Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
BBC: “The Labour candidate for Bootle on Merseyside has had the tip of his finger bitten off by a dog while out campaigning. Joe Benton, 77, was taken to hospital after the animal bit him as he pushed an election leaflet through a letter box. Mr Benton has been unable to vote for himself as [...]
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/05/sdp-liberal-alliance-broadcast
In the US, coverage from the BBC starts at 3:55 pm EDT on CSPAN3 and goes to whenever. Polls go from 7a-10:30p in the UK; translate that into your own time. If you want a goofy idea of how these things will go, watch this youtube of Monty Python’s Election Night Special (Tarquin fim tim [...]
A new book on the 2008 presidential season with lots of behind the scenes goodies has a lengthy excerpt bit on the New York magazine size, where John and Elizabeth Edwards get seriously toasted: entitled “Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster” if that gives you a heads-up. It’s pretty brutal. The line that kept coming [...]
…is only indicative of local situations, really – with two caveats. If you run a crappy candidate and a nasty, dumb campaign, don’t be surprised when you lose. If you spend a lot of money and should have won or just barely won, that says more about your campaign and your candidate than anything else. [...]
(taken from the teabagger protest in DC this weekend) Lesson #1: Anyone who is not a Republican is not a Marxist. Really. Lesson #2: The last Czar in Russia gave up the throne in 1917, and the Russian Communists took over Russia in 1918; I don’t think you understand that there were no Czars in [...]
I have been listening to enough rants, hate and nonsense in the last year and a half to last me a lifetime or more, and I’ve been more than fed up with it all. But I started realizing that this sort of crud is endemic; uninformed people who choke off their sources of information to [...]
Two prominent Cook County politicians who are black will be running in the next election for President of the Cook County Board; this article discusses how that could split the black vote in the election and let Candidate #3 in the door, a reverse of what happened when Washington beat Byrne and Daley for the [...]
Interesting articles on a speech given by the guy who ran McCain’s VP search; to wit, Sarah Palin did better on some matters when questioned about foreign policy stuff than a lot of the others (God knows what the seekrit answers were supposed to be) and that Joe Lieberman and the fusion ticket was indeed [...]
Senator Schumer is saying that if a state government doesn’t want any of the stimulus money, they shouldn’t be forced to take it; however, you can’t pick what parts you will or won’t take. Sounds good to me. And Governor Sanford of South Carolina says that he’ll pray for you if you’re down and out, [...]
In early December on the LJ side, I did a ‘rate the Presidents’ competition to see what my readers thought of the US Presidents. The raw results and comments are still there – and these are the results, sorted by Mean (statistical results under the cut; the spreadsheet itself is here). Sets: One (Washington -> [...]
It wasn’t the ideology, it was (1) a major and constant sloppiness with factual statements (requiring the paper to apologize and run retractions over and over again when caught), (2) heavy use of using the column for advocacy of his pet pols who he’d fed ideas to, and (3) smacking around the NYT in public [...]
From Dick Meyer at NPR on Blago and Made-off: As audacious as Blagojevich’s political gluttony is, it is easy to find far worse political corruption, much of it perfectly legal: Distorting intelligence to invade Iraq, torturing prisoners, failure to regulate Wall Street, and systematic pork-barrel boondoggling come quickly to mind. If you’re feeling expansive, how [...]
OK, look – If I were British, I might be a monarchist, but I’m not in favour (sic) of Family Political Dynasties. Sometime, that works out, more often it doesn’t. That includes everyone, whether it’s John Quincy Adams or Caroline Kennedy or George Bush. Either one. If someone is capable and a good fit for [...]
Right here. I think they picked the right one, personally.