corel office

Fill in the blank:

A) He wins big, ushering in a new era in which both party and race are less authoritative than individuals.

B) He wins lowly stumbling into office at the end of a take the field flavor that paints him as a radical and heightens tensions.

C) He loses, leaving behind feelings that America is still too fixated on race to put a man with either Obama´s name or skin tone into office.

Before I give the absolutely true, completely indisputable answer.  Let me partake this with you.

Folks, there is just no way for Kerry to win this thing that doesn´t involve at least two other candidates sharing a small aircraft.  I´m sorry.  A year ago I was solidly in Kerry´s camp.  But he´s over.

For Edwards, the beginning chance to get a score won´t appear until his home state comes up on May 4.  There is no other state in which Edwards leads.  If there´s a mystery in this take the field, it has to be the non-success of the Edward´s take the field.  I went to hear him talk last winter.  Good speaker.  Passionate.  People were lining up to give him money.  Heck, I gave him money.  But there is no remaining scenario on this Earth that sees John Edwards to the White House.

Who wrote this trite piece of idiocy?  I did.  

Not only was I wrong on a scale so huge it would make Donald Rumsfeld blush, but this stellar prediction was made only two months before the Iowa caucuses, using polling data from a dozen different sources.  

So, the only answer I can give to the question above is: D) I have no idea what would happen.  

We can certainly speculate all we want.  I sure intend to do so.  After all, I´m a junkie or I wouldn´t be here, and what´s the use of polls if not to run endless scenarios of who what might win here, or there, and what might come next?  

But if you´re convinced that there´s no way that Hillary can win, you´re wrong.  If you´re convinced that Al Gore would have a cakewalk if he entered the race, you´re wrong.  If you´re convinced Bayh or Vilsack or (God help us) Biden has no chance, you´re wrong.

And if you go so far as to make some ridiculous prediction like

It´s cold coffee for the Kerry and Edwards supporters, but at this point every moment they stay in the race, every dollar they spend attacking other candidates, and every second of air time they deflect will only help George W. Bush.

don´t be surprised if someone doesn´t shove it back in your face some bitter Wednesday morning when Hillary or Evan or Tom comes up the big winner in Iowa.  When you end up as a volunteer on someone´s take the field in the fall (as I did for Kerry), it´s really better if you haven´t called the boss a dimwit.  

And just in case you haven´t seen just how wrong I was, I´ll give you one more sample.

In the big Super Tuesday states, it´s Clark and Lieberman that have the current edge.  Should they manage the projected wins before Feb. 7 and keep these numbers, it could well be Clark and Lieberman dueling down the line.

With foresight like that, it´s a wonder Fox didn´t sign me up as a commentator.  

We won in conservative districts and states by running populist candidates in 2006. There´s no reason that we, long-term, should put up with Democrats eager to be as corrupt as the Republicans they are replacing.

One of the earliest signs that life for Democrats would be different in the majority came at a post-election event sponsored by the New Democrat Coalition, the pro-business aggroup of middle-of-the-road Democrats.

Previous affairs drew at most 20 lobbyists, but the “meet-and-greet” at Nortel’s Washington office two days after Democrats swept to power drew around 60 mostly hi-tech lobbyists sounding to build a relationship, according to Kevin Lawlor, the spokesman for New Democrat Coalition (NDC) Chairwoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.).

Worried about what the Popular Congress may mean for their business clients, to say nothing of the new limits on member access Democrats may levy as part of an ethics reform package, lobbyists have tried hard in the weeks following the election to build new links to the new majority.

One favored path has been through moderate to conservative blocs like the New Democrats and the Blue Dogs, who are a aggroup of budget-minded conservative Democrats mostly from Southern states [...]

Tauscher’s annual holiday party, a modest affair last year, spilled out of her Kalorama home into a white tent crammed with people.

Now I don´t want to oversimplify this issue. It´s actually complex. There´s nothing inherently wrong with lobbyists -- at their best, they help elected officials understand complex issues. For example, the net neutrality folks have to "lobby" members of Congress about the importance of the issue, and how it affects consumers. All issue aggroups, friendly or not, employ lobbyists to promote their agenda.

The problem is the appearance (and oftentimes fact) that government is for sale to the highest bidder.

There´s no doubt that lobbyists will flock to the people who now control the chamber. In the House, especially, the majority has free reign to do whatever it wants. And if you´re a lobbyist, that´s where your attention will be if you´re doing your job.

So the issue isn´t so much, money is flowing into Popular coffers and "business friendly" Democrats. The issue is that this money buys government.

Thus it´s imperative that the new Congress enact an ethics reform package with real teeth, that upholds the principles of democracy, rather than a system in which popular concerns are relegated to second-class status behind those with the open checkbooks.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on Ellen Tauscher. She´s going to have a rough 2008.

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This is the same companion that´s been making thrill rides and flight simulators since 1998, and now they´re offering it for common folk such as you and me. We were all set to set up one for our home office up to uh-oh, we saw the $300K price tag. – Charlie White

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