I'm not putting forth my best effort this Sweeps season, it would appear. School ended and I found myself separated from my computer, and a curious thing happened: I realized all the blogging, anonymous tipstering to gossip sites, watching of 30 Rock I was doing between JSTOR and Lexis research was sustainable so long as there was some sort of other task to avoid. If I sat at my computer for seven hours, working on a paper, I could steal away to the blog or to my favorite bit-terrorist site now and again, and all would be right with the world. Now, as I wait for bar prep classes to start on Wednesday--with no reason even to turn on my laptop--I find myself going whole days without checking email. I've been reading and riding my bike around a newly resplendent A2. I went to the Arboretum and got lost. I ate at Zingerman's twice this week. I guess the old Powerbook and I just needed some time apart, and I needed to remember what people did with themselves pre-mid-1990's...Now onto the post:
Everyone has noticed how the presidential election season seems to have started earlier this time around than in years past. It's like your local mall festooning the rafters with faux snow and over-sized, plastic candy canes in October. In the last few weeks in fact, there've been three debates--one Democratic, two Republican (torturepalooza?)--and we're still, what, almost seven months from the Iowa Caucuses. There is an obvious point to be made here: in that span of time McCain's face might disintegrate or American politics' George Foreman, Al Gore, might jump in the ring--that is, anything can happen--so why all the attention being lavished on the front-runners? At this time in 2004 (in fact, even deeper into the season) Howard Dean was the Democratic front-runner and Wesley Clark was getting a whole lot of buzz; In 1992 Paul Tsongas was steam-rolling his way to the nomination. In 2004, Kerry pulled out a miraculous victory in Iowa and Dean found himself in a very special Brady Bunch episode; in '92, Iowa was irrelevant (because native son Tom Harkin won it with 76% of the vote) and Tsongas pulled out New Hampshire, but Bill Clinton schooled him down the road.
All I'm saying is this race isn't Hillary v. Obama/Bobblehead v. McMeltyface. After his robust showing there in 2004, John Edwards is winning nearly every single poll conducted in Iowa over the last few months, and has South Carolina locked down. He knows how the primaries work. Who cares about the national polls that put him in third? Romney's got a machine in place in New Hampshire, and New England pride being what it is, is winning nearly every recent poll in the granite state. Who cares if nationally he's polling behind Jowly McDistrictattorney? In the absence of any incumbents, there's no such thing as a front-runner eighteen months before the election, and if you think this election's going to be Hilary vs. some cross-dressing abortionist cousin-defiler, you may be right, but you're flying in the face of the last twenty years of American presidential electioneering-- speaking of which, check out Bill Richardson:
1 comment:
where's his poncho?
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