Author: Yoda

The following appeared on The Politico.

Imagine if the names were changed from Rick Renzi to Charlie Rangel (or any NY Democratic Congressman) and from John McCain to Hillary Clinton?

Wouldn’t this be a much bigger story?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0208/McCain_in_Oct_2006_Renzi_has__tenacity_honesty_and_integrity_beyond_reproach.html#comments

Now that the Hillary vs. Rudy Presidential race is dead, the NY press is desperately hyping the other pipe dream – Mike for President dream. The latest to waste newsprint on the subject is New York Magazine.

http://nymag.com/news/features/43308/

Most of the story is the same old, same old about how voters want a competent alternative to the two major parties, blah, blah, blah.

2 weeks ago, the NY press was all excited about the announcement that the 2 political has-beens who started Unity 08 – Gerald Rafshoon & Doug Bailey were leaving to start an effort to draft Mike Bloomberg.

Their effort consists entirely of a website where they ask people to sign up to urge Mike to run.

As I write this (Sunday, January 27 at @2:30 PM), less people have signed up than the 5,457 people who voted for Duncan Hunter in the first 4 Republican contests!

My guess is that Mike numbers will eventually pass Hunter (now that he has dropped out) but I don’t know if he can catch Kucinich!

Rudy Giuliani's truly pathetic showing in the Michigan Republican Primary – he finished 6th with 2.8%, over 30,000 votes behind Ron Paul has been largely ignored by the pundits who are instead talking about Romney's win and what happens next.

In fact some of the pundits are saying the results help Rudy.

But Michigan continues a pattern of Rudy's support dropping in every state from sky high poll numbers to a low number of actual votes.

Let's look back at some facts that Rudy's campaign doesn't want anyone to remember.

At the beginning of 2007, Rudy led every poll in Iowa. According to Real Clear Politics, there were 4 polls made public between January 16 and February 18 and Rudy led them all, with 29% in the Feb. 18 poll. As recently as the November Iowa State University poll, he was 3rd with 16% of the vote. But when the Iowa Republicans actually voted, Rudy finished 6th with 3.5%!

Tuesday brings us the news that Gerald Rafshoon and Doug Bailey, founders on Unity 08 have started something called DraftMichaelBloomberg.com<

According to Elizabeth Benjamin at the Daily Politicker –

Unlike some of the other efforts, one of which is already circulating petitions to get Bloomberg on the ballot in Virginia, Bailey and Rafshoon said they will not be running a ballot-access campaign. Instead, they will be raising money to focus on wooing the mayor and building public support with an ad campaign – both on-line and in print.

The main reason I have thought that Mike Bloomberg would not run for President if that third party candidates have never won.

 Whenever I and other skeptics have made this argument, Mike for President boosters and their ditto heads in the press have replied that Mike’s money makes him different- that when Mike spends a billion dollars to get known around the country, he’ll make history.
Now we have a WNBC/Marist poll of New York State voters.

http://www.observer.com/2008/indy-bloomberg-delivers-n-y-democrats

Some days I think I understand a different language than the people who write about politics.

The following appeared in the LA Times in a story about (yawn) Bloomberg running for President.

Television hosts, including Ryan Seacrest of "American Idol," tried to get a straight answer out of Bloomberg during the New Year's Eve countdown. Bloomberg told Seacrest, "I will not run." Three days later, Meredith Vieira of NBC's "Today" show asked him to swear on his daughter Georgina that he wouldn't run. He replied, "I said to Georgina, I'm not running."

Now that Rudy has finished a bad 6^th place in Iowa, his campaign is peddling the line that he never really competed there.

I guess they have to explain why he received half as much support as Ron Paul even after Rudy “won” an early debate by demanding an apology from Paul.

Don’t buy the BS!

Many on the left side of the spectrum have made the excellent point that most of the experts who were disastrously wrong about Iraq are still being listened to with respect despite their previous misjudgments.

Thursday’s Huffington Post has a column that makes that point.

And it pains me when the Kristols and Friedmans of the world, who were so wrong on Iraq, keep drawing pay checks (big ones), while other columnists — who got that story right and were brave enough to say so — have been sidelined by the mainstream media.

I might be a minority of one here but I don’t believe that Tim Russert “grilled” Rudy on Meet the Press. I think that Russert missed giving Rudy the tough follow-up questions that could have really put Rudy on the spot.

For example, Russert asked Rudy a few tough questions about one of foreign policy advisors Norman Podhoretz including this exchange –

MR. RUSSERT: Podhoretz also wrote this, this week. “I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations.” Do you think the intelligence community is intentionally putting this information out?