Tim Russert was a great guy and my favorite journalist, but the coverage is almost rising to Princess Di levels. I think Tim would appreciate being missed but would get a little embarrassed after a while.
----
Intrade.com has updated their betting to include more candidate options for Vice-President.
DEMOCRAT VP NOMINEE
1. James Webb - 20.1%
2. Kathleen Sebelius - 10.5%
3. Hillary Clinton - 10%
4. Claire McCaskill - 8.5%
5. Tim Kaine - 8.1%
6. Ed Rendell - 7.7%
7. Chuck Hagel - 6%
8. Joseph Biden - 5.2%
9. Al Gore - 5%
10. Wesley Clark - 4.9%
I haven't seen Sebelius or McCaskill speak lately, but Webb and Kaine have made good cases for themselves. I imagine Hillary's going to drop in the weeks ahead. I think it would require some major blackmail to get her on that ticket.
REPUBLICAN VP NOMINEE
1. Mitt Romney - 18%
2. Charlie Crist - 15.6%
3. Tim Pawlenty - 15.1%
4. Mike Huckabee - 11%
5. Sarah Palin - 10.5%
6. Bobby Jindal - 10%
7. Rob Portman - 6.8%
8. Joe Lieberman - 5.5%
9. Eric Cantor - 5%
10. Carly Fiorina - 4.5%
Hm, if he goes with Romney he shores up some of his base but loses some independents. If he goes with Crist, he keeps those independents but loses some of his base. Overall I think Crist would be a decent choice. I saw Pawlenty on one of those Sunday news shows recently and he was fine, but nothing special. I'd be curious to hear more from Palin and Jindal.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Who can do Meet the Press?
So who should NBC appoint to host Meet the Press? It'll be a tough job for anyone replacing Tim Russert, who may just have been the best, most respected journalist on TV. Let's look at the candidates, assuming they're looking in-house.
1. TOM BROKAW - This would be a temporary gravitas sub. Do it for six months or a year until the real successor is found. He had respect and credibility. But this is a short-term solution.
2. BRIAN WILLIAMS - He's the nightly news anchor, but if Bob Schieffer could do double-duty, so could he. Williams has come into his own in prime-time, he's done well with the debates he's moderated, and he can ask the follow-up questions.
3. DAVID GREGORY - He's the most logical choice. He has his own afternoon MSNBC show, he's demonstrated to be a tough White House reporter in recent years, and he knows how to wear different coats, having guest-hosted everything from Meet the Press to The Today Show. It would take him a few months to get his groove on a full-time basis.
4. CHUCK TODD - After Russert, he's probably the smartest political mind of NBC's staff. But would he want to take center-stage? He seems to be happy as the guy they bring on as an expert.
5. ANDREA MITCHELL - She's been in the trenches like Gregory, but she doesn't seem to have the same grilling instincts he does.
6. CHRIS MATTHEWS - Matthews wears his heart on his sleeve and seems more comfortable talking about how the issues make him feel, as he often does on Hardball or The Chris Matthews Show, than to swtich to being objective/impartial.
7. A NEWSWEEK PERSON - NBC & Newsweek are married, so maybe a Newsweek guy makes sense. Jon Meacham is the editor and Howard Fineman is the Chief Washignton correspondent. The diamond in this rough, methinks, would be Fareed Zakaria.
8. JOE SCARBOROUGH & KEITH OLBERMANN - These are other names I've seen floated, but they'd kill the Meet the Press brand. Joe Scarborough could probably tone down his partisanship but why would he want to? He's also a former GOP congressman, so it's take him awhile to establish credibility as an objective interrogator. Olbermann enjoys his soapbox and daily John McCain attacks too much on Countdown, and he would never get credibility. Russert loved politics and the political game. After reading good chunks from two of his books, I believe Olbermann loves being mad as hell and not taking it anymore. From anyone on the right.
Before Russert, the show had a moderator, and then questioning reporters. Russert demonstrated quickly he didn't need any help and went from moderator to prosecutor. But he did it in a way that was fair, he did with a smile, and it was a badge of honor to survive his show.
1. TOM BROKAW - This would be a temporary gravitas sub. Do it for six months or a year until the real successor is found. He had respect and credibility. But this is a short-term solution.
2. BRIAN WILLIAMS - He's the nightly news anchor, but if Bob Schieffer could do double-duty, so could he. Williams has come into his own in prime-time, he's done well with the debates he's moderated, and he can ask the follow-up questions.
3. DAVID GREGORY - He's the most logical choice. He has his own afternoon MSNBC show, he's demonstrated to be a tough White House reporter in recent years, and he knows how to wear different coats, having guest-hosted everything from Meet the Press to The Today Show. It would take him a few months to get his groove on a full-time basis.
4. CHUCK TODD - After Russert, he's probably the smartest political mind of NBC's staff. But would he want to take center-stage? He seems to be happy as the guy they bring on as an expert.
5. ANDREA MITCHELL - She's been in the trenches like Gregory, but she doesn't seem to have the same grilling instincts he does.
6. CHRIS MATTHEWS - Matthews wears his heart on his sleeve and seems more comfortable talking about how the issues make him feel, as he often does on Hardball or The Chris Matthews Show, than to swtich to being objective/impartial.
7. A NEWSWEEK PERSON - NBC & Newsweek are married, so maybe a Newsweek guy makes sense. Jon Meacham is the editor and Howard Fineman is the Chief Washignton correspondent. The diamond in this rough, methinks, would be Fareed Zakaria.
8. JOE SCARBOROUGH & KEITH OLBERMANN - These are other names I've seen floated, but they'd kill the Meet the Press brand. Joe Scarborough could probably tone down his partisanship but why would he want to? He's also a former GOP congressman, so it's take him awhile to establish credibility as an objective interrogator. Olbermann enjoys his soapbox and daily John McCain attacks too much on Countdown, and he would never get credibility. Russert loved politics and the political game. After reading good chunks from two of his books, I believe Olbermann loves being mad as hell and not taking it anymore. From anyone on the right.
Before Russert, the show had a moderator, and then questioning reporters. Russert demonstrated quickly he didn't need any help and went from moderator to prosecutor. But he did it in a way that was fair, he did with a smile, and it was a badge of honor to survive his show.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Pros & Cons of Obama & McCain
PRO's & CON's of Pres. Barack Obama
PRO
1. Instant slight improvement in world standing with most countries.
2. A president who can speak, and speak well.
3. Definite change from the past eight years.
4. Middle-class tax breaks.
5. The first White House since Carter with no Bush or Clinton in there.
6. Pres. Hillary Clinton will never happen.
7. Not a baby boomer.
CON
1. Democratic president and Democratic congress. When is the last time it was a good thing to have the White House and Congress be of the same party? 1964?
2. Taxing US oil companies while refusing to let them drill is not going to result in cheaper gas.
3. If he didn't like John Roberts, what kind of judges would he nominate for the Supreme Court?
4. Left his church over political pressure. Can you picture Joe Biden or Mitt Romney doing that? (If you can, you're more cynical than me.)
5. What will MSNBC (aka The Anti-McCain Channel) do with their time?
---
PRO's & CON's of Pres. John McCain
PRO
1. A war hero in the White House.
2. Presidents with wartime experience (George HW Bush, Dwight Eisenhower) are less likely to get us into long, protracted wars.
3. McCain has a real record of willingness to work with Democrats, which really does give him stuff in common with Reagan besides age.
4. McCain's determined to cut spending, whereas Bush got the GOP-led Congress to help him set records on increased spending and an increased deficit.
5. Bush tax-cuts won't expire.
6. Even though he can't raise his arms above his shoulders, Hugo Chavez would not want to be left alone in a room with him.
7. Experience.
CON
1. McCain's bought into Al Gore's global warming scare, which means America won't be emerging from the energy crisis anytime soon.
2. His age essentially makes him a lame duck president from the get-go.
3. He can do town-hall meetings but he can't read a speech to save his life.
4. His campaign-finance reform only gave birth to the 527's and made money even more important to political campaigns.
5. What will Fox News (aka The Anti-Obama Channel) do with their time?
----
PRO's & CON's of Either One
PRO
1. They'll both turn the page on the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove view of the world.
2. No preemptive-strike happy VP being the secret string-puller.
3. Both expressed desire for bipartisan compromise and cooperation.
CON
1. Neither has a good solution for the energy crisis.
2. Neither one has the authority to bring back Celebrity Boxing and make the talking heads of cable news be the contestants. (O'Reilly vs. Olbermann! Greta vs. Gloria! Anderson Cooper vs. Shepard Smith!)
PRO
1. Instant slight improvement in world standing with most countries.
2. A president who can speak, and speak well.
3. Definite change from the past eight years.
4. Middle-class tax breaks.
5. The first White House since Carter with no Bush or Clinton in there.
6. Pres. Hillary Clinton will never happen.
7. Not a baby boomer.
CON
1. Democratic president and Democratic congress. When is the last time it was a good thing to have the White House and Congress be of the same party? 1964?
2. Taxing US oil companies while refusing to let them drill is not going to result in cheaper gas.
3. If he didn't like John Roberts, what kind of judges would he nominate for the Supreme Court?
4. Left his church over political pressure. Can you picture Joe Biden or Mitt Romney doing that? (If you can, you're more cynical than me.)
5. What will MSNBC (aka The Anti-McCain Channel) do with their time?
---
PRO's & CON's of Pres. John McCain
PRO
1. A war hero in the White House.
2. Presidents with wartime experience (George HW Bush, Dwight Eisenhower) are less likely to get us into long, protracted wars.
3. McCain has a real record of willingness to work with Democrats, which really does give him stuff in common with Reagan besides age.
4. McCain's determined to cut spending, whereas Bush got the GOP-led Congress to help him set records on increased spending and an increased deficit.
5. Bush tax-cuts won't expire.
6. Even though he can't raise his arms above his shoulders, Hugo Chavez would not want to be left alone in a room with him.
7. Experience.
CON
1. McCain's bought into Al Gore's global warming scare, which means America won't be emerging from the energy crisis anytime soon.
2. His age essentially makes him a lame duck president from the get-go.
3. He can do town-hall meetings but he can't read a speech to save his life.
4. His campaign-finance reform only gave birth to the 527's and made money even more important to political campaigns.
5. What will Fox News (aka The Anti-Obama Channel) do with their time?
----
PRO's & CON's of Either One
PRO
1. They'll both turn the page on the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove view of the world.
2. No preemptive-strike happy VP being the secret string-puller.
3. Both expressed desire for bipartisan compromise and cooperation.
CON
1. Neither has a good solution for the energy crisis.
2. Neither one has the authority to bring back Celebrity Boxing and make the talking heads of cable news be the contestants. (O'Reilly vs. Olbermann! Greta vs. Gloria! Anderson Cooper vs. Shepard Smith!)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Political Power - a generation later
Interesting quote from David Gergen in Fareed Zakaria's article:
"With the end of the cold war, we saw a new, destructive kind of partisanship," says David Gergen, who has worked in Republican and Democratic White Houses. "And for much of the past decade, we've kicked the can down the road on our big problems." Some of this is because of the narrowcasting of American politics, a process in which the extreme ends of the spectrum have been magnified and the center gets lost. Part of it, Gergen argues, is generational. "I have a distinct memory that the World War II generation really put country ahead of party. That is simply not the case with the generation in power now."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/140465/page/2
"With the end of the cold war, we saw a new, destructive kind of partisanship," says David Gergen, who has worked in Republican and Democratic White Houses. "And for much of the past decade, we've kicked the can down the road on our big problems." Some of this is because of the narrowcasting of American politics, a process in which the extreme ends of the spectrum have been magnified and the center gets lost. Part of it, Gergen argues, is generational. "I have a distinct memory that the World War II generation really put country ahead of party. That is simply not the case with the generation in power now."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/140465/page/2
Monday, June 9, 2008
Further VP speculations
Looking at Intrade.com, there hasn't been much movement from last week, nor would I expect it, but I ignored the Field category, which actually leads.
GOP
1. The Field - 40.1%
2. Mitt Romney - 20%
3. Tim Pawlenty - 15.8%
4. Mike Huckabee - 13.1%
5. Kay Bailey Hutchison - 4.0%
Other names in there are Condi Rice, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Lindsay Graham, but two of the biggest names aren't included: Bobby Jindal (Gov. of Louisiana) and Charlie Crist (Gov. of Florida). I think those two are in the mix as as anyone else.
There's a lot of talk that John McCain needs to shore up his base, and it needs to go beyond the usual right-wi9ng scare tactics thrown against Barack Obama. I don't believe Obama is a Marxist who hates America, no matter how many times Sean Hannity says it. McCain may be leaning toward more moderate VP partners, but he might make a more calculating pick after all and go with someone considered more conservative.
On the Democratic side, the Field leads as well.
1. The Field - 30%
2. Hillary Rodham Clinton - 22.1%
3. Jim Webb - 18.2%
4. Mark Warner - 8.6%
5. Bill Richardson - 8%
Other mentions are Al Gore, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, but it leaves out players like Tim Kaine (Gov. of Virginia). Otherwise I think it represents all the major players for that piece of the ticket. I just hope he doesn't pick Hillary. I fear for his life over the next 2-3 years if he does.
GOP
1. The Field - 40.1%
2. Mitt Romney - 20%
3. Tim Pawlenty - 15.8%
4. Mike Huckabee - 13.1%
5. Kay Bailey Hutchison - 4.0%
Other names in there are Condi Rice, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Lindsay Graham, but two of the biggest names aren't included: Bobby Jindal (Gov. of Louisiana) and Charlie Crist (Gov. of Florida). I think those two are in the mix as as anyone else.
There's a lot of talk that John McCain needs to shore up his base, and it needs to go beyond the usual right-wi9ng scare tactics thrown against Barack Obama. I don't believe Obama is a Marxist who hates America, no matter how many times Sean Hannity says it. McCain may be leaning toward more moderate VP partners, but he might make a more calculating pick after all and go with someone considered more conservative.
On the Democratic side, the Field leads as well.
1. The Field - 30%
2. Hillary Rodham Clinton - 22.1%
3. Jim Webb - 18.2%
4. Mark Warner - 8.6%
5. Bill Richardson - 8%
Other mentions are Al Gore, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, but it leaves out players like Tim Kaine (Gov. of Virginia). Otherwise I think it represents all the major players for that piece of the ticket. I just hope he doesn't pick Hillary. I fear for his life over the next 2-3 years if he does.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
InTrade: Who'll Be VP?
Gamblers at intrade.com are making these picks for VP:
Democratic
1. Hillary Clinton
2. James Webb
3. Bill Richardson
Republican
1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Mike Huckabee
Personally I think Obama's best choice would be Webb, and McCain's would be Pawlenty. I think the worst pick Obama could make is Hillary, and the worst McCain could pick is Huckabee.
Democratic
1. Hillary Clinton
2. James Webb
3. Bill Richardson
Republican
1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Mike Huckabee
Personally I think Obama's best choice would be Webb, and McCain's would be Pawlenty. I think the worst pick Obama could make is Hillary, and the worst McCain could pick is Huckabee.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Hillary's End?
I watched her victory speech in Puerto Rico, where she didn't get any more delegates but she added some credence to her "popular vote" argument, which still is only true if you count Michigan, a state where Obama's name wasn't on the ballot. She does not seem prepared to give up on the Presidency. Even if she drops out this week, it wouldn't surprise me at all if she does subtle things to sabotage his campaign so she can run in 2012.
This seemed a little more clear watching Harold Ickes blast the Rules Committee for their ruling on the Michigan and Florida delegates. The convention in Denver is going to have some protests.
This seemed a little more clear watching Harold Ickes blast the Rules Committee for their ruling on the Michigan and Florida delegates. The convention in Denver is going to have some protests.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Right-wingers trash Scott McClellan
I listened to a few minutes each of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham to hear their takes on Scott McClellan's upcoming book. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was anyway. They all had the same take.
Scott McClellan has no credibility. He was disgruntled. Why didn't he quit sooner if he disagreed so much with what the White House was doing.
Did any of them look at what McClellan is actually saying? Not that I heard. Did any of them address his assertion that the White House is in constant campaign mode, and that Washington in general operates that way, and how that's bad for America? Nope.
Do I think McClellan is the epitome of credibility? No. Of all of Bush's press secretaries, he was the worst at it. He's going to write his book to make himself look good, even though he says he's harder on himself than anyone else. I do find it weird he's only going to NBC (Today Show, Meet the Press) to do his interviews. And why would he give a cable exclusive to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, the most vociferous anti-Bush host on all of cable news? Maybe because he'll give him the least amount of grief? I guess we'll see tonight.
Scott McClellan has no credibility. He was disgruntled. Why didn't he quit sooner if he disagreed so much with what the White House was doing.
Did any of them look at what McClellan is actually saying? Not that I heard. Did any of them address his assertion that the White House is in constant campaign mode, and that Washington in general operates that way, and how that's bad for America? Nope.
Do I think McClellan is the epitome of credibility? No. Of all of Bush's press secretaries, he was the worst at it. He's going to write his book to make himself look good, even though he says he's harder on himself than anyone else. I do find it weird he's only going to NBC (Today Show, Meet the Press) to do his interviews. And why would he give a cable exclusive to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, the most vociferous anti-Bush host on all of cable news? Maybe because he'll give him the least amount of grief? I guess we'll see tonight.
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