Watching the New Hampshire primary coverage…. Ron Paul knows he can’t win, so instead of blathering nonsense about how hard his people worked in his “concession” speech, he’s actually using the forum to talk about issues.
Either I’m nuts or it’s the libertarian in me or both, but I like the dude….
We had an interesting conversation in the office today about the impact of Hillary Clinton’s Monday “crying,” incident. Some thought Hillary was now finished. Some thought she’d be much more damaged by it than a man would have been. I thought she was far from finished, and the crying thing would help her in a way that it certainly, absolutely would never help a man.
Hate to say I told you so… I’m not a Hillary fan and I’m far from convinced she’s electable, but she kicked ass tonight, and in doing so came closer than ever to looking presidential.
As for “the horse race”: Is there a bigger fraud in American life than opinion polling? If there is, it’s media political analysis. Recall that four years and one day ago, respected pundits were advising John Kerry to give it up already and speculating on what the Bush-Dean debates would be like.
There was just an amazing exchange on MSNBC in which Tom Brokaw (I’m paraphrasing) said maybe we should all just shut up and let the voters sort it out themselves. Then the dolt Chris Matthews asked what, if that was the deal, we (the political punditocracy) should do for the next few months.
Brokaw said maybe we could talk about the actual job of being president (duh). Matthews then blubbered, but, but… what about the universities in this country whose reputations are dependent on their polling organizations?
Swear to God, I’m not making that up.
And now Tim Russert, who at his worst makes Chris Matthews look like Edward R. Murrow, has just called tonight, “One of the greatest upsets in American political history.” We’re not even in second quarter of the game yet, you stooges.
I get frustrated with the sports media, but any self-respecting sportswriter would be ashamed of the level of analysis that goes on in political reporting.
Of course, in the sports department, if a journalist gets everything wrong he gets blasted from all angles. If a political analyst gets everything wrong, the New York Times gives him a column.
