What Stood Out This Week - 1/6-1/12

It was my first full week back in the US, after what now seems to be a brief holiday respite. So let's see What Stood Out...

Barack Obama took his enormous momentum to New Hampshire where Hillary Clinton (who sort-of-cried) beat him. Oh, yes, dear B&E readers, they're BOTH underdogs, and don't let them tell you different. But of course they won't.

John Edwards was a distant third, and all three front-runners declare: On to South Carolina! Bill Richardson declared: To hell with this and all of you! I'm outta here!

Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are the other candidates left in the Democratic race, but if it were up to ABC you'd never know that. Shame on ABC for deciding who could participate. The voters deserve to hear all points-of-view, and not the ones cherry-picked by a giant media conglomerate. Time was, candidates had real time to build up grassroots support. ABC is making sure that can't happen. In my more prolific blogging days I suspect that ABC would've been a Dickhead of the Week.

John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama this week, just in time to suck all the charisma out of Obama's campaign.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney came in second. Again. Poor Mitt: always the bridegroom, never the bride. The middle-class chip on my shoulder loves seeing a pompous rich dude's multi-million dollar public failings.

So I guess it's the Return of John McCain (or "Mac is Back" as his supporters like to chant). Right now, it's a Huckabee, McCain, Romney race. I gotta hand it to the Republican primary voters: As narrow as the field of candidates is over there in the Republican camp, the support is really going across that cute little spectrum.

But what about Rudy Giuliani? National front runner still? Who knows? He can't finish better than a distant fourth so far. He's putting all his cards into the Florida/Super Tuesday basket, and voters seem to be forgetting about him. I have no fond feelings for Rudy, so this is good news for our country. The sooner he's forgotten the better.

Oh, and the latest bit of news out of the Giuliani camp is that much of his senior staff will be forgoing paychecks for the time being. This says a couple of things: 1) Rudy's got some money problems; 2) Rudy's senior staffers are a bunch of rich bastards.

Here's a good hearsay story from a colleague at work... Early in Rudy's career, before he was NYC mayor or even US Attorney, when he was just a district attorney, his ambitions were very clear. They used to joke at the time, "Rudy Giuliani is the only person on the planet for whom the presidency would be a stepping stone." A stepping stone to what, you might ask. Ruler of the Western Hemisphere? Emperor of the World? God?

Seriously, dear B&E readers, if he doesn't already, Rudy Giuliani should scare the living bejesus out of every single one of you.

Boy, one week I sure hope that What Stands Out is Rudy Giuliani's disappearance from this race. I really dislike that guy.

Anyway, that's What Stood Out This Week!