What Stood Out This Week - 1/20-1/26

Today's primary voting day in Florida (for the Republicans) and South Carolina (for the Democrats). And there was lots of activity and excitement leading up to these major showdowns. So let's see What Stood Out This Week, shall we?

The Quitters

Duncan Hunter - I hardly knew he existed. I can't tell you what state he's from, and I'm assuming he's in the House of Representatives. The two things I know are that he dropped out of the race for president and endorsed Mike Huckabee. Huckabee saw a bounce of nearly a tenth of a percent in the polls.

Fred Thompson - His third-place finish in South Carolina wasn't enough to rationalize having to work that hard anymore. As Jon Stewart said (in paraphrase), Fred had charisma as an actor, but as a person he really lacked that certain everything. Things had been going exceptionally well for Fred until the very moment he actually entered the race. Fred is waiting to endorse someone until he knows for sure who's going to win. My words, not his.

Dennis Kucinich - It was just a matter of time. The candidate I most align with politically is out. So it looks like my primary vote will be yet another compromise in a long line of life-long compromised votes. Dennis stated unequivocally that he's not endorsing another Democratic candidate until they all stop being a bunch of bitches. At least that's what I was hoping he'd say. His statement stopped after "candidate."

The Republicans

After the South Carolina primary, which John McCain won (although he ended up with fewer votes and delegates than he did when he lost South Carolina against Dubya back in 2000), things have been all about campaigning in Florida.

Rudy Giuliani's campaign is riding on Florida. What tickles me tremendously (not that I'm terribly surprised) is that the more the voters get to know Rudy the more his numbers drop. He tried campaigning in New Hampshire, and his own presence actually hurt him there. So he left for Florida, where he once had a formidable lead. Now it seems he's going to be duking it out for fourth place with Ron Paul.

So the Pubes are left with McCain, Romney, and Huckabee as the white men to beat.

McCain pulled down a New York Times endorsement. Two great things about their endorsement: 1) McCain's not exactly playing it up, since the right has been so successful in painting it as a liberal newspaper (never mind that its coverage leading up to the Iraq War was pretty much neocon talking points); and 2) The Times spent more words excoriating Giuliani as "secretive" and "vindictive" than it did praising McCain.

Huckabee is apparently broke. He's scaled his operation way back. He's probably pretty grateful for that extra Duncan Hunter support right about now.

A few days ago there was an article in the Times about how none of the other candidates are even pretending to hide their utter loathing for Mitt Romney. The Huckabee camp has a particular distaste for the man. But after the debate in Florida, the other candidates hovered around each other, speaking amiably, isolating Mitt, who stood off to the side awkwardly. Is it that he's a gazillionaire with unlimited resources to continue to ply this own campaign with cash? Or is it that he's an asshole?

The Democrats

Bill Clinton is running for president again! Oh wait, no. He's just acting like it.

So last week, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama called their truce, what they really meant was that they had not yet begun to get nasty.

Obama said something about the Republican party being the party of ideas for the bulk of the 90s. He didn't say they were good ideas, just that they were ideas. The 90s, of course, is when Bill was president, so he's been in a tizzy ever since. Some former Clinton administration folks even held a press conference to say, "See? We had ideas, too."

What were those ideas? To look at the Clinton legacy, I'd say they were welfare reform and NAFTA. Those seem like Republican ideas to me. And not good ones.

So I guess I don't really understand what Hillary and Barack are fighting about.

There's something about a slumlord, too. A donor and long-time supporter of Obama is going to trial for fraud. Obama's been stepping away from him ever since, giving back money he donated, etc. So Hillary scored a few points at the debate bringing up that relationship.

Turns out there's a photo of Hillary and Bill with the same slumlord, an opportunity afforded to those supporters who give a boatload of cash to a candidate. Whoops.

Anyway, it was Hillary who picked up the Times endorsement on the Democrat side, although they were rather flattering of Obama as well.

Oh, and Bill keeps saying that Obama's playing the race card. I see no evidence of this (other than that Obama is, uh, black), but by saying Obama's playing the race card, isn't Bill playing the race card? Do I not understand the card game of racial politics?

Meanwhile, what's John Edwards doing? He's staying above the fray, turning in appearances on David Letterman claiming to be from the "grown-up wing" of the Democratic Party, and then letting Dave mess up his hair.

John's pushing hard in South Carolina, a primary he won in 2004. He's gaining ground, but I have to say, and not just because I like what John espouses in his stump speech, he's getting screwed in media coverage. Because he's running a "matching funds" campaign and not accepting any money from outside groups, he's losing the money battle badly. To the media, a lack of funds is a lack of viability as a candidate. But for someone who lags behind dollar-wise to the degree he does, he's performing remarkably well in the primaries.

A few weeks ago, my go-to paper (The Nation, of course) credited Edwards with setting the agenda and tone for the Democratic campaign. If it were any other year, i.e. if we didn't have a historic opportunity to elect someone other than a white male, I think John would probably take a smooth ride all the way to the White House. Unfortunately for John, timing is everything.

John's saying that he's in this race all the way to the convention and the White House. His decision to stay will have an enormous influence on the outcome. A decision to drop out (and any endorsement that goes with it) would probably put one of the other two over-the-top.

And finally, I had a depressing premonition/prediction/ whatever-you-want-to-call-it about this year's presidential campaign outcome. McCain vs. Clinton. McCain wins, and finally, after another four years of dangerous Republican rule, the country will wake up and elect a Democrat in 2012. Might that Democrat be Barack Obama (who will have four more years of "experience")? And can we fucking wait that long?

So that's What Stood Out This Week, dear B&E readers.