More Twists And Turns

Posted on February 3, 2004

Well, today saw the next big round of primaries, and now as the results trickle in it looks like the race might still have some life in it after all…

Kerry has been projected as the winner in Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, and North Dakota — but John Edwards has creamed him in South Carolina (Edwards 46%, Kerry 30%), both Clark and Edwards have beaten him in Oklahoma (Clark 30%, Edwards 30%, Kerry 26% with 89% of precincts reporting), and New Mexico, with 22% of precincts reporting, is practically a 3-way tie between Kerry, Dean and Clark (which is all the more notable in that Dean had essentially written that state off).

Wow! Clark’s only ahead of Edwards in OK by 800 votes, and (as of 10:34 PM EST) Dean is ahead of Clark for 2nd place in NM by ten votes (!), so CNN isn’t projecting a winner yet in either state (compare this to North Dakota, which they called for Kerry with 0% of precincts reporting, presumably on the basis of exit polling). Watch those states tonight, I sure will be…

Oh yeah, and Lieberman is out. About f@!$*#) time.

UPDATE: 11:02 PM and NM has been called for Kerry — he’s currently at 36%, with Clark at 23% and Dean at 21%.

Doomed to Repeat?

Posted on February 2, 2004

The BBC is reporting that the North Koreans are running a network of gas chambers, into which they throw their political prisoners, their families, and (for good measure) the four families that live nearest them.

The next time you hear someone justify the Iraq war by comparing Saddam Hussein to Hitler, ask them why he is Hitler and Kim Jong-Il is not…

Best Buy Nixing PDAs?

Posted on February 2, 2004

Another sign of the slow death of the stand-alone PDA device: Jupiter’s Michael Gartenberg reports that Best Buy is discontinuing sales of PDA devices.

When you combine this with other stories, like the recent news that PalmOne is going to de-emphasize PDAs in favor of smartphones like the Treo, it’s hard not to think that the days of the PDA that doesn’t also do something else (make calls, play games, tell time, etc.) are numbered.

Time To Start Asking the Hard Questions About Trippi and the $40 Million

Posted on January 31, 2004

I have held off commenting on the post-New Hampshire reorganization at Dean for America (DFA) for the last few days because I wanted to take a little time and figure out how I really felt about it before I said anything. I think now that I’ve worked through my varying thoughts enough to point out some issues that really, really need addressing.

In case you didn’t hear, the big news in the reorg was the ousting of Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. This was a Big Deal, because Trippi was the architect of the whole netroots strategy that lifted Dean to prominence in the first place. He was also, of course, the man in charge during the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, which is why he’s on his way out, to be replaced by former Gore aide (and telecommunications lobbyist) Roy Neel.

The story as we’ve heard it from DFA is that Trippi’s leaving because he bet big on Iowa and New Hampshire, and lost. That may be even be true as far as it goes. But some disturbing facts have come to light since Trippi’s departure about the way business was being done at DFA under his watch, and they demand comment if DFA is going to retain the trust of anybody who has contributed financially to it thus far.

(more…)

President Forever: 2004

Posted on January 30, 2004

This is neat — President Forever: 2004, despite its weird title, is a surprisingly deep and absorbing simulation of presidential election politics. The demo lets you play a few rounds as Bush or any of the Democratic challengers, and the full version adds a candidate editor, additional campaign years (1960, 1980, and 1992 are promised to registered users), and it only costs $12 to boot!

There hasn’t been a good political game since the venerable Power Politics (which came out in 1992 — jeez, twelve years ago!), so this is a real find.

From Me, On Behalf of the People of Ohio, to the People of the Other 49 States

Posted on January 30, 2004

We’re sorry. We had no idea of the forces we were unleashing upon you… honestly, we didn’t. It’s all too horrible to contemplate…

The Kucinich Polka.mp3

E-Voting: Maryland’s Just As Borked As Virginia

Posted on January 30, 2004

Well, it’s still a case of testing after making the purchase, but it’s better than nothing: the state of Maryland apparently decided to test their fancy new Diebold e-voting machines for vulnerabilities, and discovered that they have lots of them.

But, they’ve already bought ’em, and there’s a primary coming up… so, too bad!

Maryland lawmakers learned the results of the attacks in a report issued yesterday by the department and the consulting firm, RABA Technologies LLC. In two hearings, a consultant assured lawmakers the machines would be “worthy of voter trust” in the March 2 primary, but outlined physical weaknesses and electronic vulnerabilities that would allow a determined hacker to corrupt or destroy election results.
Removable memory cards inside the machine can be tampered with if a lock is picked or if one of thousands of keys is stolen. If hackers find the phone number of the central computers used to compile vote totals, they could easily break into the system and tamper with results or introduce worms and viruses, said consultant Michael A. Wertheimer, a former National Security Agency analyst.
“You are more secure buying a book from Amazon than you are uploading your results to a Diebold server,” said Wertheimer, recommending several changes to increase security.
Linda H. Lamone, the administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, assured lawmakers that the board would comply with many of the recommendations but said that some of them would be impossible to put in place before the primary.
“I don’t disagree with what they say — they’re the experts,” Lamone said after the Senate hearing. But, she added, “I think it’s a very good system.”

Oh yes! It’s a very good system, except for the whole “totally insecure” part. Other than that it’s frickin’ fantastic.

Oh well — at least, little by little, lawmakers are waking up to the danger these machines pose. I suppose that’s something. (Thanks to Oscar Merida for the pointer to this story.)

Who’da Thunk It?

Posted on January 28, 2004

Wow — never thought I’d be saying this, but the analysis of the Democratic race that comes closest to how I feel has come from conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan:

Dean did a little worse than the exit polls suggested. But his concession speech was easily the best of the night. It was authentic, uplifting, and red meat to the Democrats. It actually rang true to me as Dean’s real view of the world. It isn’t one I entirely share, to say the least, but it is genuine, represents a lot of people in this country and deserves a hearing. He seemed more affable than recently as well. He smiled more. He spoke more calmly but not ineffectively. He’s real. Kerry is so fake, in contrast, I cannot believe that Democratic primary voters will continue to support him in such numbers. Dean gave arguments. Kerry spoke in packaged Shrumisms. Dean has a vision. Kerry has ambition. If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for Dean over Kerry in a heartbeat. To my mind, this is a battle between the Democratic party’s soul and its fear.

That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. I’ve been trying to puzzle out what people in Iowa and New Hampshire have meant when they cited “electability” as their reasons for voting Kerry. After all, if you’re really thinking strategically, you’d vote for Edwards, since the Democrats have historically needed Southern votes to win the general election, and there’s no reason to believe Kerry can deliver those any more than Dean can.

The best answer I could come up with is rooted in human psychology. When faced with multiple choices, people usually, in my experience, go for the route that seems the safe, low-risk route, unless they have a serious reason to believe that doing so will backfire on them. When it’s clear that the safe options don’t work anymore, they’re willing to consider alternatives — but it usually takes a lot of painful experience with failing via “safe” choices before people start to look around.

I think these people are seeing Kerry as the “safe” candidate. He’s got “experience”, he’s an insider, he’s familiar with the levers of power. Dean, on the other hand, is the alternative — the high-risk play. Sure, he might be a better candidate in a lot of ways than Kerry, but Kerry’s familiar, like an old shoe. You know what to expect with him. Dean wants to take the party in a new direction.

That analysis, if true, would also explain the popular Kerryite slogan “Dated Dean, Married Kerry”. They want their guy to be seen as the reliable, unexciting choice. But as Halley Suitt wonders:

As for marrying Kerry, are we still marrying someone our parents think we should marry? An inside-the-beltway kinda guy? Is it politics as usual? Can he satisfy us at the breakfast table AND in the bedroom? Or is it time to admit we need all the passion and fire a suitor can summon to help us play house in the White House?
I am reminded of Dustin Hoffman at the back of the church in The Graduate. Maybe we’ll all be SHRIEKING by the time we hear the wedding march play.

That, of course, is the rub — that the “safe choice” psychology is only meaningful to Democrats. In the general election, it means nothing. In fact, for the independent voter, the “safe choice” will be to stick with Bush. So one hopes that if that’s Kerry’s plan — to appeal to people’s fear of the daring, the bold, the new, and then offer them an opportunity to stick their heads in the sand — that he’s got more than one trick up his sleeve.

And That’s All She Wrote for NH

Posted on January 27, 2004

So, after all that speculation, what did the vote actually turn out to be in the New Hampshire primary?

With 91% of precincts reporting, CNN says:

• Kerry: 39%
• Dean: 26%
• Clark: 13%
• Edwards: 12%
• Lieberman: 9%

So, a good second place for Dean, though not as good as the last couple of days’ polling would have led you to believe. Clark manages to squeak by Edwards for the hotly contested third-place slot, though only by the tiniest of margins (1,000 votes or so) — so they could change places once those last 9% of the precincts get counted. And Lieberman’s “Joe-mentum” puts him about where he deserves to be, bringing up the rear (though he won’t take the hint, claiming that he tied Clark and Edwards for third).

So — no clear knockout winners, just some interesting questions about what happens in the next batch of primaries (February 3). Should be interesting…

Down to the Wire…

Posted on January 27, 2004

Political Wire: “Preliminary exit polls in New Hampshire show Sen. John Kerry and Howard Dean in a closer than expected battle for first place.”

Daily Kos has some leaked exit poll data, take it as you will:

LA Times:

• Dean: 34% (!)
• Kerry: 33%

ABC News:

• Kerry: 37%
• Dean: 31%

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn! Gonna be an interesting night…

I Can’t Believe We Have To Explain This To People…

Posted on January 27, 2004

People of Earth:

Microsoft Excel IS NOT A DATABASE!!!!

That is all.

Zogby Doubles Back

Posted on January 27, 2004

OK, now things are getting really confusing…

Remember yesterday, when Zogby was among those calling the New Hampshire race very close? Well, he’s changed his mind — today’s tracking poll puts Kerry at 37%, up from 31%, and drops Dean to 24% from 28%.

The pollster explains:

I know that my polling in the past two-days has shown a close race. I have no doubt that this was the case. Dean had bottomed out in the latter part of the week, was re-gaining some of his support among key voting groups, and had rehabilitated up to a point his unfavorable ratings. But in the final analysis, New Hampshire voters have decided to nominate a possible president instead of sending an angry message. New Hampshire voters are always volatile and its primaries are always fluid. I have never gotten a New Hampshire primary wrong. I stand by my close numbers of the last few days as much as I stand by these final numbers.

Kerry equals “a possible president”, while Dean is just “an angry message”? Um, OK. Whatever you say, John.

Sometimes I wonder if any of these people who have tagged Dean as a protest candidate have ever actually seen the man speak, or know anything about his candidacy. If they had, they’d realize there’s a lot more to the man than this Cliffs Notes version that people keep trying to push on us as the genuine article. I saw him speak last summer and didn’t come away angry — it was actually inspirational, for Pete’s sake. The man challenged us, ordinary people, to do something to get our country back on the right track. What the hell has “possible president” John Kerry done to connect with ordinary people, other than buy slick TV ads to tell them how Dean is “angry”?

People in America have been disconnected from their democracy for decades now. The result has been an abandonment of the system to a professional class of political operatives who seem to consider it their birthright now to play in it without interference. If a man actually gets half a million ordinary people to get out of their La-Z-Boys and participate in politics again — what gall! — he is attacked from all sides: if he speaks out in protest against obvious wrongs, he is “angry”; if he does not, he is “neutered”. The deck is stacked; and every time people like Zogby, who pay attention to these things for a living and presumably should know better, casually dismiss Dean as just an “angry message”, that situation gets reinforced.

I’ll tell you what, John Zogby. You motivated me to put my money where my mouth is. Do I think Howard Dean is just “an angry message”? Hell, no. I think he’s every inch as much a “possible president” as John Kerry is. So I just dropped $50 into the Comeback Bat to prove it. Win or lose in New Hampshire, I consider that money well spent.

Fun With Spam: WTF? Edition

Posted on January 27, 2004

Another actual spam found while I was cleaning out my spam filter:

Best. Randomly generated spammer name. Ever!

Meanwhile, Waiting in the Wings…

Posted on January 27, 2004

… did anyone else see Ralph Nader on Real Time with Bill Maher last week?

It was an interesting interview. Maher asked Nader point blank if he was going to run for President again this year; it’s a fair question, since he has launched an exploratory committee and is accepting contributions toward a potential candidacy, though he hasn’t made any public statement that he is planning on running (yet).

Nader’s answer to Maher’s question was fascinating in its coyness. He was considering a run, he told Maher, but he wanted to be sure to weigh all the variables before he made any decisions. That, he said, was why he wouldn’t be announcing his decision for another two or three weeks — but when that time was up, he’d let everybody know what he’d decided.

I call this coy because the surface explanation (needing to weigh the variables) is clearly bullshit. Nader has done this before, he knows what’s involved, he knows what he’d be getting into (a lost cause and a world of hate from progressives everywhere). So I don’t buy that he’s going to spend these next few weeks searching his soul.

The more I thought about it, though, the more another possible explanation made sense to me: he’s waiting to see who the Democratic nominee is going to be.

Think about it. In a few weeks we’ll probably have a pretty good idea of who the winner in the delegate sweepstakes is going to be. Even if early primaries like those on Feb. 3 don’t decide things, odds are that Super Tuesday — March 2 — will, and that’s only four weeks away.

So — picture this. Nader’s thinking that he’s going to sit on the sidelines until Super Tuesday and watch how things develop. If the eventual nominee is someone he likes, he comes forward and says that he’s thought it over and decided not to run. If the nominee is someone he doesn’t, he says that he’s thought it over and decided to go ahead. If that’s the case, he makes a big media splash and damages the credibility of that nominee.

Now, I don’t think that this time around a Nader candidacy would pull nearly as many votes as it did in 2000 — the stakes are much higher, and too many left-leaning voters fall into the ABB category (Anyone But Bush) to give up on a remotely plausible Democratic nominee in favor of a Quixotic third-party campaign. But all the indications are that the electorate is still closely divided, so every vote the Democrats lose to a Nader candidacy will hurt.

So, if this is what Nader is thinking, the $64,000 question is: which Democrats would Nader consider “good enough” to convince him to stay out? Nader has had praise in the past for Dean and Kucinich, so those two probably make the list. I’d go out on a limb and say that he could possibly be convinced by Edwards, too; I would think Edwards’ background as a trial lawyer known for fighting corporations would count for something with Nader (though presumably his votes for the war and the PATRIOT Act wouldn’t). A Kerry, Lieberman, or (maybe) Clark nomination could be the trigger for Ralph to throw his hat back into the ring.

So, would this be a Good Thing? Clearly not. The last thing we need is another internecine split as in 2000. I can see Nader’s strategic thinking — this is probably the only way for him to wield influence over the nominating process, now that he’s become The Man Who Elected Dubya President — but I really, really hope that it doesn’t go any further than that.

Race Tightening in NH

Posted on January 26, 2004

Oh, man… I’ve learned my lesson about doubting the poll numbers. This time around, I’m listening. And they are making it sound like tomorrow’s New Hampshire primary is gonna be a hell of a close-run thing.

Check it —

American Research Group Tracking Poll, 1/24 – 1/26 (with data from previous cycle, 1/23 – 1/25, in parens for reference):

• Kerry: 35% (from 38%)
• Dean: 25% (20%)
• Edwards: 16% (15%)
• Clark: 15% (13%)
• Lieberman: 5% (6%)
• Undecided: 5%

Zogby NH Tracking Poll, 1/23-25 (data from 1/22-24 in parens):

• Kerry : 31% (30%)
• Dean: 28% (23%)
• Clark: 13% (13%)
• Edwards: 12% (9%)
• Lieberman: 9% (9%)
• Undecided: 3% (13%) (undecideds leaning towards a candidate were allocated to that candidate in the latest figures)

SurveyUSA New Hampshire Primary Poll (previous data unavailable)

• Kerry: 33%
• Dean: 28%
• Edwards: 14%
• Clark: 12%
• Lieberman: 7%
• Undecided: 2%

So, if things break anything like the way these numbers are indicating, things should get very interesting indeed. Kerry will still be the “front-runner”, but without a clear mandate or enough strength to bury his most dangerous immediate challengers (Dean and Edwards) outright. A strong second place puts Dean back in play and ends the “Dean is toast” meme. (His people have regained enough confidence to put the bat back up.) Edwards and Clark scrap it out for third place and the honorary “scrappy underdog” crown. And Lieberman… well, Joe rides his “Joementum” off into the sunset. (About frickin’ time, too.)

Of course, as Iowa so dramatically proved, nothing’s final until the votes are cast and counted, so anything could happen — so cross your fingers for your guy and let’s see what direction the New Hampshire Dems send this race off in next.

Forgotten Hope

Posted on January 25, 2004

If you’re a Battlefield 1942 player, you owe it to yourself to check out the Forgotten Hope mod. These people have done some really amazing work.

BF1942 is a great game, but it does have some things that get annoying after you’ve been playing for a while. One of these is the way the weapons and vehicles for the different sides in the game are all essentially the same, just with different skins — the Americans have a Sherman tank and the Germans get a Tiger, for example, but they both handle the same and can absorb the same amount of damage. This can give the game a bit of a “rock-scissors-paper” feel, especially on maps where the types of available vehicles are few.

Forgotten Hope addresses this in two ways. First, it tweaks the values for the existing vehicles and weapons in the game to make them more like their historical counterparts — now a Tiger is something truly to be feared! Second, it expands the scope of the game by adding a huge number of new vehicles, weapons and maps — it’s like a sandbox full of new toys to play with. And the new maps, especially, are top-notch; they have even more atmosphere and challenge than do the excellent ones supplied with the original game.

It’s a big download — what mod isn’t? — but well worth it if you’re looking for a break from vanilla BF1942 or Desert Combat.

More Airport Security Follies

Posted on January 25, 2004

I’m guessing somebody working the security detail at Denver airport just blew their chance to be Employee of the Month…

UPDATE: Sandy Smith points out in a comment that the incident occurred at LaGuardia, not Denver — that’s what I get for reading the article and then, when I went back to blog it, just glancing at the dateline. D’oh! Thanks, Sandy…

How Kerry Won Iowa

Posted on January 23, 2004

There’s a fascinating piece from The American Prospect today by Tom Schaller, the poli-sci professor who blogged from Iowa for Daily Kos, describing the mechanics of the grassroots operation that, behind the scenes, delivered Iowa to John Kerry. Fascinating stuff.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Posted on January 23, 2004

From yesterday’s USA Today — “U.S. commander: Backbone of Iraqi insurgency broken“:

“The former regime elements we’ve been combating have been brought to their knees,” Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, told reporters at the Pentagon in a satellite video news conference from his headquarters in the city of Tikrit…
“Capturing Saddam was a major operational and psychological defeat for the enemy,” he said. “But a more important result of his capture is the increase in accurate information brought forward by Iraqis allowing us to conduct numerous, precise raids to kill or capture” those who are financing and producing homemade explosives used to kill and injure American troops.

From today’s CNN.com — “U.S. sees al Qaeda’s stamp in attacks“:

Iraqi insurgents appear to be using al Qaeda-like fighting tactics, and U.S. officials suspect the terror group provides financial support to anti-coalition fighters, the head of U.S. ground forces in Iraq said.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez would not provide hard evidence that rebel forces in Iraq were directly linked to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network.
But he said, “I think it’s probably not appropriate for me to talk about al Qaeda in the sense of a concrete, proven presence,” Sanchez said. “What I’ll tell you though is that we’re seeing al Qaeda-like tactics. We believe that there’s training that’s been conducted for some of the terrorists.”…
In a 24-hour period, starting Wednesday, insurgents killed two U.S. soldiers, three Iraqi police officers and four civilians in the Sunni Triangle, Iraq’s most volatile region.

So, are they broken, disorganized, and defeated? Or are they dangerous, trained, and funded? Which is it?

Red Hat, CPAN, and Intense, Throbbing Pain

Posted on January 22, 2004

Hey kids…

just in case you ever find yourself admin of a Red Hat 9 server, you might want to make a note of this, just so you don’t spend HOURS OF YOUR TIME DIGGING THROUGH USENET LOOKING FOR THE ANSWER LIKE I DID.

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that you wanted to install some Perl modules on your server. The easiest way to do that is to use CPAN.pm or its successor, CPANPLUS, both of which provide a nice shell interface to the CPAN module repository. However, after a while you will notice that some modules just won’t install properly, no matter what you do. (If you’re like me, you’ll find that you can’t even make CPANPLUS to begin with.)

The issue turns out to be that Red Hat has set the LANG environment variable to UTF-8 by default, which seems to bork something serious within Perl. So, just issue the following command from the shell:

unset LANG

… and now all your modules will install without a hitch.

Easy, huh? Sure would be nice if anybody DOCUMENTED IT ANYWHERE! (He said, looking around for a sharp object or large-caliber firearm.)

I Hear America Singing

Posted on January 21, 2004

The Onion: Yee Haw! My Vote Cancels Out Y’All’s!

So, Did Trippi Know Something? Guess Not

Posted on January 19, 2004

Well, it’s 10PM Eastern time and with 88% of precincts reporting, here’s how CNN is calling the Iowa caucuses:

• John Kerry: 38%
• John Edwards: 32%
• Howard Dean: 18%
• Dick Gephardt: 11%
• Dennis Kucinich: 1%

… which is pretty much how the polls called it. Looks like, as counterintuitive as they were, they were pretty much on the mark.

So what happens now? Well, it’s on to New Hampshire!

Does Trippi Know Something The Post Doesn’t?

Posted on January 19, 2004

Well, tomorrow will see the first binding Democratic primary in the nation, the Iowa caucus, and you can get some remarkably different views of what’s happening on the ground in that state depending on where you get your news.

Today’s Washington Post, for example, argues that John Kerry and John Edwards have now both eked out leads over Howard Dean among likely caucusgoers, leading to speculation that Dean has peaked too soon:

The shifting attitudes of voters help explain how the battle here has been transformed from a two-person race between Dean and Gephardt into a wild four-person contest that now includes the surging candidacies of Kerry and Edwards. A Des Moines Register poll published in Sunday’s editions showed Kerry at 26 percent, Edwards at 23 percent, Dean at 20 percent and Gephardt at 18 percent. Both Dean and Gephardt have lost support in the polls, but Vilsack said victory will be determined by organizational strength, and Gephardt and Dean are judged to have strong organizations…
Dean’s opposition to the Iraq war generated the first real wave of support for his candidacy here and continues to be his anchor heading toward Monday night. “His stand on the war got me involved with Dean right away,” said Victoria Siegel, an Ottumwa lawyer. “I’ve been housing a staffer since June 4th.”
But interviews with voters this week suggest that the power of Iraq as the galvanizing issue has faded in the face of concerns about finding someone who could defeat Bush, and this may explain why Kerry and Edwards have been gaining.

Go over to Daily Kos, though, and you can read U-Md. political science professor Tom Schaller, who’s been blogging from Iowa for the last few days, argue that analyses like the one above are missing the real story by focusing on numbers that don’t matter (poll results) instead of numbers that do (the “hard count” of committed Dems who will turn out to caucus for Dean):

And that’s why the question on everybody’s lips at Chequers bar last night was this: “What’s Dean’s hard count?” Steve McMahon, Joe Trippi’s partner in the Dean brain trust, looks like Sylvester grinning with Tweety Bird in his mouth. He won’t give the number, of course, but he seems very confident that his hard count will be a high enough numerator no matter what the denominator. And here’s why: The rumor last night is that, of Dean’s hard count “ones”, a startling 60 to 65 percent of them are self-identified, first time caucus-goers. McMahon could be spinning, but that doesn’t make sense – he surely does not want to raise expectations and then have to explain comparative failure on Tuesday. Second place, certainly third, and definitely fourth, would be comparative failure.
If it’s true about the share of committed “ones” that are first-timers, however, and if the total number of hard count Deanies (first time or rarely-participating or newly-affiliating Democrats, whatever) is that high, this is important because this means Dean is toting a disproportionate share of these beneath-the-radar voters…
I think the poll numbers of the past two weeks (especially last 4-5 days) set things up this way: If Dean wins by any margin at this point, suddenly he is again the candidate who continues to surprise his doubters.
But that only happens if the Tweety Bird (Dean’s true, undisclosed hard count) is really real, and not just a few feathers poking out of the corners of McMahon’s mouth. We’ll know in about 34 hours.

Well, it looks like the caucus is going to be interesting to watch no matter which interpretation you believe. But I have to say that I find Schaller’s interpretation more compelling than The Post’s. (I think I would say the same thing even if I wasn’t a Dean supporter, but consider this disclaimed if you can’t believe that.) Both stories are basically attempts at rationalization — they start from the new poll data that show Kerry and Edwards pulling ahead, and then try to explain why that happened (The Post by gathering anecdotes of Dean support slipping to Kerry and Edwards, Schaller by positing a reason why the polls may be misleading). But Schaller’s has the virtue of actually positing a reason for why the poll results are the way they are (the Dean and Gephardt people have been concentrating on mobilizing their grassroots, which has caused their poll numbers to dip as they have diverted resources from outreach, but which could pay off big come caucus time), while the story in The Post never seems to come together to such a conclusion.

Frankly, that’s a big deal. When I heard that Kerry had pulled ahead in the polls, I figured that could make sense — after all, Kerry was the presumptive front-runner for a long time, and he’d just brought in big-name organizer Michael Whouley to revivify his Iowa campaign. But Edwards? Huh? Any time the polls show someone like Edwards — who is personable and has some good ideas, but is clearly a few cycles away from being a real contender — surging like this, somebody had better be able to give a convincing explanation why, or I start to wonder about the polls.

Of course, all this will be moot in 24 hours or so, and thankfully New Hampshire is coming up soon enough so that there will be little time for Tuesday-morning recrimination from the Iowa losers. Stay tuned!

Funny Stuff in DC

Posted on January 16, 2004

Just got back from seeing David Cross at the DC Improv. As you’d expect, he killed. He mentioned offhand that he was recording the performance for an upcoming CD, so you should be able to hear it soon — and if you’re not familiar with his work, his previous CD, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby! is a must-listen.

It’s actually shaping up to be a hell of a time in DC, comedy-wise. Take a look at some of the shows we’ve got coming up in the next few months:

• Jon Stewart at DAR Constitution Hall, February 27 [ show info ]
• Dane Cook at the DC Improv, February 26-29 (same weekend as Jon! damn!) [ show info ]
• Mitch Hedberg at the DC Improv, April 29-May 2 [ show info ]

All of these guys are incredibly funny and worth your time and money — check ’em out if you can.

So Much for Hubble

Posted on January 16, 2004

Well, here’s the first practical consequence of the President’s boneheaded new space initiative: no more service missions will be flown to the Hubble Telescope, essentially dooming it. That’s considered acceptable since Hubble doesn’t fit in with the new grand plan.

Never mind that the new grand plan is to accomplish something (putting people back on the moon, and then, maybe, Mars) of negligible scientific benefit, while Hubble has been providing stunning imagery for years.

The bigger issue is, does this mean a general retreat from all unmanned scientific spaceflight? Because those types of missions, as unglamorous as they may be, are the only ones in the forty-some years we’ve been shooting rockets into space that have actually yielded hard scientific benefits. In comparison, manned spaceflight has mostly been a circus sideshow. I could understand doing both — you need the astronauts to keep Congress coughing up bucks for the real science. But having a huge, pointless Mars program at the expense of unmanned flights seems beyond stupid.