What Stood Out This Week - 2/17-2/23

Well, this primary election season just keeps going and going, doesn't it, dear B&E readers? Let's see What Stood Out This Week...

The Quitters

John Edwards hosted a secret meeting with Barack Obama. It was so secret the entire country heard about it on network television. John's still not endorsed anyone.

Mitt Romney must be considering unsuspending his campaign for presidency (and unendorsing John McCain), what with McCain's trouble this week (see below). Mitt wasn't actually in the news this week, but I like to remind people that Mitt lost. Heh. Plus, if Mitt changes his mind and picks up his campaign again, it would actually be perfectly in character for a formerly pro-choice, pro-gay, now anti-choice, anti-gay hate-monger. As Jon Stewart once said, Romney's "a fucking shape-shifter."

The Republicans

Oh, John McCain. You had a rough week, my friend. The New York Times reported that John may have had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist. Any kind of extramarital affair is only implied, with some of his aides wondering if something bigger was going on. And yet, that seemed to be the news. The important part of the story is that he may have done favors for the (blond, hot, younger) lobbyist. A man with a reputation for being anti-lobbyist did favors for a lobbyist. But for his campaign to focus their response on the "affair" part of the story is actually pretty brilliant. It distracts from the lobbyist influence part.

Apparently, a few folks have been hitting the New York Times for holding onto this story until now. I haven't read too much about that part of things, but back when McCain's campaign was a dead puppy, apparently the Times could've kicked it and didn't. Again, how pissed must Mitt be? Heh.

Huckabee's still around and running. He refused to comment on the McCain story beyond saying that McCain's a stand-up guy that he trusts. Is this guy running for Vice President now, or what?

That's all I can remember about the Pubes.

The Democrats

Barack Obama's winning streak continues. He's up to 11 contests in a row, I think, which may or may not include the Americans Abroad group, which is something I'd never heard of until this week.

As I wrote earlier in the week, if Obama had lost more than ten contests in a row, the Clinton campaign (and the entire Democratic Party) would've probably forced him to quit by now. As it is, Hillary soldiers on. She is, after all, a Clinton.

They debated, and Hillary got in a (scripted) zinger about "change you can Xerox," which served up a little applause and a smattering of boos. Maybe I don't understand the everyday person, but is accusing someone of plagiarism the way to victory? Don't they both have speech writers who come up with the words they say? Someone in the Hillary campaign came up with "change you can Xerox," and it was very unlikely Hillary. So I really don't understand why this is her approach to victory.

Meanwhile, the campaign itself is promoting her final moment in the debate (I got an email with the video from Terry McAuliffe, one of my least favorite Democrats of all time) in which she gets all soft and sincere about being honored to share the stage with Obama. I didn't watch the debate, but we seem to be getting into abusive spouse territory here. "You're a fucking idiot! I love you!"

Some speculate that her graciousness at the end is her way of hinting that her time as a candidate is almost over. She denies that, and I believe her. Of course she's forging on to Texas and Ohio.

Polls in those states have Obama catching up. She still has the lead, but that lead used to be bigger. And we've still got a full week of campaigning to go before those contests. So that won't get tiresome at all.

And that's What Stood Out This Week.