In the past couple of weeks, McCain has won New Hampshire and South Carolina. Mitt Romney finished a close second in NH and a distant 3rd in SC. He also won Nevada. Huckabee finished a very close second in SC. What does all of this mean?
I don't realy know but I've got a couple of predictions.
- McCain or Romney will be the nominee, most likely McCain. If McCain can win Florida then he's not swapping victories with Huckabee like I had previously said he risked doing. The only other person that stands a chance is Romney.
- Rudy is done and should drop out if he doesn't win FL. He's currently polling a close second but neck in neck with Romney and Huckabee isn't far behind.
- Huckabee, as much as I hate to admit it, doesn't stand much of a chance. His only potential game is to be a running mate choice for McCain to try to energize the conservative base.
- Huckabee may no be McCain's best choice as running mate, though. McCain's best choice may be Romney. He's got the money and the economic clout. That's why he won Michigan and then economy is becoming more and more of a factor in the election. Romney has arguably more experience economically than all of the other candidates combined. That may make for an attractive ticket.
- If McCain doesn't win the nomination then he'll still be on the ticket. That's right, if Romney wins, then McCain is his running mate. If, that is, McCain can swallow the pride of the attacks Romney has thrown his way for a spot on the ticket. McCain gives Romney the one thing he sorely lacks: foreign policy experience. Again, this combination makes for a very attractive ticket and is what it'll most likely be if they can not kill one another on the way to one of them winning the nomination.
I have no idea if any of this is accurate or not but it sounds reasonable to me right now based on the way things are shaping up. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Things That Make You Go... Ugh.
I generally pay attention to the news. I like being in the know on what's happening in the world around me. I see the headlines and the continual news coverage of all the big stories and a lot of the smaller ones. I think OJ probably did it and he's a sick and very stupid individual. Scott Peterson's guilty too and quite a moron. None of those cases really catches my attention, though. They're passing headlines that I absorb information from but quickly dismiss and all but forget about. They draw no real emotion from me. They're distant and I'm callous.
The past week or so I've been watching and reading the story unfold of Meredith Emerson. She's a 24 year old woman who was out hiking in the North Georgia mountains who turned up missing. A few days later a man was arresting trying to wash blood out of his van. He led police to a hidden body in the woods. The results of an autopsy revealed this woman was alive for 3 day after she was first reporting missing and was found beheaded.
This whole situation makes me so angry my blood could just boil. I can't tell you exactly why. I've never been to Vogel State Park. I don't know this woman or the 61 year old man that is now being accused of murdering her. But I do love the North Georgia mountains. I try to get up there at least once a month or so to do some mountain biking. It's not hard to see how something like this could happen. Some of the places I've been biking I can travel 10-15 miles over 3 or 4 hours and never see another soul except the guys I'm biking with. It's just desolate.
I feel almost like I've somehow been violated. These are my mountains for me to enjoy and someone has gone and done such a terrible and unspeakable thing in my mountains. I have no sympathy for this guy. He seems to show no remorse. A lot of information is coming forward now that he may be related to other similar murders. Unless this guy has some seriously good explanation as to why he's seen hiking with this woman, later washing blood out of his van, and then is able to lead police to a hidden, beheaded body then this is the case where the guy should be shot and have his family billed for the bullet.
I haven't mentioned the guy's name because he doesn't deserve to have his name mentioned. He deserves nothing but to be immediately removed from our society. I know that does nothing to bring back this woman or help or hurting family. It's not even going to make me feel any better. It will make the rest of the world safer, though. And that'll make me feel better.
I think the only time I've felt such an intense emotional reaction to something so disastrous was after Hurricane Katrina. I remember watching the news coverage on TV as shot after shot of destroyed homes on the Mississippi Gulf Coast appeared. My heart was just so broken. I wanted to do so much more than what I was able to do to help. That's where I was from, those were my people hurting and I ached with them.
I don't know how else to explain it. For the last few years of my adult life I've felt a strong desire to stay in touch with "my roots." I feel like I need to remember where I came from and what's really important. I'm not sure if that's something everyone feels at some point or something that I'm going through or exactly what. In some ways it wasn't a surprise that I felt the way I did about watching my fellow Mississippians suffer after Katrina. Mississippi has always been where I was from and will always be a place I call home. It's interesting that I now feel that way about Georgia to a degree, though. Those are my mountains.
The past week or so I've been watching and reading the story unfold of Meredith Emerson. She's a 24 year old woman who was out hiking in the North Georgia mountains who turned up missing. A few days later a man was arresting trying to wash blood out of his van. He led police to a hidden body in the woods. The results of an autopsy revealed this woman was alive for 3 day after she was first reporting missing and was found beheaded.
This whole situation makes me so angry my blood could just boil. I can't tell you exactly why. I've never been to Vogel State Park. I don't know this woman or the 61 year old man that is now being accused of murdering her. But I do love the North Georgia mountains. I try to get up there at least once a month or so to do some mountain biking. It's not hard to see how something like this could happen. Some of the places I've been biking I can travel 10-15 miles over 3 or 4 hours and never see another soul except the guys I'm biking with. It's just desolate.
I feel almost like I've somehow been violated. These are my mountains for me to enjoy and someone has gone and done such a terrible and unspeakable thing in my mountains. I have no sympathy for this guy. He seems to show no remorse. A lot of information is coming forward now that he may be related to other similar murders. Unless this guy has some seriously good explanation as to why he's seen hiking with this woman, later washing blood out of his van, and then is able to lead police to a hidden, beheaded body then this is the case where the guy should be shot and have his family billed for the bullet.
I haven't mentioned the guy's name because he doesn't deserve to have his name mentioned. He deserves nothing but to be immediately removed from our society. I know that does nothing to bring back this woman or help or hurting family. It's not even going to make me feel any better. It will make the rest of the world safer, though. And that'll make me feel better.
I think the only time I've felt such an intense emotional reaction to something so disastrous was after Hurricane Katrina. I remember watching the news coverage on TV as shot after shot of destroyed homes on the Mississippi Gulf Coast appeared. My heart was just so broken. I wanted to do so much more than what I was able to do to help. That's where I was from, those were my people hurting and I ached with them.
I don't know how else to explain it. For the last few years of my adult life I've felt a strong desire to stay in touch with "my roots." I feel like I need to remember where I came from and what's really important. I'm not sure if that's something everyone feels at some point or something that I'm going through or exactly what. In some ways it wasn't a surprise that I felt the way I did about watching my fellow Mississippians suffer after Katrina. Mississippi has always been where I was from and will always be a place I call home. It's interesting that I now feel that way about Georgia to a degree, though. Those are my mountains.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Huckabee-McCain '08?
Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Both Mike Huckabee and John McCain have been blasted in recent ads by Mitt Romney. Huckabee went on to win in Iowa in spite of the criticism. McCain may do the same in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
That's all good and well but can they continue to split the vote and hope to have either of them outlast the mountains of money that Romney has on his side when the larger states start voting in another few weeks? I'm not sure. I think in order for someone to realistically be a viable candidate they've got to have either momentum or money. If the likes of Huckabee and McCain are trading victories early on I question whether either can gain true momentum. And it's a known fact that neither of them have the kind of money that Romney and Rudy Giuliani have.
So what's the alternative? What if Huckabee and McCain paired up early? I know it's not until after the primaries have all been determined and a nominee is in waiting that a running mate is chosen but what if Huckabee or McCain one bowed out of the primaries early and endorsed the other candidate with a pledge to be the running mate?
I think that makes a lot of sense on a couple of different levels. One, they need something and as I prefaced this post, necessity is the mother of invention. It's certainly an unorthodox approach but why not? They may not have anything to lose. On another level, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and Romney certainly seems to be the common enemy that Huckabee and McCain have had as of late. Whether their apparent friendship goes deeper than that is for someone with more insight than I have to discuss but it certainly seems that there's some sort of synergy there. McCain was the first to call and congratulate Huckabee after he won in Iowa. Huckabee was defending McCain in New Hampshire from Romney's attacks. Doesn't that have to mean something?
Those things are really only surface deep. There are some deeper reasons. Both Huckabee and McCain fashion themselves as something of Washington outsiders. They both draw ire on occasion from the base. Them teaming up may be the only way to unite the base, though. Huckabee is the smiling face with the quick wit and funny phrase. McCain is the hard-nosed one that's been there, done that, and has the foreign policy experience.
Why couldn't such a partnership work? Is it just me or is this something reminiscent of Bush-Cheney?
That's all good and well but can they continue to split the vote and hope to have either of them outlast the mountains of money that Romney has on his side when the larger states start voting in another few weeks? I'm not sure. I think in order for someone to realistically be a viable candidate they've got to have either momentum or money. If the likes of Huckabee and McCain are trading victories early on I question whether either can gain true momentum. And it's a known fact that neither of them have the kind of money that Romney and Rudy Giuliani have.
So what's the alternative? What if Huckabee and McCain paired up early? I know it's not until after the primaries have all been determined and a nominee is in waiting that a running mate is chosen but what if Huckabee or McCain one bowed out of the primaries early and endorsed the other candidate with a pledge to be the running mate?
I think that makes a lot of sense on a couple of different levels. One, they need something and as I prefaced this post, necessity is the mother of invention. It's certainly an unorthodox approach but why not? They may not have anything to lose. On another level, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and Romney certainly seems to be the common enemy that Huckabee and McCain have had as of late. Whether their apparent friendship goes deeper than that is for someone with more insight than I have to discuss but it certainly seems that there's some sort of synergy there. McCain was the first to call and congratulate Huckabee after he won in Iowa. Huckabee was defending McCain in New Hampshire from Romney's attacks. Doesn't that have to mean something?
Those things are really only surface deep. There are some deeper reasons. Both Huckabee and McCain fashion themselves as something of Washington outsiders. They both draw ire on occasion from the base. Them teaming up may be the only way to unite the base, though. Huckabee is the smiling face with the quick wit and funny phrase. McCain is the hard-nosed one that's been there, done that, and has the foreign policy experience.
Why couldn't such a partnership work? Is it just me or is this something reminiscent of Bush-Cheney?
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