Analytics

Monday, January 25, 2016

Miscellany: 1/25/16

Quote of the Day
The challenge of leadership is 
to be strong, but not rude; 
be kind, but not weak; 
be bold, but not a bully; 
be thoughtful, but not lazy; 
be humble, but not timid; 
be proud, but not arrogant; 
have humor, but without folly.
Jim Rohn

 Tweet of the Day
Image of the Day


The Worst of Hillary Clinton



Under Pressure (Vocals Only)

Gooseneck (a newer vocal group) in a recent tribute to recently deceased Bowie linked to this spare version of Bowie singing with late Queen singer Freddie Mercury. The group points out today's technology allows for airbrushing of vocal defects, but these vocals were the real deal--the skatting was spontaneous and creative.



Political Potpourri

A flurry of new polls. Trump continues to dominate as we head down the final week countdown into Iowa. Trump leads Cruz by 7 in Iowa according to ARG. The Boston Herald has Trump ahead of Cruz and Kasich by about 20 in NH.  At this point, I'm looking to see if numbers tighten. I'm somewhat skeptical of Trump's numbers in Iowa; Cruz has very high favorable's in IA and has a strong ground organization, and I suspect Rubio is riding some momentum including an important newspaper endorsement and could be picking up some anti-Trup/Cruz coalition support. Just a reminder: polls don't always predict the winner. In 2012, Romney had won 6 of 7 polls before the caucuses, battling with Ron Paul; Rick Santorum had been running 5-9 points behind Romney in most of those polls. In 2004, polls indicated a tight race among 4 Dem candidates (including sometimes leader Howard Dean, Gephardt and Edwards). It may well be Trump's populist supporters do show at the caucuses; I myself have only attended one, in 1980, Houston's Democratic. It's not like casting a 3-second secret ballot; it requires a commitment in time and effort. Still, Trump has such a blowout lead except for Cruz, it would surprise me if anyone other than Trump or Cruz wins. I do think that a Trump loss would devastate his "winning" talking point. I do think the other candidates can't afford to let Trump run the table heading into Super Tuesday March 1: "The participating states include: Alabama, Alaska (GOP), Arkansas, Colorado caucuses, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota caucuses, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia."

On the Dem side, Clinton won two nationwide contests comfortably, but only in the early teens. She split two new Iowa polls with Sanders, but Sanders is leading in 2 new NH polls by over 15%. I do think a Southern strategy plays to Clinton's favor, even if she starts off with 2 losses to Sanders; I would be very concerned that Sanders could pick up momentum if he shuts Clinton out in the first 2 states. You could always explain away a loss near Sanders' home base. I think Clinton needs to pick up momentum going into Super Tuesday. She is probably going to pick up South Carolina and Florida, but if she picks up Iowa, it lessens the significance of Sander's homefield advantage in NH.

Finally, Alex Nowrasteh, who follows Trump, clipped the following exchange. The crackpot Trump cultist is clearly anti-Semitic and could be a contemporary KKK or similar sympathizer in the sense of also identifying America as a Christian nation. I feel that a politician has a moral obligation to disown such rubbish.

Let me comment a little further into Trump's disingenuous birther bullshit on Cruz. You can see all sorts of crazy conspiracy stuff on the Internet--that both of Cruz' parents had Canadian citizenship, that Cruz' mother had renounced her American citizenship, that the state of Delaware had no record of Cruz' mother's birth, a lot of attention to an unofficial preliminary voting list which seems to include Cruz' parents and their Canadian address.

First of all, the Cruz campaign has published his mother's birth certificate. His mother flatly denies that she ever became a naturalized Canadian citizen. Her husband did--in 1973. Cruz was born--in 1970. I noted that I saw on a current website that there is a 3-year residency, which made it all but impossible that Cruz' parents had become naturalized, but the Cruz campaign provided evidence that prevailing Canadian law required 5 years of residency for either parent--past his birth. Now that doesn't disprove Cruz' Canadian citizenship--he still had a birthright claim. But he was indisputably a US citizen at birth, since his mother had been a 10-year US resident, including 5 years after the age of 14, when she gave birth to Ted in her mid-30's under prevailing US law. Trump is intentionally raising this pseudo-issue to put Ted on the defense--and feeding his anti-immigrant base. Now I have issues with some of Cruz' nonsense--including an intent to make the desert glow under bombing runs--but this has annoyed me to the point of seriously considering switching my upcoming vote from Rand Paul to a protest vote for Ted Cruz.

Rand Paul got on my shit list recently for taking the lead on trying to block Syrian refugee entry. Sadly he seems to have lost his dad's touch with Iowan voters; the elder Paul won nearly 20% of the vote; now of course Rand has been battling for publicity against far more candidates than his Dad, but right now it looks as though he'll be lucky to have a quarter of his dad's support.


Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Gordon Lightfoot, "Baby Step Back". We are winding down my Lightfoot retrospective (one more hit to reprise). The next artist selection will be Juice Newton.

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