Huffman) will be on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? today and tomorrow -- and my voice may or may not be on as well. (You might recall that I was one of Diane's phone-a-friends.) That's all the powers-that-be want me to say for now, but... tune in to find out what happened! Check your local listings to find out when it airs in your area. Goooo Diane, Beeeeat Meredith Viera!

Also, I'll be on Silvio Canto's Blog Talk Radio show at 12:30 PM EST today. Silvio contacted me after one of my recent Instalanches and asked if I'd be willing to chat with him on-air about... uh... politics and stuff, I guess. Anyway, if you don't catch it live, it'll be archived here after around 1:30 PM.

UPDATE: Here's the radio interview; it's about a half-hour long:

As for Millionaire, the first of Diane's episodes has already aired in a lot of places, but not everywhere. As best as I can tell from the show's local listings page, the last place in the country where it initially airs each day is in St. Louis, where it's on KDNL Channel 30 from 10:00 to 10:30 PM CST (11:00-11:30 EST). Therefore, I will refrain from posting anything further about it until 11:30 PM. Stay tuned for a new post at that time. :)

So... now what?

By Brendan Loy

I didn't actually get to watch very much televised coverage of last night's Michigan results -- the American Idol premiere was on, we only have one TV, and I have a sleep-deprived wife with veto power :) -- but I did catch a bit of CNN's analysis late in the evening while I was trying to shush Loyette to sleep. I saw Anderson Cooper game-planning the next few weeks of primaries, and it seemed to me that he was talking for the first time about a brokered GOP convention as a serious possibility, as opposed to just a pundits' dream. And he's not the only one. Our resident Republican realist Andrew, who is not exactly prone to making wild and crazy predictions, wrote this in comments last night:

Romney wins Michigan, and I think Huckabee wins a close but very divided field in South Carolina. I honestly think we have a great chance to get to the RNC with Huckabee holding a slight plurality of delegates, but Romney, McCain, Thompson, and Giuliani will broker amongst themselves to take the nomination and shut out Huckabee.

He adds that this "may not be a bad thing" for the GOP, and makes a pretty interesting argument for that point of view, but you can read the full comment for that. I'm just focused on the fact that this brokered-convention thing is looking like a real live possibility. In fact, it's getting harder and harder to see how it won't happen.

The key to preventing a brokered convention, it seems to me, is for Giuliani to completely collapse. Because if, as expected, he wins the winner-take-all northeastern states -- New York, Connecticut, New Jersey (hat tip: Halperin) -- and gets at least a sizeable share of the vote in Florida, California, etc., he'll have a decent chunk of delegates. And certainly, Huckabee is going to rack up a bunch of delegates, too, from evangelical support alone. But I don't think either of those polar opposites of the Republican coalition can cobble together a majority.

There's probably more than enough space in between the poles for a single anti-Huck/anti-Rudy candidate to get a majority of delegates. The problem is, there is no such candidate right now -- there are three of 'em! That trio may soon be down to two -- Romney's win last night is bad news for Thompson, and if he doesn't win (or finish a close second in) South Carolina this Saturday, he may be finished -- but it's now impossible to imagine either McCain or Romney dropping out before Pooper Scooper Tuesday. Unless one of them dominates the non-Rudy, non-Huck states on that day, it's hard to imagine the GOP delegate count being anything other than a hopelessly splintered four-way race...

...unless Giuliani doesn't win those northeastern states, and doesn't do well in the other Rudy-friendly locales like Florida and Cali. His support has been fading, and 3% in Michigan (behind Thompson and Paul, again) isn't exactly a vote of confidence. What if the "Giuliani Republicans" in the northeast abandon Rudy for McCain? Or, what if McCain and Giuliani split the moderate/centrist vote -- and emerging "conservative" front-runner Romney wins those states? I don't think either scenario is inconceivable.

But unless something like what I've just described happens, I don't see how any Republican is going to earn a majority of delegates at the polls. Of course, I haven't exactly been on a roll with my predictions lately (I said Romney would win New Hampshire, McCain would win Michigan, Obama would not lose a single primary, and Ohio State would beat LSU), so now I've just destroyed any hope of a brokered convention by predicting it. Darn it. :)

P.S. I just added the Maine GOP caucuses (February 1, in between Florida and Super Tuesday) to my countdown sidebar at left. Respect Maine! Remember (the) Maine! Are you listening, Fred? Heh.

Mitt Romney's breach of protocol

By Brendan Loy

This isn't going to soothe any of the bad blood between the McCain and Romney camps.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Mitt Romney will win the Michigan Republican primary, CNN projects.

Romney wins Michigan; on Dem side, a moral victory for Uncommitted?

By Brendan Loy

The polls aren't closed yet in Michigan's westernmost counties, but early results are trickling in from the rest of the state. On the GOP side, it's Romney 37%, McCain 31%, Huckabee 16%, Paul 6%, Thompson 4%, Giuliani 3%, Uncommitted 3%, with 5 percent of the precincts reporting. The Mitt-McCain-Huck split is pretty consistent with the leaked exit poll numbers.

Meanwhile, on the Dem side, it's Clinton 62%, Uncommitted 33%, Kucinich 4%, with 6 percent reporting. Will Hillary beat Uncommitted 2-to-1? So far, she's not!

UPDATE: CNN calls it for Romney.

Other networks, too.

Mitt takes home the gold!

P.S. You know what this means? Chaos!

UPDATE 2: On the Dem side, exit polls show that among African-Americans, it's Uncommitted 69%, Clinton 25%! This does not bode well for Hillary's chances in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, in the Las Vegas debate, Clinton and Obama continue to tone down the racial talk. More here.

UPDATE, 10:13 PM: Uncommitted is closing the gap!! With 59 percent of the precincts reporting, it's now Clinton 58%, Uncommitted 37%. Hillary's already under her embarassment threshold, and I'm guessing there are some urban precincts still to report, as they tend to come in late. With Hillary's horrendous showing among African-American voters, could this end up something like 55% to 40%? That would be humiliating on the order of Bush-Buchanan New Hampshire '92, no?

In any event, it certainly looks like a moral victory for Uncommitted!

P.S. Welcome, InstaPundit readers!

UPDATE, 6:51 AM: Did I call it or what? With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, it's Hillary 55%, Uncommitted 40%, just like I predicted above. Kucinich got 4%, Dodd 1% (his first breakthrough into single digits!), Gravel 0%.

But wait -- here comes the spin! Clinton's campaign manager says, "Tonight Michigan Democrats spoke loudly for a new beginning." And so they did: they gave nobody in particular almost as many votes as the "inevitable" Mrs. Clinton!

Nevada supremes say no to Kucinich

By Brendan Loy

Breaking news from the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "The Nevada Supreme Court says MSNBC does not have to allow Dennis Kucinich on stage tonight for the Democratic debate."

Good. A terrible precedent is reversed.

P.S. Added bonus: the Kucinich Krazies' blubberingly angry reactions will be amusing to watch.

UPDATE: Mark Halperin has a link to the court's ruling. The New York Times blog has more.

As for the substance of the debate, Halperin reports that each candidate will get to ask each other candidate two questions. Also, Tim Russert has suggested that there will be questions about the recent racial controversy.

In other Nevada-related news, the Review-Journal will reportedly endorse Obama tomorrow.

UPDATE 2: You can watch the debate live here.

Exit polls show Romney up

By Brendan Loy

Via NRO: "I'm hearing the first round of exit polls have Romney 35, McCain 29, Huckabee 15, Ron Paul 10, Giuliani 4. [What about Fred? -ed.] This doesn't count absentee ballots. ... Of course, all the standard disclaimers apply, and the later voters may differ from the early rounds, and the polls are still open, so if you're a Michigander, go out and vote for your favorite."

Derek has more in comments on my previous post.

UPDATE: Drudge says, "FINAL EXIT POLLS SHOW: Romney 34, McCain 28, Huckabee 17."

More here on the exit polls.

Real numbers will soon begin to trickle in here.

UPDATE 2: In comments, Brian Foster suggests that Wolf Blitzer just accidentally tipped his hand on air:

Wolf just slipped up: "once the polls are closed we'll be able to make some -- we'll possibly be able to make some projections . . . "

CNN calls it for Romney at 9:01.

We'll see soon enough.

Goooo McCain, Beeeeat Romney

By Brendan Loy

The Appalachian State Michigan primary is today, and various anecdotal reports suggest that turnout is low. The conventional wisdom is that low turnout helps Mitt Romney, who gets more support from the more committed, rock-ribbed Republicans (whereas McCain is counting on some crossover votes from independents and Democrats). Then again, the conventional wisdom was that high turnout in New Hampshire favored Obama, and we all know how that turned out. (Besides, the Daily Kos "Democrats for Mitt" campaign may screw up this calculus.)

Anyway, I'm thinking that the reports of low turnout, and the CW that Mitt would benefit from same, probably account for Romney's InTrade surge this afternoon. Or maybe the bettors know something we don't -- but I wouldn't, er, bet on that. InTrade doesn't have a great track record this election season so far: "The price movement tends to respond to conventional wisdom and polling data; it doesn't lead them."

Meanwhile, as Romney and McCain battle it out for the Republican/netroots vote, the question on the Democratic side -- with the Boyz 4 Change off the ballot, and zero delegates at stake -- is what percentage of the vote Hillary Clinton must get to avoid embarrassment. Her chief opponent, "Uncommitted," has been polling above 30 percent. (Kucinich, Gravel and Dodd are also on the ballot, along with a space for write-ins.)

Anyway... predictions? On the theory that "conventional wisdom is always wrong," I'm saying it'll be McCain 31%, Romney 28%, Huckabee 20%, Fredmentum 10%, Giuliani 6%, Paul 4%, others 1%... and, on the Dem side, Clinton 59%, Uncommitted 27%, Write-Ins 7%, Kucinich 6.3%, Dodd 0.5%, Gravel 0.2%. (Write-in votes for Edwards and Obama don't actually count -- those supporters would be better off voting "Uncommitted" -- but a lot of voters won't know that.)

Titans fire Chow

By Brendan Loy

Norm Chow, you're fired.

Clearly, the Titans hate Asian people. ;)

Steve Jobs keynote underway

By David K.

Not sure why Brendan didn't mention it, but Macworld Expo 2008 has kicked off with Steve Jobs annual keynote address about 45 minutes ago.  The event is not being streamed live but a number of sites including Macworld, Engadget, Gizmodo and MacRumorsLive are live blogging the event.

So far Steve has introduced software upgrades for the iPhone/iPod Touch and an Airport base station that includes a harddrive for wireless use with Leopards Time Machine backup feature.

Now up?  The anticipated iTunes movie rentals and an update to the iTV that allows you to purchase songs and movies directly.  More to come later, check out the links above for live coverage.

UPDATE: The rumors were true, Apple is releasing a sub-notebook, the 13.3" MacBook Air and DANG that thing is thin.  To give you an idea, it easily fits in manila buisness envelope (the type you might use for interoffice mail).  At its thickest its .74".

UPDATE 2:  How thin is it?  See for yourself!  Apple has updated their site with the new info from today's keynote.

MacBook Air

Blogroll thoughts?

By Brendan Loy

What does everyone think of the new & improved (?) politics blogroll in the sidebar at right?

I added a bunch of the sites y'all suggested, as well as some others, and did my best to break the links up into three (admittedly somewhat fuzzy) categories -- while avoiding those arbitrary "left" and "right" labels.

Did I miss anything important? Is anything miscategorized? Did I add too much, make it too long/cluttered? If so, what should I take out?

Identity politics and the Clinton-Obama feud

By Brendan Loy

David Brooks:

Both Clinton and Obama have eagerly donned the mantle of identity politics. A Clinton victory wouldn’t just be a victory for one woman, it would be a victory for little girls everywhere. An Obama victory would be about completing the dream, keeping the dream alive, and so on.

Fair enough. The problem is that both the feminist movement Clinton rides and the civil rights rhetoric Obama uses were constructed at a time when the enemy was the reactionary white male establishment. Today, they are not facing the white male establishment. They are facing each other.

All the rhetorical devices that have been a staple of identity politics are now being exploited by the Clinton and Obama campaigns against each other. They are competing to play the victim. They are both accusing each other of insensitivity. They are both deliberately misinterpreting each other’s comments in order to somehow imply that the other is morally retrograde.

All the habits of verbal thuggery that have long been used against critics of affirmative action, like Ward Churchill [Connerly? -ed.] and Thomas Sowell, and critics of the radical feminism, like Christina Hoff Summers, are now being turned inward by the Democratic front-runners. ...

[T]his whole show seems stale and deranged to the younger set, as Obama and Clinton seemed to recognize when they damped down the feud yesterday afternoon. The interesting split is not between the feminist and civil rights Old Bulls, it’s between the establishments of both movements, who emphasize top-down change, and the younger dissenters, who don’t.

(Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

Brooks also mentions that, presumably before yesterday's detente, "Obama's campaign drew up a memo delineating all of the Clintons’ supposed racial outrages." That's the first I've heard of that. Does anyone know anything else about this supposed memo? Is it online somewhere? Was it actually released, or just "drawn up" and then discarded when Obama decided to declare a truce?

Fredmentum: a four-way race in S.C.

By Brendan Loy

Finally, a post-debate poll is out in South Carolina, and it shows Fred Thompson surging into a virtual tie for second place with Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. According to Rasmussen, John McCain leads with 28%, followed by Huck (19%), Mitt (17%) and Fred (16%).

The previous Rasmussen poll, four days ago, had McCain at 27%, Huck at 24%, Mitt at 16% and Fred at 12%. So it looks like Thompson's frontal assault on Huckabee's conservative credentials is working: Huck's down 5 points and Fred's up 4. Fred-mentum!

Says Fred File: "We are not surprised. South Carolinians know a consistent conservative when they see one. ... Fred has the conservative message Republicans crave; he has the ideas to keep America secure and strong; and he has the leadership ability to keep the Reagan coalition together."

Now Thompson needs McCain to bury Romney tonight in Michigan, thus hopefully turning the Palmetto State into, effectively, a three-man race. You'd have to think a lot of Romney's support among National Review-ish conservatives would go to Thompson if the king of silver medals drops out (or, more likely, stays in the race but looks like a lost cause). The question then becomes whether a strong second-place finish in South Carolina (behind McCain, well ahead of Huck) would be enough to keep Fred's campaign going, or whether he needs to go on the attack against McCain, in a "win at all costs" gambit.

[UPDATE, 2:02 PM: I guess that answers that!]

Methinks a strong second might be good enough. If Romney fades, the stars may be aligning for Fred to become the anointed "real conservative" alternative to McCain, Huckabee and Giuliani heading into Super Tuesday. But he needs South Carolina to, at the very least, make him look like a credible contender. (And, not unrelatedly, he needs money.)

P.S. Can Thompson make a play for (at least second place in) Florida? He's polling in fifth now, but that could change, no? He was a distant fourth (fifth, by some measures) in South Carolina a few days ago, and now he's in the thick of it. Thompson is sort of like the anti-Hillary: the more people pay attention to him, the more they like him. Maybe he just needs to jump and down and say, "Look at me!!"

On the other hand, Florida's early voting is an obstacle.

P.P.S. What about Maine?? Its caucuses are right between Florida and Super Tuesday, so everyone else will be ignoring it.* Maybe Fred can bomb the state with some last-minute ads, and/or a brief campaign visit, and pull off a stunning upset -- which he could then parlay into further Fred-mentum and, more importantly, pre-Super Tuesday campaign contributions.

Only one problem: are there any actual conservatives up in Maine? :)

P.P.P.S. Can Fred win the Perot vote?

P.P.P.P.S. He was a not-too-distant third place in the last Maine poll, in October. And he's got blog support! Maine for Fred! Heh. It could happen!

*...unless a desperate Romney goes there in search of another "gold" before February 5. Mitt Romney, President of Wyoming and Maine!

UPDATE: "Actually there are lots of conservatives in Maine," writes Jane, in comments. I actually don't know a lot of Maine's political makeup, so I will defer to the superior wisdom of anyone who does. My reference to the "Perot vote" wasn't a joke -- you gotta be at least somewhat temperamentally conservative to vote for Perot, no? Not to mention, willing to buck conventional wisdom? Well, ol' H. Ross finished second in the Pine Tree State. My gut tells me there could actually be an opening for Fred, if the conditions are right (e.g., McCain and Giuliani focusing their efforts elsewhere, Romney doing the same or already out of the race).

Judge orders MSNBC to let Kucinich debate

By Brendan Loy

This is a terrible precedent:

A Nevada judge said Monday that Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich must be included in Tuesday's candidates' debate in Nevada.

Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson said if Kucinich is excluded, he'll issue an injunction stopping the televised debate. ...

A lawyer for the network said MSNBC decided to go with the top three candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

The judge called it a matter of fairness and said Nevada voters will benefit if they hear from more than just Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

He might be right. Maybe it would be better, and "fairer," if Kucinich had been invited. But a judge has no business telling the news media whom to invite to their debates. MSNBC is appealing the state Supreme Court, as they should. If that appeal is denied or not heard in time, they should cancel the debate on principle. They can't allow their own journalistic decision-making to be hijacked like this.

P.S. Or they could just let Kucinich stand there, but not give him any time to answer questions. Would Judge Thompson issue an emergency injunction in the middle of the debate? Heh.

P.P.S. There were 42 candidates on the New Hampshire ballot, including such illustrious characters as Vermin Supreme, whose platform includes a "mandatory tooth brushing law," and Jack Shepard, who believes the Mossad had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Why didn't the judiciary in the Granite State force the media to include them all in the debates? Maybe next time around, they will! Where will it end? You have to draw the line somewhere, and there is no principled legal basis on which a judge can draw that line; it's an inherently subjective and political decision. It should be left to the debate organizers. Obviously. I can't decide if this is tragedy or farce.

UPDATE: Apparently Kucinich's argument is based in part on a breach-of-contract claim, i.e., that MSNBC breached a contract to have him on the debate (as it had previously invited him, and then un-invited him). I don't know whether that claim is actually meritorious, but if it is, then I have no problem -- or far less of a problem, anyway -- with the court ruling in Kucinich's favor, provided it's on that basis alone. It's only if the court is forcing MSNBC to include Kucinich on "fairness" or "public policy" grounds that I have a serious problem with it. Enforcing a private contract is another matter. (Although, specific performance is not usually awarded in contract cases; money damages are much more common. But how would you calculate damages in a case like this?)

Obama rips up the race card

By Brendan Loy

Hey, maybe he did read my letter, after all. :) Okay, probably not, but in any event, Barack Obama is finally doing the right thing -- disavowing the race-card nonsense and criticizing the Clintons on the substance of what they said, not on racial innuendo that plainly wasn't there.

Sen. Barack Obama told ABC News Monday there is nothing in Sen. Hillary Clinton's record that would give him any cause for concern about her in terms of racial politics.

Asked how Obama interpreted two recent remarks by the Clintons that prompted an angry reaction from some in the Black community, Obama sought to damp down the racial dynamics of the controversy. ...

"I don't think it was in any way a racial comment," Obama told ABC News [in reference to Hillary Clinton's comment about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.].  "That's something that has played out in the press.  That's not my view."

He then proceeded to criticize the substance of Hillary's comments about experience versus ideals, and similarly, to criticize the substance of Bill's description of Obama's Iraq position. Bravo. You can read all that here.

Later, according to the article, Obama "stress[ed] that he, former Sen. John Edwards, and Clinton all share the same goals when it comes to civil rights and equal justice issues."

Amen. (Hat tip: TPM.)

Of course, some will argue that Obama is playing the old Clintonian game here, letting his surrogates do his dirty work for him, then taking the high road once the damage is already done. And maybe that's exactly what he's doing. On the other hand, the race-specific rhetoric was never coming directly from anyone high-level within his campaign. (His wife did distort Bill's "fairy tale" comment, but she didn't take it to an explicitly racial place; she just suggested that Bill was calling Obama's campaign a "fairy tale" rather than only his Iraq position.) My issue was always that, for all his rhetoric about a more hopeful, less divisive brand of politics, Obama hadn't taken the lead in putting this thing to rest, even though it was some of his supporters and surrogates who got the ball rolling. Now he's actually displaying some leadership to match his lofty rhetoric. I'm not prepared to let him totally off the hook, but I'm a lot happier with him than I was 24 hours ago.

UPDATE: More from the New York Times:

“I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate into so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why all of us are doing this,” Mr. Obama told reporters at a news conference here. “We’ve got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness. I expect that other campaigns feel the same way.”

Mr. Obama was seeking to be seen as taking the high road in the ongoing feud between his campaign and that of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. First, he conducted three back-to-back interviews with the major television networks here. Then, he hastily called a news conference at the Reno Events Center.

After speaking to hundreds of Nevada voters at a rally here, Mr. Obama urged Democratic voters not to become embroiled in racially-charged or motivated discussions.

“If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or in some way is unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it,” he said. “I hope the other campaigns take the same approach.”

Hurrah! I couldn't have said it better myself.

P.S. That last part is, it seems to me, incredibly important. Obama is now on the record pledging to "speak out forcefully against" future race-baiting by his supporters. That means that when something like this happens again (and you know it will), Obama won't be able to rely on the argument that it's "not his job" to "bail out" his opponents -- nor, seemingly, on the argument that he "can only be responsible for what he says or what his paid campaign staff say." He has now assumed an affirmative obligation to have Sister Souljah moments whenever his "supporters" engage in race-baiting.

Will he keep that promise? Maybe, maybe not -- but if he doesn't, the media and his critics will be able to throw this quote in his face -- "Senator Obama, you pledged in January that you would 'speak out forcefully against' any misleading or unfair racial criticisms by your supporters. Why haven't you spoken out against _______?" -- and it'll be much harder for him to duck the issue.

The skeptics, I'm sure, will remain skeptical. But just imagine the possibilities, if he's actually sincere. President Obama, America's first black president, making a habit of actively debunking his supporters' attempts at inventing fake racism for political purposes -- and thus giving himself all kinds of moral authority to speak out against real racism when it occurs. That would be fantastic for the country.

In any event, we'll have to wait and see how things play out in future race-baiting incidents, but his statement sets an excellent precedent going forward. And he has to know people will be watching closely to see whether he's true to his word. I certainly will be.

Heh.

By Brendan Loy

Obama: It Took Men to Give Women the Vote.

ScrappleFace is on fire with this story.

UPDATE: In a related story... another "Heh" for this. Warning: profanity!

Poll: Bull***t Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Slap thyself, John L. Smith: Hawaii says no

By Brendan Loy

Ladies and gentlemen, I dreamed the impossible dream, but alas, it looks like that dream -- of former Michigan State coach John L. Smith "doing crazy s**t while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a lei" -- will not happen. It appears Hawaii is going to keep things in-house, hiring defensive coordinator Greg McMackin as June Jones's successor.

The bet, basketball edition

By Brendan Loy

"Irish Bruin" Mike Tran -- he of the stylish car with the gorgeous flag -- is eager to redeem himself after going 0-3 against me in football this past fall (ND 20, UCLA 6; USC 38, ND 0; USC 24, UCLA 7). Luckily for Mike, basketball season has arrived. With his Bruins ranked #4 and my Trojans unranked, Mike sees an opportunity to win his first bet against me since The Game Which Must Not Be Named led to this fashion atrocity and this pack of lies. So he's been harassing me to come up with a basketball bet before USC visits UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday.

Because individual regular-season basketball games aren't nearly as important as individual regular-season football games, and because the teams will play each other at least twice and possibly three times (maybe even four, in the unlikely event they meet in the NCAA Tournament), I wanted to bet on the season series, not the individual games. But Mike said he's not patient enough to wait all those weeks for what he seems to view as an inevitable victory. So we compromised and made a pair of small, relatively low-stakes bets on the individual games, plus a much higher-stakes bet on the season series.

Full details are published after the jump, but the basic gist is this: each individual regular-season game will cause either Mike or I to profess our man-crushes on O.J. Mayo and Kevin Love, respectively, for the following 24 hours. Also, if I lose, my blog's subtitle will change to "Mike Tran owns me," and if he loses, his Facebook profile will change similarly. As for the season series: if USC wins it, either 2-0 or 2-1 counting the Pac-10 tournament (any potential NCAA Tournament matchup doesn't count), you'll be seeing -- repeatedly, throughout March and early April -- a lovely photo of Mike wearing a USC shirt and doing the victory sign in front of Tommy Trojan. On the other hand, if UCLA wins the season series, the 13th annual Living Room Times men's basketball pool will be renamed "the 13th annual Living Room Times men's basketball pool, presented by the UCLA Bruins," and I'll have to say that in every pool update on the blog, and in the official logo to boot.

Full bet terms after the jump.

Racism kerfuffle update

By Brendan Loy

An Andrew Sullivan reader criticizes Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" remarks the right way: on their substance. Bravo. (Similarly, from a few days ago, a legit rebuttal to Hillary's MLK comments.)

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama pretends that Bill was talking about something other than what he was actually talking about. Ugh.

Am I overreacting to this whole controversy? Probably. That Obama is putting his purported principles to one side for the momentary political benefit of watching the Clintons squirm is disappointing, but hardly shocking. And anyway, in the purely binary sense -- i.e., wherein everything bad that I say about Obama redounds positively upon Clinton, and vice versa -- it surely should be noted that the Clintons are by no means pure as the driven snow when it comes to identity politics. They've played the gender card shamelessly, and they've arguably played the race card (through surrogates) as well. (Apropos of which, in retrospect, I wish I had left out the fourth paragraph of my letter to Obama. It's true that the Clintons aren't racists, but it's also true, as Stephen pointed out, that "[w]hether or not the Clintons are racist personally is not the question. The question is, will they use racist tactics in pursuit of their ambitions." I'm not sure the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes -- the "cocaine" issue, for instance, is more complicated than people make it out to be, though that's another post for another day -- but it isn't an unequivocal no, either.)

The Clintons clearly weren't playing the race card in this instance, which is why my criticism of Obama is still valid. But I don't want people to get the impression that I think Bill, Hillary & co. are somehow totally innocent. Indeed, a big part of the reason I drifted away from the Clinton camp in the first place is because I was sick of their old-style political tactics, their divisiveness, etc. I just didn't blog about that as much, because I wasn't as engaged with the campaign yet (and, not unrelatedly, it was still college football season!). But it's something I'm well aware of. There's a reason why I said that this kerfuffle has thrown me back into the "undecided" column, rather than back into the Clinton column. (Heck, it may throw me into the McCain column. I haven't decided which party's primary to vote in on February 5. I can choose either one on primary day. And stopping Huckabee is a high priority!)

Anyway, this whole thing has left me somewhat disillusioned, but I do recognize that it's a bit of a tempest in a teapot. And I'm going to try to stop obsessing about it so much. No promises, though. :)

Two weeks ago

By Brendan Loy

Two weeks ago tonight, Becky and I were sitting on our couch, watching Law & Order reruns on our TiVo, and joking about the meaninglessness of due dates. Loyette's "scheduled" arrival was the next day, yet there was no sign of imminent labor -- which is, of course, quite typical. Only about five percent of women actually give birth on their due dates, and first babies are often late. Becky had actually published a post about due dates on her new Happy Housewife blog earlier that day, suggesting that a "due range" would be more realistic, and that "the person who invented the Due Date should be tied up while a bunch of outraged, very pregnant women throw rotten vegetables at him."

At a few minutes after midnight on the morning of December 31, as our last Law & Order of the evening was wrapping up, I noticed the time on the clock, and I said to Becky: "Hey, they say pregnant women have a 'bun in the oven,' right? Well, shouldn't you be going 'ding!' right now?" But of course, the odds being what they were, neither of us really expected anything to happen that night or day. We went to bed around 12:30 AM, fully expecting a peaceful New Year's Eve  and a continuation of the "waiting game" into 2008. I had pretty much given up on getting that tax deduction.

The rest is history, of course. Barely two hours after my "ding" joke, a few minutes past 2:00 AM, Becky woke me up with the fateful words: "I think my water might have broken." It had. She marvels at how quickly I -- the normally groggy, grumpy, slow waker -- jumped out of bed, wide awake, and sprung into action. Less than an hour later, we were checked into the hospital and settling into our comfy labor & delivery room. Twelve hours later, our beautiful baby girl was born. And now, a few hours short of fourteen days later, I'm sitting on that same couch where we watched those Law & Order episodes... but I find myself inhabiting a whole new world, one in which everything revolves around the little angel who is, even as I type this, snuggled up against my belly, listening to my continuing efforts to "shush" her to sleep.

It's hard to believe it's only been two weeks. It seems like everything before December 31, 2007 was a lifetime ago. And I suppose, in a certain sense, it was -- if we measure "lifetime" on the time scale of the completely adorable creature in the fuzzy pink sleeper who is now sucking adamantly on my right index finger while I try to finish typing this sentence left-handed. :)

Happy Two-Week Birthday, Loyette.

P.S. As an aside about the events of December 30: a few hours earlier, before watching those Law & Order reruns, we watched the movie Knocked Up on DVD after dinner with Becky's parents, who had arrived in town earlier that day. We saw Knocked Up in the theater just a few days after learning we were going to have a baby, and, as it turned out, we watched it again less than 24 hours before said baby's arrival!

Heh.

By Brendan Loy

Hillary Clinton Decries Lack of Blacks in Fairy Tales.

Bolts earn right to face Pats

By Brendan Loy

The defending champion Colts lost to the Chargers this afternoon, so it'll be San Diego that visits New England next Sunday to try and stop the undefeated Patriots from reaching the Super Bowl.

The last divisional playoff game is underway now, with the Cowboys and Giants tied 7-7. Winner gets the Packers.

UPDATE: Giants win. So Eli is the Manning who makes it further into the postseason. It'll be New York at Green Bay and San Diego at New England in next weekend's NFC and AFC championship games.

Life imitates BrendanLoy.com

By Brendan Loy

BrendanLoy.com, December 19: "Dick Vitale will be out of commission until at least February due to surgery on his vocal chords. Hmm... I'm going to bet on February 6 as his first day back. Why? It's the first Duke-UNC game of the year."

ESPN.com, January 13: "Vitale targets Feb. 6 Duke-UNC game as return to mic."

Heh.

Obama race-baiting update

By Brendan Loy

At a conference call with reporters this morning, somebody asked Barack Obama about the Clintons' recent controversial remarks and Hillary Clinton's response to the kerfuffle. Thus, Obama had a golden opportunity to make clear that he does not believe the Clintons' remarks were racist or racially insensitive -- and he chose not to do so. Instead, he said a bunch of other stuff that I have no problem with, but failed to do the one thing he needs to do, which is to unambiguously disassociate himself from this race-baiting nonsense.

As I wrote in a comment on my earlier post:

What is...surprising about this particular round of race-baiting is that the allegations of racism are so facially implausible. I mean, there is really not even a remotely plausible argument that the Clintons have said anything racist here. The whole thing is completely illogical.

Now, I realize these sorts of accusations are always rooted in emotion, not logic. But usually, when people cry "racism," racism is at least one of three or four potentially plausible explanations for whatever the underlying offense is (and the main issue is that they're jumping to that one conclusion instead of considering the other, more innocent possibilities). But here, the cries of racism don't even make sense, particularly with regard to the "fairy tale" comment.

So this whole controversy is really bizarre, and I keep thinking maybe Obama will come out and say, "Um, WTF are you guys talking about? Can we please get back to discussing things that are real?" Alas, it hasn't happened yet.

And it doesn't look like it's going to. Indeed, his spokesman told the New York Times, "People were offended at her words, and she can explain them however she'd like." In other words, we're not going to bail her out; if people want to vote against her on the basis of this self-evidently ridiculous nonsense, more power to them. As a political decision, I understand that, but it's very much politics-as-usual. Obama had a chance to take the high road here (while still attacking Clinton on substance), and he has clearly made a strategic decision not to do so. He is, it turns out, perfectly willing to let this racial stew fester, so long as he thinks it will work to his advantage -- even though the controversy is totally baseless, and he knows it. That suggests to me that, as president, he would let any racial controversy fester if he deems it politically advantageous. After all, if he won't distance himself from allegations as obviously insubstantial as these...

Anyway, this whole thing makes me genuinely sad. I thought maybe Obama was different. I guess not. I'm back to being thoroughly undecided. Congrats, senator, you've just lost a supporter.

UPDATE: I just noticed that I got Instalanched again this morning. And Classical Values also linked to this post. Welcome, new readers!

I agree with what Glenn wrote:

You know, I've noted before that if Hillary attacks Obama too hard she risks losing black supporters -- and others who've invested in Obama. But it works both ways -- if Obama looks too much like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, or even like he's too close to those two politically, he'll lose a lot of people who've rallied to him precisely because he promised "a new kind of politics." You can't run as a uniter, and engage in racial politicking at the same time. Well, you can -- but it won't work very well.

However, as I note in my latest (and perhaps final) post on this kerfuffle, I'm probably overreacting a bit. Ah well, you be the judge, I suppose.

Fred-mentum?

By Brendan Loy

It's been a heady few days for Fred Thompson. First came the dominating debate performance. That was followed by endorsements from conservative magazine Human Events and from the New York Conservative Party (of James and William F. Buckley fame). Next came the surging crowds at Thompson's events in South Carolina. On Friday, Bill Quick of Daily Pundit wrote, "I think we're about to see what will later be described as an 'amazing turnaround' for Fred in South Carolina." Now, even the New York Times is talking about a Thompson surge. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

As yet, there are no new polls to support, or refute, the belief that Fred is gaining ground in the Palmetto State. In any event, he's got six days left to turn all this positivity surrounding his campaign into votes.

P.S. On the other hand, it sounds like Fred's a little strapped for cash.

USC 66, Washington 51

By Brendan Loy

Finally, a Pac-10 win!

Now, let's upset the Bruins at Pauley next Saturday and we'll be back on track...

Did a comet ravage North America in 11,000 B.C.?

By Brendan Loy

Donald Sensing has a fascinating post about a hypothesized cataclysm 13,000 years ago. It's not a new theory (the linked articles are from last spring), but it's one I don't think I'd read about before. Anyway, check it out.

A letter to Obama about race-baiting

By Brendan Loy

I just sent the following letter to the Obama campaign through their contact page:

Dear Senator Obama,

Like many Americans, I have been inspired by your message of hope and change, and by your belief that politicians should be able to "disagree without being disagreeable." Your victory speech after the Iowa caucuses gave me goose bumps -- and I am usually a jaded political junkie, not prone to such emotional reactions. But your campaign is something special, or so it has seemed to me. Thus, in the past few weeks, I've changed from a tentative Hillary Clinton supporter to a tentative Barack Obama supporter.

I am deeply concerned, however, by recent events surrounding your campaign. Media reports indicate that a number of your supporters and surrogates have suggested that recent remarks by Bill and Hillary Clinton were racially insensitive. Yet the remarks in question, while perhaps substantively wrong, had nothing whatsoever to do with race. Criticism of the Clintons' statements should be limited to the actual substance of what they said, without resort to such divisive rhetoric. I urge you to publicly disavow the cynical tactic of using race as a wedge issue, and to dissociate yourself from anyone who persists in using such tactics.

Bill Clinton's description of your Iraq narrative as a "fairy tale" may be factually incorrect and wrong-headed, and if so, you should rebut it on its merits. But it is certainly not racist; to claim otherwise is ludicrous and offensive. Likewise, Hillary Clinton's comments about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. may have inappropriately downplayed the importance of ideals and rhetoric, and if you believe that, you should say so. But again, there is no reasonable way to interpret her comments as being racist.

Although I am inclined to support you over Hillary Clinton, I believe the Clintons' record on racial issues speaks for itself. They are by no means racists. Now, of course, their record should not insulate them from criticism if they were to say something genuinely insensitive. But that is not the case here. As I said, their remarks may be wrong-headed and worthy of criticism on their merits, but there is absolutely no reason for anyone to imply that the remarks are racist, and it is deplorable and indefensible to do so.

When I read Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones, a prominent supporter of yours, arguing that Bill Clinton should refrain from criticizing your record (specifically, the "fairy tale" accusation on Iraq) because he and Hillary Clinton "owe the African-American community" for "saving his presidency," I am frankly disgusted. The African-American community is not a monolith, and no one should argue that substantive criticism of an individual African-American leader is somehow off-limits because of past support from other African-Americans. Assuming Mr. Jones was not misquoted, I urge you to disavow his comments and, if he will not publicly renounce them, disassociate yourself from him. (If he was misquoted, I hope he can publicly clarify the record about what he actually said.)

Similarly, I am deeply concerned when I read that Rep. James Clyburn is reportedly thinking about endorsing you in part because he believes it was racially offensive for Bill Clinton to state that your message of unity and optimism is a "fairy tale." First of all, that is not what Bill Clinton said; it was perfectly clear that his remarks were focused entirely on your Iraq position. Secondly, even if the former president had been calling your hopeful message a "fairy tale," that would be, again, wrong-headed but not racist. If Rep. Clyburn chooses to endorse you, I have no doubt that you'll accept his endorsement, and I don't blame you for that. But I hope you will make clear that you do not believe that the Clintons have said anything racially insensitive, as they have not.

A key reason I have been inspired by your campaign is because of your promise to change the tone of Washington's discourse, to move away from the bitter politics of the past toward a more hopeful and united future. Yet this sort of cynical, divisive race-baiting is a prime example of the very sort of poisonous tactics that have made our politics so bitter in the first place.

It is absolutely imperative that you avoid being associated with these race-baiting tactics. If you are to convince voters like me that you really intend to follow through with your promises of a new, more hopeful politics that unites rather than embitters, you must take a clear stand on this issue. Statements and actions that are truly racist or insensitive should of course be harshly criticized, but inventing racism where none exists for political or tactical advantage is deplorable and has no place in the sort of hopeful America that I hope to see you lead.

Sincerely,

Brendan Loy

P.S. By the way, I am a registered voter in Tennessee, which holds its primary on February 5. I will be closely following this issue, among others, as I finalize my decision of whom to vote for. I hope that, in the end, I will be able to cast my ballot for you.

Obviously, Barack Obama himself is not going to read my letter. But hopefully this isn't the first time someone has raised this issue, and hopefully it won't be the last (hint, hint) -- and if that's the case, then maybe it'll make an impression on whatever campaign staffer does read these things, such that the message percolates up. Probably wishful thinking, but hey, it can't hurt to try.

UPDATE: I only just now read this from today's New York Times article about the issue:

“Voters have to decide for themselves what they think of this,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declining to discuss the matter further.

That's not acceptable, obviously. Obama needs to distance himself from this crap, and fast, or he will risk losing my support (and I bet I'm not the only one). The prospect of having a president who will allow his surrogates to cry "racism" whenever anyone criticizes him -- about anything, no matter how unrelated to race -- is not something I want to deal with for four or eight years.

UPDATE 2: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Well, that should help with the "percolation" process. ;)

Seriously, folks, if you agree with me about this issue, tell Senator Obama so, especially if you are a potential supporter. He needs to understand that he will lose support if he doesn't nip this thing in the bud.

UPDATE 3: And now, welcome, Democratic Underground readers! My whole letter is posted verbatim there, so the link isn't generating too much traffic for me, but they're having a vigorous discussion of it over on DU, which is great. Several commenters agree with me, while others are accusing me of being a "concern troll." Sorry to disappoint, but I actually am a (tentative) Obama supporter, as my archives make clear; I'm not just pretending to support him to make a point. It's telling that folks would assume that, though. How dare I question the party line, eh?

Anyway, the DU link might help spread this meme even more usefully than the InstaPundit link will, since most of the Instalanched visitors aren't likely going to be supporting or considering Obama anyway, and are more likely to dismiss this whole thing as a result of me deluding myself that Obama was ever a good guy in the first place. Whereas the DU folks might actually see fit to write to Obama if they agree with me. Which is great. Please do. And that goes for the Insty crowd, too. Ideological differences should have no bearing on our common opposition to both racism and race-baiting (which is itself a form of racism).

UPDATE 4: I just want to clarify one thing for new and infrequent readers. I am leaning toward Obama for the Democratic nomination, not necessarily for the presidency. The latter is a separate question, and one that I can't even begin to answer until I know who the GOP nominee is. So I'm just talking about the battle for the Democratic nomination at this point. And among the Dems, Edwards is totally out of the question for me, so Clinton and Obama are the only two viable options.

I used to favor Clinton because I felt she'd be a steadier hand on foreign policy, but after a while, I began to sour on her due to the endless divisiveness and triangulation of the Clintons (and my lack of desire to replay the pitched political battles of the '90s), coupled with a sense that her "experience" isn't all it's cracked up to be, and -- not insignificantly -- my distaste for presidential dynasties. Meanwhile, I came around to the belief that I might be willing to take a chance on Obama with regard to foreign policy (depending on who he picks as his veep and other advisers), and that he's vastly preferable with regard to those other intangibles I mentioned. I haven't given too much thought to the candidates' domestic agendas, to be honest, in part because I get the sense that they're pretty similar. Anyway, Obama's soaring rhetoric after Iowa helped cement my positive impression of him, but it's by no means the sum total of the reason I've been tentatively supporting him over Hillary. And it certainly won't be enough to convince me to vote for him in November. (Well, unless he's running against Huckabee, in which case he could just sort of stand there mute for the entire campaign season, and he'd get my vote.)

More than anything else, what I'm looking for in a president in 2008 is a leader -- someone who inspires confidence in his or her competence, and someone who has a coherent, rational, non-radical philosophy on the important issues, coupled with an ability to articulate that philosophy in a way that can move us toward accomplishing things, toward solving our problems as a nation and a world. My personal opinions on a lot of issues, including some really important ones, are unsettled -- I have more questions than I have answers -- so I'm not necessarily looking for someone who passes a series of litmus tests on various issues. I'm willing to be persuaded on a lot of things. What I want, again, is a good leader, and someone whose judgment I feel I can trust. None of the candidates have yet convinced me that they fit the bill, but Obama and McCain are in their parties' respective driver's seats for me at this point (with Thompson maybe gaining some ground).

UPDATE 5: Hillary Clinton fights back. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign continues to decidedly not disavow this nonsense; on the contrary:

A spokesman for the Obama campaign, Bill Burton, did not back away from its original criticism of Mrs. Clinton. "People were offended at her words, and she can explain them however she'd like," Mr. Burton said.

Congratulations, Senator Obama, you've thrown me right back into the undecided camp. Perhaps my vote would be better spent trying to decide among the Republican contenders rather than wasting my time choosing between a cynical, dynastic triangulator and a fraudulent "uniter" whose campaign is perfectly willing to deliberately stoke the flames of an absolutely nonsensical racial controversy.

16-0, three to go

By Brendan Loy

The Packers routed the Seahawks at snowy Lambeau Field earlier this evening, earning a spot in the NFC championship game against either the Cowboys or the Giants. Now, all eyes turn to the AFC as the Patriots try to remain unbeaten against Jacksonville. Winner gets either Indianapolis or San Diego.

UPDATE: Make that 17-0, two to go. Pats win.

iPhone = iPorn

By Brendan Loy

But of course. (Hat tip: Insty.)

Lots of basketball action today

By Brendan Loy

ESPN's first Bubble Watch is online! w00t!

In today's action, unranked UConn is leading #8 Georgetown 67-61 with 3:22 left; Notre Dame is getting killed on the road by #16 Marquette, 77-53 late in the second half; unranked Kentucky and #12-ranked, undefeated Vanderbilt are going to overtime; and #5-ranked UCLA is crushing #4-ranked, undefeated Wazzu, 44-29.

Later, a Pac-10 showdown between USC and Washington that is, as the Bubble Watch says, just about a "must-win" for the Trojans, given their 0-3 conference start and their upcoming battle with the Bruins. Also, Gonzaga visits Loyola Marymount.

UPDATE: Georgetown came back and won 72-69 on this dramatic three-pointer by 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert:

Meanwhile, UCLA beat Washington State 81-74; Vanderbilt lost its first game of the season to Kentucky in triple OT; and Notre Dame got destroyed, 92-66... ouch.

More peachy economic news

By Brendan Loy

This is bad, no?

P.S. And this...

Obama-Biden '08!

By Brendan Loy

I know it's a bit early to be talking about potential vice presidents in an Obama Administration, considering Barack the Builder currently has just 78 of the 2,025 delegates he needs to win the nomination, and is presently, at best, a co-front-runner with Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, I was delighted to hear this from CNN's Gloria Borger yesterday, on the topic of a possible Hillary & Barack (in whatever order) ticket:

I think it's more likely that Clinton could choose someone like Barack Obama than Barack Obama would pick someone like Hillary Clinton. I think if he were the nominee, he would be more likely to go to somebody like a Joe Biden, with a lot of foreign policy experience.

Yes! Let's get an Obama-Biden boomlet going! Maybe I should start a Facebook group or something. :)

P.S. Here's the video:

P.P.S. Ezra Klein is on the bandwagon. Kevin Drum, too. And Transplanted Texan at MyDD. The groundswell is growing! Joe-mentum!

Clintons face nonsensical allegations of racism

By Brendan Loy

Y'all know that I'm tentatively supporting Obama over Clinton in the Democratic primary race... but... can someone please explain to me how Bill Clinton calling Barack Obama's characterization of his position on Iraq a "fairy tale" is somehow "racial"?

I'm honestly baffled. Do black people tell their children lots of fairy tales? Is "fairy" not just an anti-gay slur, but an anti-black one? I just don't understand how this is remotely related to race at all, even arguably.

A good year to be a bubble team?

By Brendan Loy

Seth Davis writes:

If you look at how down the Big Ten and SEC are, plus the fact that the Missouri Valley and the CAA are probably only going to send one team to the NCAA tournament, then it seems to me there could be a lot of at-large bids floating around out there heading into March.

That could be good news for USC, which is already flirting with disaster by starting its Pac-10 season 0-3. Heck, it could be good news for the whole Pac-10; there was preseason talk of a record seven or eight at-large bids for the nation's best basketball conference, and that seems like a more realistic possibility than ever with so many other leagues having "down" years. (I read speculation in ESPN The Magazine about the Big Ten potentially getting only two bids, three "at most" -- though frankly, I'll believe that when I see it.)

He's not cowering under his afghan

By Brendan Loy

Glenn Reynolds wants a robot.

Don't do it, Glenn! Remember: when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free, because they're made of metal, and robots are strong.

P.S. There are Old Glory Robot Insurance t-shirts. Heh.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

-- The pregnant Marine missing from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, is dead, according to local officials.

About that solid economic foundation...

By Brendan Loy

Biglaw layoffs -- oh, good.

(I know, I know. Weep for the poor lawyers.)

But the economy is strong, right, Mr. President?

(Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

Houston, we have a new car!

By Brendan Loy

Or rather, a new minivan/SUV type thing: the Mazda 5.

It's pretty sweet. And it'll fit two adults, a baby, three cats and a dog way better than the Camry can. :)

Billikens held to 20 points

By Brendan Loy

George Washington 49, Saint Louis 20, final.

Hold on, I thought bowl season was over. And I didn't realize GW and SLU played Division I football.

Wait -- you mean that's a basketball score?

Sir Edmund Hillary: 1919-2008

By David K.

Renowned explorer and perhaps the world's most famous New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, has passed away after suffering a heart attack. He was 88 years old.

Hillary -- along with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay -- were the first two men known to have reached the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest peak on Earth. They achieved this feat on May 29, 1953. Hillary was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II shortly after completing the climb and continued to explore, climbing a number of other mountains as well as traveling to both the North and South poles.

He continued to have a strong friendship with the Sherpa people throughout his life, at one point being given an honorary Nepalese citizenship. He participated in philanthropic work in the region as well helping raise money to build hospitals and schools.

Flags in New Zealand are being flown at half staff in his honor, as well as at Scott Base, a New Zealand-operated Antarctic research station Hillary was involved in. A state funeral is being planned in his honor as well.

Mmm... fish

By Brendan Loy

Poor Pug. It must be nerve-wracking, constantly dealing with this:

Thompson apparently dominating debate

By Brendan Loy

There's a Republican debate going on right now in South Carolina. I'm not watching it, but John Podhoretz says that Fred Thompson is "not only winning this debate, he is giving the most commanding debate performance we've seen from any candidate in either party since the beginning of this endless primary process."

At NRO's The Corner, Rich Lowry says Thompson has been "funny, pointed, substantive, and conservative." Kathryn Jean Lopez writes that his performance exemplifies "why he wears well with conservatives even after what seems like a lackluster campaign — he sounds like one of us. He spontaneously sounds conservative. Because it's a natural element for him."

But it isn't just conservatives who are impressed; so is the New York Times blog:

Mr. Thompson rocks tonight. Asked about the recent confrontation between United States warships and Iranian speedboats, he suggests casually that if Iran’s Revolutionary Guard becomes more hostile, the Iranians will see those virgins they’ve been looking for.

Heh. And earlier, "Mr. Thompson draws the biggest applause of the night so far with his litany of accusations against Mr. Huckabee, including the charge that he is basically a Democrat."

Jonah Goldberg says, "I think if he'd been this guy from the beginning, he'd be at the top of the pack." He wonders if Fred will get a bounce from his performance tonight. And a reader thinks it could be a double-bounce: "I don't know anyone who doesn't like Fred, but they all support someone else because they don't think he can win. If he gets a small bounce in the polls after tonight's performance, it could very well translate into a large bounce once it looks like he has a chance."

Peter Robinson seems to agree: "in my judgment, Thompson need only sustain this performance for a couple of days before votes, and money, start moving in his direction." In tonight's debate, Robinson adds, "the one consistent and authentic conservative in this race made himself the man to watch. When Fred roars, he roars."

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Ned Lamont has endorsed Obama. I'll try not to hold it against you, Barack. ;)

By the way, about that Kerry endorsement I mentioned earlier: NRO's Andrew Cline questions the timing.

Oh, and Dennis Kucinich is demanding a recount in New Hampshire.

UPDATE: Via Hot Air, Thompson on Huckabee:

Ouch.

#4 Wazzu visits USC tonight

By Brendan Loy

After a promising non-conference start featuring two close losses to Top 5 teams, followed by a disappointing 0-2 road trip to open the Pac-10 season, USC (9-5) hosts #4-ranked Washington State (13-0) tonight at 11:00 PM EST at the Galen Center. Wazzu is one of Division I's five remaining unbeatens, along with #1 North Carolina, #2 Memphis, #3 Kansas and #13 Vanderbilt. (USC's aforementioned "close losses" were against Memphis and Kansas.)

An undefeated team went down yesterday on the road when Tennessee beat Ole Miss in both teams' SEC openers. Can USC channel the Vols and knock off the Cougars tonight? It would certainly be nice to avoid an 0-3 start in the brutal Pac-10. Fight on!

UPDATE: Wazzu won easily, 73-58. Up next for the Cougars, a huge showdown at Pauley Pavilion against #5 UCLA. USC, meanwhile, hosts Washington on Saturday, in what is pretty close to being a "must-win" game, despite how early in the season it is. You don't want to fall to 0-4 in conference -- with losses to two of the weaker Pac-10 teams, Cal and UW -- if you fancy yourself an NCAA contender.

Obama gets Kerry's endorsement; now he needs Edwards

By Brendan Loy

Like Al Gore before him, John Kerry today snubbed his former vice presidential runningmate and endorsed someone else for the presidency -- namely, Barack Obama.

What Obama really needs, though, is an endorsement from the man Kerry just snubbed, John Edwards. The question is how to get it. And I fear the answer might be: offer him the vice presidency.

I say "fear" because, personally, I don't want to see an Obama-Edwards ticket. First off, I don't like the new, angry, virulently anti-business John Edwards 2.0 that has emerged this election season -- and I don't think general-election voters will, either, once they get to know him. (Edwards's strong showing in national general-election polls is based mostly on people's lingering impressions from 2004, just as McCain's strong showing is based mostly on lingering impressions from 2000 and Giuliani's strong showing is based mostly on memories of 9/11. Things can and will change once voters actually start paying more attention to this election, which should happen around, oh, Labor Day.)

Second and more importantly, I firmly believe that Obama needs to pick someone older and more experienced, with "gravitas" and foreign-policy experience... someone like Joe Biden, for instance. A "message of change" is all well and good, but a lot can -- ahem -- change between now and November, like a terrorist attack or major developments in the Middle East, and a duo as inexperienced as Obama-Edwards would be extremely vulnerable to a major public-opinion shift in such an event, especially if the Republican nominee is McCain or Giuliani.

But Obama can't win the general election unless he wins the nomination, and it's becoming increasingly clear that Edwards is a major obstacle to that goal. At some point -- and we're not there yet -- it may behoove Obama to do whatever it takes to get Edwards out of the race, even if that means offering him the #2 spot and dealing later with the potential negative ramifications of that decision.

Obama lost to Clinton by 3 percentage points in New Hampshire, with Edwards drawing 17 percent. Does anyone doubt that, if the hard-core liberals who comprise Edwards's base had to choose between Obama and Hillary, the vast majority of them would pick Obama? He may represent a kinder and gentler sort of change than the mad-as-hell Edwards, but he's still a genuine "change" candidate, whereas Hillary remains the "establishment" no matter what her slogan of the moment says. Oh yeah, and she's despised for her triangulation on Iraq by those who believe the war is the defining issue of our time. It's an oversimplification to say that Obama and Edwards are splitting the anti-Hillary vote, but as a practical matter, that's basically what it boils down to. I bet Edwards's 17 percent would have broken down something like 10-4 for Obama if Johnny Boy were out (with 3 percent either for Kucinich or not voting).*

The bottom line is this: Obama needs Edwards out before Super Duper Tuesday. Otherwise, Hillary could sweep back into "inevitable frontrunner" status with a whole bunch of 40-percent pluralities on February 5, and suddenly people would start pressuring both Obama and Edwards to drop out, even though 60 percent of the party doesn't want to nominate Hillary (and even though the Dems' ban on winner-take-all delegate allocation makes it tougher to rack up a majority by getting 40 percent everywhere).

So, how does Obama convince Edwards to step aside? Ideally, he won't have to: if Edwards finishes third in both union-heavy Nevada and southern-fried South Carolina, you'd have to think he might drop out on his own. But what if, say, he finishes second to Obama in Nevada, and second to Hillary in his birth state of South Carolina, with Obama a close third? (Hillary shouldn't win S.C., but thanks again to the vote-splitting problem, she could.) In such a scenario, Edwards, despite losing the only state he won in 2004, could easily convince himself he's still in the first tier of contenders, and that he ought to make a stand on Super Duper Tuesday.

Perhaps, though, he could be made to see reason in such an event -- if the price were right. What if Obama came to him, the day after South Carolina (two days before Florida and nine days before February 5), and said: "Look, we both want change, but if we both stay in the race, Hillary's going to win. One of us needs to drop out before it's too late. You beat me in your home state, but I'm doing better than you nationally. If you withdraw from the race, I will make you my vice presidential runningmate, and we'll campaign together as a team, fighting for change."

Would Obama make such an offer? Would Edwards accept it? I don't know. (For what it's worth, Edwards will be 63 years old in 2016.) But imagine the political power of such a development. Just when it looked like Hillary was building up a major head of steam heading into Super Duper Tuesday (winning on Obama/Edwards turf in South Carolina, leading in the polls in Florida), the Boyz 4 Change ticket emerges, holding a joint campaign rally on Florida's Eve -- or maybe it would be better to wait until, say, February 2 or 3, after delegate-less Florida and right before Super Duper Tuesday -- to announce that Edwards is dropping out and will be Obama's runningmate, and that together they will change America. Hillary wouldn't know what hit her. And Obama would be your 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. Boom. Case closed.

Like I said, I don't actually like the idea I'm proposing, because I don't think Obama-Edwards is a good ticket for the general election, either strategically or in terms of earning my vote. But if things develop just so in the next few weeks, I can see this becoming a very attractive -- perhaps even necessary -- possibility for Obama to at least pursue.

It would be better, of course, if he could coax Edwards out of the race with a lesser offer (Attorney General? Secretary of Something-or-Other?), and maybe if Johnny Boy is looking weak enough, that would work. But if Edwards is still viable enough to drive a hard bargain, it might have to be the veep spot that Obama offers him. And if Hillary is still winning 40% pluralities, Obama might have to do it.

*As an aside, did any of the exit-pollsters ask the question: "Who's your second choice?" It's not on CNN's exit-poll page. It should be!

The iPhone's untold story

By Brendan Loy

Wired has a lengthy, fascinating article about the "untold story" of how the iPhone came to be, and how it has already changed the wireless industry. Well worth a read. Excerpt:

For those working on the iPhone, the next three months would be the most stressful of their careers. Screaming matches broke out routinely in the hallways. Engineers, frazzled from all-night coding sessions, quit, only to rejoin days later after catching up on their sleep. A product manager slammed the door to her office so hard that the handle bent and locked her in; it took colleagues more than an hour and some well-placed whacks with an aluminum bat to free her.

But by the end of the push, just weeks before Macworld, Jobs had a prototype to show to the suits at AT&T. In mid-December 2006, he met wireless boss Stan Sigman at a suite in the Four Seasons hotel in Las Vegas. He showed off the iPhone's brilliant screen, its powerful Web browser, its engaging user interface. Sigman, a taciturn Texan steeped in the conservative engineering traditions that permeate America's big phone companies, was uncharacteristically effusive, calling the iPhone "the best device I have ever seen."

But the money quote is the final paragraph:

It may appear that the carriers' nightmares have been realized, that the iPhone has given all the power to consumers, developers, and manufacturers, while turning wireless networks into dumb pipes. But by fostering more innovation, carriers' networks could get more valuable, not less. Consumers will spend more time on devices, and thus on networks, racking up bigger bills and generating more revenue for everyone. According to Paul Roth, AT&T's president of marketing, the carrier is exploring new products and services — like mobile banking — that take advantage of the iPhone's capabilities. "We're thinking about the market differently," Roth says. In other words, the very development that wireless carriers feared for so long may prove to be exactly what they need. It took Steve Jobs to show them that.

Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: David K.)

GOP chaos theory

By Brendan Loy

Some good analysis of the Republican race from Larry Sabato:

Just as in 2000, McCain will face tough challenges in the South and among conservatives and strong Republican party identifiers as he moves beyond New Hampshire and Michigan (where he has to be rated the early "momentum" favorite against native son Romney). The key question is this: Can McCain manage to carry states he lost in 2000 by becoming as much of a darling in his own party as he is among Independents and the news media? If so, McCain could emerge as the nominee this time around. Yet McCain is despised by various wings of the GOP for his pro-immigration, anti-Bush tax cut, and pro-campaign finance reform stands. McCain must win over some of these voters, mainly using the electability argument--"I'm the one who can defeat Clinton or Obama in November, and the other Republican contenders cannot." If McCain fails to make progress with these key target groups, either his hopes for the GOP nomination will be dashed or a conservative independent candidate may arise to take a critical several percent of the general election vote from GOP nominee McCain in November. Of course, Hillary Clinton will remain the Republican nominee's best friend, assuming she's the Democratic standard-bearer. Having responsibility for electing Hillary may deter some possible independent conservatives.

South Carolina on January 19th looms as a critical test for McCain versus Huckabee, and possibly Romney, if he's still in the race, and Fred Thompson, who apparently is still running after his 1 percent showing in New Hampshire--no, that number was not a misprint. Rudy Giuliani's strategy of waiting until Florida on January 29th to make his stand has appeared improbable for some time. Nonetheless, even Rudy's gambit has a chance of working under the right circumstances. Giuliani has always hoped for chaos in the Republican field, with different candidates winning different contests in January, and chaos could be descending on schedule.

Chaos could also potentially help Fred Thompson, which is why, contra Marty, he ought not even consider dropping out of the race at this point, his non-misprint New Hampshire disaster notwithstanding. Even if he can't win at the polls, Thompson -- who, alone among the Republican contenders, isn't viscerally hated by a sizable portion of the Republican electorate -- could be a plausible "savior" candidate in the event of a hopelessly deadlocked convention.* Though perhaps not as plausible as Brian's suggestion, Haley Barbour.

*Of course, in theory, Thompson could drop out of the race and still step in as a savior later on. But it'll be easier to emerge at the convention if he at least has some delegates to start with.

Mildly amusing politics/Star Wars thingy

By Jay Johnson

I looked at this once and though it was kinda funny.

I looked at it again and thought, ehh, this is stupid, but I've already started the blog post.

I report, you decide. Or don't. It's really OK either way.

You, too, can apply to be Hawaii's coach

By Brendan Loy

Heh: In the wake of June Jones's departure as Hawaii's head football coach, state-employee union rules have forced the university to post the job on the Internets, available for anyone to apply. "By mutual agreement with the Hawai'i Government Employees Association, the position must be advertised for at least five working days." It was posted on Tuesday, so you have until at least Saturday to apply:

Head Football Coach, position number 80110, UHM Athletics, (Manoa), Duties: Under administrative direction, Coach is responsible for planning, administering, and evaluating the overall operation of the intercollegiate football program to include, but not limited to, academic achievement of student-athletes, recruitment of qualified prospects, supervision of assistant coaches and other staff assigned to the program, compliance, program management (eligibility, scheduling, travel, budget, equipment), and student-athlete welfare. The head coach assumes full responsibility for ensuring that team performance is competitive in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) with the goal of achieving post-season competition.

And so on, and so forth. Applicants must submit a cover letter, a resume, three references, and UH Form 64. (God bless bureaucracy.) "Review of applications will begin on Jan-15-2008 and will continue until the position is filled." They've received 30 applications so far -- including, apparently, one from former Michigan State coach John L. Smith.

This is kind of ironic, at least in the Alanis Morrisette sense, considering that Smith's Spartans lost 41-38 at Hawaii in 2004, then spent the better part of 2006 trying to weasel their way out of a contract to play there again in 2007. They finally succeeded -- though not until after Coach Slappy had already been fired -- paying $250,000 for the right to not play Hawaii.

The scheduling cowardice of Smith & co. helped doom Hawaii to an abysmal SOS rating, while allowing Michigan State (under new coach Mark Dantonio) to go 4-0 in its non-conference slate against cupcakes UAB, Bowling Green, Pitt and Notre Dame. (Okay, so those last two might not have been cupcakes when they were scheduled, but still...)

And now, Smith wants to go to Hawaii. For good. He's not shy about it, either, telling a reporter: "With 18 years of collegiate head coaching experience and over 130 wins, I would hope that would qualify me as a candidate to be the next head coach at the University of Hawaii."

"And if they don't hire me, I'll slap myself," he added.

Okay, maybe he didn't actually say that last part. But oh, John L. Smith, how I've missed you.

Hawaii, please, please, make this happen. It'll be good for college football. Check that: great for college football. John L. Smith doing crazy s**t while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a lei = COMEDY GOLD.

(Hat tip: EDSBS.)

In other coaching news, it seems a Washington booster offered the school $100,000 to fire Ty Willingham.

News flash: N.H. primary wasn't rigged

By Brendan Loy

A Daily Kos diarist, in a post on the site's homepage, thoroughly debunks the notion that the reason Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire is because Diebold hacked the election. (Yes, this theory has gained enough currency among the nutroots that it needed to be debunked.)

You tell me...

By Brendan Loy

What's missing from my revamped "politics blogroll" in the sidebar at right? What other blogs (or quasi-bloggish websites) are indispensable daily reads during this crazy election season? I don't care if they're left, right or center, just so long as they've got good/interesting/informative content, frequently updated.

Polls? Where we're going, we don't need... polls

By Brendan Loy

Mark Blumenthal, a.k.a. Mystery Pollster, looks at what the heck happened in New Hampshire yesterday.

Final pick 'em standings

By Brendan Loy

Amid all the excitement of the past few days, I never got around to posting the final standings of the 3rd annual Irish Trojan Bowl Pick 'em Contest. Of course, the final point totals are already online, but that's without tiebreakers. Full standings, with tiebreakers, are after the jump.

Richardson bows out

By Brendan Loy

Bill Richardson will drop out of the race for president -- freeing up his whopping 19 declared superdelegates. No word on whether he'll endorse anyone.

With Richardson joining Dodd and Biden in the graveyard of campaigns that never got off the ground, we've reached that odd point in every primary season where the second-tier candidates have all dropped out, leaving only the first-tier candidates and the fringe candidates. In this case, that would be Clinton, Obama, Edwards ... Kucinich and Gravel. Heh.

Meanwhile, it appears that Mitt Romney is putting all his eggs in one basket, and that basket is called Michigan. He's pulling his ads from South Carolina and Florida to focus on the Wolverine Skunkbear State. "We feel the best strategy is to focus our paid messaging in Michigan," says a spokesman. I guess he doesn't want another "silver."

Pete Carroll to the Atlanta Falcons?

By Brendan Loy

It's January, which means it's Pete-Carroll-to-the-NFL rumor season. This time, though, it sounds like there may actually be something to the rumors:

USC coach Pete Carroll is interested in the Atlanta Falcons' head coach opening and is expected to speak with Atlanta owner Arthur Blank via phone Wednesday, sources at the American Football Coaches Convention in Anaheim told ESPN's Joe Schad.

Blank is expected to offer full control of personnel decisions to Carroll and the sources said that is what intrigues Carroll most.

DAMN YOU, BOBBY PETRINO!!!

(Hat tip: BK.)

P.S. Reaction from around the Trojansphere:

Student Body Right: "Let’s face it, at some point the guy will jump back to the NFL, it seems inevitable, but… Atlanta? Maybe the single worst job in the league right now? Seems a little nutty, if you ask me."

AOL Fanhouse: "It's... interesting to speculate why Carroll would leave a gravy job at USC for a massive rebuilding project in Atlanta."

Conquest Chronicles: "I am a little shocked that the Falcons would even entertain going after another college coach, regardless of [the coach's] success, after the whole Petrino mess. I have said before that I think Pete Carroll will end up back in the NFL but I'm not sure this is right fit for him. ... [But] I think this might the time for him to go. This is an itch he really wants to scratch and you will only get so many opportunities to make the move back into the NFL. Don't get me wrong I want to keep him as long as we can but we need to be realistic that sooner or later this will probably happen."

TrojanWire: "Miami, San Diego, San Francisco, Arizona and Houston have all courted the man, but so far no team has been able to woo him back over. ... [But now Atlanta] is supposedly offering what Pete wants most: full control of all personnel decisions for the Falcons. ... Pete has been quoted saying he'll 'never return' to the NFL, but who knows...if the conditions are right, any man has his price -- even Pete."

Scott Wolf: "About two weeks ago, I  spoke to Carroll about the Falcons job and he was not bullish on it or the organization." And later, a quote from the USC sports information department: "There's nothing going on, no reason to even talk about it." Yeah right -- "Nothing going on . . . except an interview with the Atlanta Falcons today," Wolf adds.

What happens in Vegas...

By Brendan Loy

...doesn't stay in Vegas. In fact, it could change the course of the presidential race.

Culinary Workers Local 226, the 60,000-strong union of casino and hotel workers that could hold the key to victory ni the January 19 Nevada Democratic caucuses, will announce its crucial, coveted endorsement at 2:00 PM EST today. It had been widely assumed that, out of a desire to "back the winner," Culinary would endorse Obama after his big win in New Hampshire last night. But of course, Obama didn't win New Hampshire (well, unless you're counting delegates), and now there's a lot more suspense about the union's announcement. Some sources say Obama is still likely to get the nod, but even those folks acknowledge it's not a done deal.

Whatever Culinary decides, it will have a major effect on today's media spin cycle, either boosting Hillary's newfound momentum, reviving Obama-mania, or giving Edwards an unexpected shot in the arm. The media needs a new storyline, after all; New Hampshire is so yesterday.

By the way, don't confuse the Culinary Workers with the less important SEIU Nevada chapter, which backed Obama last night. I'm sure he's very happy to have that endorsement, but in Nevada, it's the Culinary Workers union that everybody wants to have in their corner.

P.S. NRO's John Hood -- whose post has the same title as this one, though I swear I didn't see his till I'd already written mine :) -- writes: "Long ago, ... the plan was apparently for this critical union to back Edwards. ... Now, with the sentimental favorite essentially out of contention, Obama is the fall-back. This segment of the labor movement really doesn't like Hillary."

UPDATE: Politico reports that Obama is "expected" to get the Culinary endorsement.

Meanwhile, a day after the a National Review columnist hailed Hillary Clinton as an "insurgent against the liberal MSM," a Clinton adviser is joining the WTF parade by praising George W. Bush: "George Bush gets the credit [for the high turnout and interest in this election]: He has done more than anyone to get the people of this country involved again in politics. They now realize it is important who the president is." Heh. NRO praising the Clintons! The Clintons praising Bush! Cats and dogs, living together! Mass hysteria!

UPDATE 2: Obama got the nod.

Hillary Clinton did not win New Hampshire

By Brendan Loy

Nope. She tied Obama, 9-9.

In delegates, that is. Which, in case you forgot, are what actually matter.

But don't tell that to the media. It would interfere with the storyline. :)

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan notes that, if you include the pledged superdelegates, Obama won!

If the convention were held today, New Hampshire's turn in the roll call would go something like this: "Mr. Speaker, the great state of New Hampshire, the Granite State, proud home of the first-in-the-nation primary, led by our great Democratic governor, John Lynch; New Hampshire, home of the 2007 Canadian-American League champion Nashua Pride baseball team and the 2006-2007 AHL Atlantic Division champion Manchester Monarchs hockey team; New Hampshire, whose state motto 'live free or die' was once again embodied last year when we became the first state to legalize same-sex unions without a court order or a threatened court order; New Hampshire, which cast its four electoral votes for John Kerry in 2004, and will once again proudly support a Democrat for president in 2008; Mr. Speaker, New Hampshire casts 12 votes for Barack Obama, 11 votes for Hillary Clinton, and 4 votes for John Edwards!"

Is peaceful libertarian Ron Paul a wacko racist bigot?

By Joe Loy

Based on various incarnations of a Newsletter published over several decades under the freedom-loving Texas physician's name, The New Republic's James Kirchick seems to think Maybe So:

...In other words, Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point--over the course of decades--he would have done something about it.

For me at least, the TNR piece requires a slow & careful reading in order to form a Tentative opinion. There's a good deal of guileful Guilt-by-Association embedded within it; and it sure doesn't sound like the guileless old GoldStandard Freemarket Isolationist Son of Liberty we all Know & Love :).

Then again...well, Y'know: smoke, fire, & So forth. / Once again, here's the whole thing. What Say ye, gentle Peace&Freedomphiles?

The Comeback Kid, Part II

By Brendan Loy

Have I ever blogged two consecutive posts that were more spectacularly wrong than yesterday's "Ohio State will win tonight" and "When will Hillary drop out?" -- the latter of which opined, "I don't think there is any way she can beat Obama. In fact, I believe that she will not win a single primary. Obama's momentum is already unstoppable, at least by her."

Heh. Oh, waiter! One order of crow, please!

So... what the hell happened? How did Obama go from a double-digit lead to a stunning defeat in just 24 hours? Was it Hillary's tears that turned the tide? Was it the fire in her belly at the debate?

Did the race-based Bradley effect, absent in Iowa, rear its ugly head tonight? Did women voters decide they didn't want the first serious female candidate for president to go down in flames in the second primary?

Did New Hampshire's much-ballyhooed independent voters outsmart themselves -- as I pondered earlier in an Instalanched post, and as Rich Lowry subsequently pondered as well -- by voting strategically for McCain because they thought he needed their support more than that unstoppable Obama freight train did?

Or did those maverick, independent-minded Granite Staters simply overdose on the MSM's Obama-mania, and decide that they were going to do something unexpected, dammit, because this is New Hampshire, and that's what they do?

I think that last theory might be the best one. But Mark Halperin offers some more possibilities.

Anyway, Obama has conceded, and now Hillary is speaking. I thought Obama's concession speech was pretty weak compared to his victory speech five nights ago, though I did like the line about people "who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable." I'm still watching the early part of Hillary's speech as I write this (I'm a few minutes behind on the TiVo, thanks to some crying-baby drama).

I was rooting for Obama, but what the hell. From the perspective of politics-as-sport, this is great. It means both parties are going to have competitive nomination battles. Awesome. (Or, as one NRO poster put it, "We will have Hillary Clinton to kick around anymore, and I'm glad.")

P.S. Hillary wants to "end the war in Iraq the right way." I like that.

P.P.S. She praises Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Kucinih, Edwards and Obama. What about Gravel??

P.P.P.S. Speaking of crying babies, I thought this was pretty amusing: "Can I get my 5-month-old daughter photographed with every presidential candidate?" Heh.

UPDATE: "They said this day would never come!" What day, you ask? Why, of course, the day when a National Review columnist would hold up Hillary Clinton as an "insurgent against the liberal MSM," proof that "voters can stand up against an emotional 24/7 media Valentine for one candidate." Hillary Clinton, conservative hero. Heh! (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

UPDATE 2: Another theory on why Hillary did unexpectedly well: ballot order! "Prof. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University [argues that] the order of names on the New Hampshire ballot - in which, by random draw, Clinton was toward the top, Obama at the bottom - netted her about 3 percentage points more than she'd have gotten otherwise. That's not enough to explain the gap in some of the polls, which presumably randomized candidate names, but it might hold part of the answer."

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Sen. Hillary Clinton will win the New Hampshire primary after a tight race with Sen. Barack Obama, CNN projects.

Hillary still leading

By Brendan Loy

With 20 percent of the precincts reporting, it's still Clinton 40%, Obama 36%. At what point does the media start trusting the real numbers over the exit polls, and begin considering the possibility that Hillary won't just finish a closer-than-expected second, but may in fact win?

Maybe they know something I don't know about which precincts have reported, but I'm beginning to wonder.

UPDATE, 8:54 PM: With 24% reporting, now it's 40% to 34% Hillary!!

It's looking more and more like my prediction that Hillary "will not win a single primary. Obama's momentum is already unstoppable, at least by her" may join "Ohio State will win tonight" and my premature Giuliani gloating in the pantheon of embarrassingly wrong Brendan Loy predictions. But hey, at least I was right about Katrina! ;)

UPDATE, 9:02 PM: Tightening a bit now. Clinton 39%, Obama 36% with 26 percent in.

UPDATE, 9:03 PM: 40-36 with 29% in.

UPDATE, 9:21 PM: 39-36 with 38% in. Is Obama going to rally at some point?? Andrew Sullivan points out that the college towns of Durham (University of New Hampshire) and Hanover (Dartmouth College) haven't reported any results yet.

Meanwhile, I guess I was spoiled by Obama's victory speech in Iowa, but it strikes me that McCain's speech sucks. He keeps stumbling over his words and stuff. He seems tired.

UPDATE, 9:26 PM: Now 39-37 with 42% in. That's the closest it's been. Specifically, 40,090 to 37,766. Hillary by 2,324.

UPDATE, 9:30 PM: Hillary's margin down to 2,156 now. And about those college towns: CNN reports that a total of 6,000 people voted in Hanover -- 2,000 more than Hillary's campaign expected -- so the Clintonistas are worried about that. Another important college town is Salem (Southern New Hampshire University).

Aaaand now the margin is back up to 2,800. Still just 43% in.

UPDATE, 9:35 PM: Hillary's margin up to 3,024. 44% in.

UPDATE, 9:38 PM: Now 40-36 again, and a margin of 4,336, with 46% reporting.

The Boston Globe has the town-by-town results. Very useful for watching to see what happens in Durham, Hanover and Salem.

UPDATE, 9:58 PM: Salem is in, and Clinton won it, 2,867 to 1,508. But I think Salem's more than just a college town, and I may have misunderstood what the expectations were for it. Durham and Hanover are the ones CNN has been focusing on, and there are no results from them yet. Also Rindge, though it's much smaller.

Anyway, with 56% reporting, it's 39% (57,458) to 37% (53,935). Clinton by 3,523.

UPDATE, 10:03 PM: About McCain's speech, I wrote that it "sucks" before he got to the excellent war-on-terror language. Still, I'd say that his delivery sucked, even though parts of the speech itself were actually quite good.

UPDATE, 10:28 PM: Rindge is in. Again, Hillary won, 381-348.

I don't think Obama can win this. He's now trailing by almost 5,000 votes with 61% reporting, and from what CNN was saying about the number of registered voters in those college towns, I don't see how he can make it up unless he's got some other major pockets of support also outstanding (and Hillary doesn't).

A question

By Brendan Loy

Did New Hampshire's independents outsmart themselves, believing that McCain needed them more than Obama did, and thus deciding to vote Republican in greater-than-expected numbers... producing a McCain landslide and a Clinton-Obama squeaker?

P.S. Or maybe it's Diebold's fault.

UPDATE: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Much more about Hillary's stunning victory here.

Actually, though, Hillary didn't win. She tied Obama, 9-9, in the delegate count.

UPDATE 2: In comments, Jim Hu links to his analysis of the numbers, which suggests that my "independents outsmarted themselves" hypothesis doesn't fit the data. The key point is that the polls actually got Obama's percentage total about right. They just badly lowballed Clinton's total. From Real Clear Politics, you can see that Obama was expected to finish in the 35% to 40% range, and that's exactly where he was: 37%. But Clinton was expected to get around 30%, and instead she got almost 40%! The logical conclusion seems to be not that Obama's supporters voted in the wrong primary, but that Clinton overwhelmingly won the undecideds.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Sen. John McCain will win the Republican primary in New Hampshire, CNN projects.

A Clinton comeback?

By Brendan Loy

Forget exit polls, real numbers are now coming in, as the polls have already closed in much of New Hampshire -- and Hillary's ahead! Clinton leads Obama, 11,734 to 11,097. That's with 10 percent of the precincts reporting... which is not a lot, but it's not nothing, either.

These will be mostly rural precincts, if I understand New Hampshire's poll-closing schedule correctly. Not sure what that means. Is Obama stronger in the cities?

Meanwhile, McCain leads Romney 37% to 28%, also with 10 percent reporting.

UPDATE: Now, as of 8:00 PM, CNN is projecting that Edwards will come in third, with first and second place undecided between Clinton and Obama. So their exit polls do not show an Obama landslide. Sounds like Lopez's numbers were about right. I'm telling you, this "record high turnout" may have been a bunch of bunk.

UPDATE 2: NBC reports that "Obama and Clinton are in a tight race which is too close to call." Time calls it "an unexpectedly close Democratic contest." And the spin has begun: "Clinton campaign officials are suggesting that a Clinton finish of less than 8 points behind Obama would make Hillary the 'Comeback Gal.' Note that in 1992 Bill Clinton lost to Sen. Paul Tsongas by eight points as well."

UPDATE 3: CNN projects McCain wins!

UPDATE 4: It's Hillary 40%, Obama 35% (!!) with 13 percent reporting.

UPDATE 5: If I'm doing the math right, I believe CNN's exit poll, based on gender, translates to an estimate of Obama 39%, Clinton 38%.

It shows 57 percent of the electorate being women, and Hillary beating Obama by a 45% to 29% margin among them. Obama won men 44% to 36%, but only 43 percent of the voters are men.

Also, Obama won almost 50% of voters under 40 years old, but just one-third of the electorate was in that age group. Among the two-thirds of the electorate 40 and over, Hillary won 42.5% to Obama's 34%.

So maybe there really was record-high turnout -- caused by a bunch of old women rushing out to vote for Hillary. Who knew?

Meanwhile, it looks like the "youth vote" fizzled again!

UPDATE 6: Dewey defeats Truman!

McCain by 6, Obama by 4?

By Brendan Loy

Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner says "I'm hearing leaked exits that have McCain winning by six and Obama by 4. But I'm skeptical—polls aren't closed, etc. Meaningless." And she adds in an update, quoting from a friend's e-mail, "turnout numbers suggest these exits could be even more unreliable than their usual unreliability. they depend on accurate turnout modeling."

On the other hand, do we actually know that the turnout numbers will reach the much-hyped "record highs"? As I mentioned earlier, "Poll workers and election officials are often overly excitable when it comes to turnout projections (presidential elections only happen every four years, so it's easy to forget how much higher the turnout always is than in other elections)." The fact that some New Hampshire cities are running out of ballots could mean the turnout is "epic" -- or it could mean that New Hampshire's local election officials were sleeping on the job.

For what it's worth, The Page reports that ABC's exit-poll analysis shows that "independents are voting in 'substantial but customary numbers,' and so far there’s a spike in older voters, but not younger ones (though they tend to vote later)."

In any event, whatever the turnout, I agree with Lopez that the individual candidate exit-poll numbers ought not be trusted; remember "President Kerry." But if -- if -- Obama were to win by only 4 points, the "expectations game" would label that a win for Hillary, no?

UPDATE: Mark Steyn advises Lopez to "pay no attention to" the exit-poll numbers. "Nobody's started counting. And I find it hard to believe the various town offices that have had to order up extra Democratic ballots are doing it because Obama's going to eke out a four-point victory."

On the latter point, I just want to reiterate that we don't know what the turnout is, or for that matter, what the "extra ballots" mean. They could very well mean that a bunch of polling-place workers, who were expecting a high turnout after Iowa, saw a normal turnout and overreacted to it (as polling-place workers are prone to do in presidential elections), panicked, called the secretary of state, and said, "TURNOUT IS HIGH!! WE NEED MORE BALLOTS!!" In other words, the fact that extra ballots were requested in the early afternoon doesn't necessarily mean they were actually needed.

Look, I'm not predicting a lower-than-expected turnout (or a smaller-than-expected Obama margin), I'm just saying that neither would be altogether stunning. Stranger things have most definitely happened. Turnout isn't a perception, it isn't a feeling, it's a number, and it's notoriously difficult to come close to pinpointing that number based on people's armchair estimates at midday.

Obama vs. McCain

By Brendan Loy

No, the title of this post isn't a general-election prediction (though it wouldn't be a bad one). It's a description of the all-important battle for New Hampshire's independent voters today. But NRO's Jim Geraghty thinks it's a battle both men can win:

In the final days before the New Hampshire presidential primary, the million-dollar question appears to be “will Independents vote for John McCain in the Republican primary or Barack Obama in the Democratic primary?”

The answer is likely to be that there are enough Independents — or “registered undeclared” —  to give each candidate what they need.

I hope so. We shall see.

By the way, if you're looking for early exit-poll results this afternoon, past experience suggests that you should check Drudge, The Corner and Wonkette. Remember, however, that past experience also suggests that such poll numbers are notoriously unreliable; just ask President Kerry.

Other sites to check, not necessarily for exit polls, but for frequently updated political news, commentary, and links: Mark Halperin's The Page, MSNBC's First Read, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, National Journal's Hotline On Call, and The Politico. (Do you have other suggestions for this list? Leave 'em in comments!)

UPDATE: According to Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com, "we are unlikely to see any...leaked [exit poll] results until moments before the polls close." D'oh! (Hat tip: TNR's The Plank.) Halperin appears to confirm this.

UPDATE 2: Drudge has a siren up: "EPIC TURNOUT FOR DEMS -- We Are Out of Ballots!" He elaborates:

Secretary of State is making runs to Seacoast – Hampton, Portsmouth – and Southern Hillsborough – Pelham, Nashua – to bring extra democratic ballots. Many towns are reporting shortages... Developing...

Poll workers and election officials are often overly excitable when it comes to turnout projections (presidential elections only happen every four years, so it's easy to forget how much higher the turnout always is than in other elections), but if the turnout is truly "epic," that's excellent news for Obama. More here.

UPDATE 3: Heh:

Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani ran into each other outside the Brookside Congregational Church in Manchester, where Huckabee immediately asked the former New York mayor for his vote. “We get along beautifully on the trail," the former Arkansas governor said. "No animosity."

Say what you will about his policies, but by all accounts, Huckabee's a funny guy.

Three plays away

By Brendan Loy

If LenDale White gets a first down on that 4th-and-2 against Texas, if John David Booty doesn't throw an interception with 1:10 left against UCLA, and if Stanford's Tavita Pritchard doesn't complete that 4th-and-goal prayer from the 10 (or the 4th-and-20 moments before), USC is celebrating its fifth consecutive national championship right now.

I know: if, if, if. And throw in two more "ifs," because I'm assuming the Trojans would have beaten Ohio State in the title game the last two years, if they'd made it in (though that seems like a pretty reasonable assumption). Still, it's pretty incredible to contemplate how close 'SC has come to a dynasty like no other.

Ah well. Next year. BEAT THE CAVALIERS!!

I for one welcome our new SEC overlords

By Brendan Loy

Well, not really. But with LSU #1 and Georgia #2 in the final AP poll (just as I predicted), it's sort of inescapable. The drumbeat of SEC chest-beating will be unavoidable between now and next September. OMG BEST CONFERENCE EVAR!1!!

By the way, LSU was not a unanimous #1 -- second-ranked Georgia got 3 first-place votes, third-ranked USC got 1, and seventh-ranked Kansas got 1 -- but this wasn't even close to being a split championship. (Again, just as I predicted.) LSU finished with 60 first-place votes and 1,620 points overall. Georgia got 1,515 points; USC, 1,500.

Of course, as David mentioned yesterday, I'm sure LSU will graciously refuse to accept the Associated Press championship trophy. ;)

After the Tigers, Bulldogs and Trojans comes a tight battle for #4, which Missouri eked out with 1,347 points -- one more point than #5 Ohio State (1,346) and five more than #6 West Virginia (1,342). A bit further behind is Kansas, one of just two one-loss teams in the nation (the other being #19 Hawaii), with 1,303 points.

Rounding out the AP Top 15: #8 Oklahoma, #9 Virginia Tech, #10 Texas and Boston College (tied), #12 Tennessee, #13 Florida, #14 BYU and #15 Auburn. For those keeping score at home, that's five SEC teams in the Top 15. Please shoot me now. ... Of course, if you look at their records, you'll note that Tennessee, Florida and Auburn are the only four-loss teams ranked above #18, which is further evidence of the Kreutz Theorem ("when [pollsters] rank SEC teams, they automatically subtract a loss from their record"). Heh.

Michigan, if you're wondering, finished #18, the highest-ranked non-SEC four-loss team. Who can honestly say they saw that coming back in September? Oh, and Appalachian State got 5 votes, effectively tying them for 34th place with South Florida. HOT! HOT! HOT!

Anyway, on a more serious note: congratulations to the LSU Tigers! Whatever we may think of the BCS, the Bayou Bengals deserve credit for surviving this most turbulent of college-football seasons and earning, at last, an undisputed national championship... sort of. :) Well done, guys. Way to geaux.

P.S. This is the first time two teams from the same conference have finished the season ranked #1 and #2 in the AP poll since 1971, when the top two were #1 Nebraska and #2 Oklahoma of the Big Eight. (And it didn't stop there. Fellow conference-mate Colorado was #3!)

UPDATE: In the final USA Today coaches poll, USC edged Geogria for the #2 spot, 1,380 points to 1,370, and Ohio State headily beat Missouri for the #4 spot, 1,287 to 1,241, with West Virginia close behind Mizzou at 1,239, and Kansas at 1,217. Unlike in 2003, there were no dissenters from the contractually obligatory coronation of LSU as the #1 team.

UPDATE 2: As long as we're talking rankings, Stewart Mandel has posted his preseason Top 10 for 2008. Of course, much depends on various juniors' stay-or-go-pro decisions. But provisionally, he has Georgia at #1, Ohio State #2, Oklahoma #3, USC #4 and Missouri #5. LSU, which he says "will be hit harder by graduation than any of the other top teams from 2007," is #9.

The comeback kid: Romney?

By Brendan Loy

Mitt Romney is a flip-flopping, pandering idiot. (Hat tip: Sully.)

But he may yet win New Hampshire. It seems Mitt is mounting a rally.

If he does win, I guess we can put to rest the notion that Granite Staters have some special talent for spotting a "phony" by "ask[ing] tough questions and see[ing] through the baloney." (Though perhaps John Kerry's win on the Dem side in 2004 should already have debunked that notion.)

Anyway... predictions? Let's see. Here are mine: On the Dem side, Obama 41%, Clinton 27%, Edwards 21%, others 11%. And on the GOP side, Romney 32%, McCain 31%, Huckabee 16%, Giuliani 7%, Paul 7%, Thompson 5%, others 2%. (There are a whole lot of "others" to choose from.) Of course, I haven't been doing too well with predictions lately, so take those with several grains of salt... and, with regard to Romney, I fervently hope I'm wrong...

Putting the "student" back in "student athlete"?

By JLR

In yesterday's Washington Post, there was a decent article examining