Exciting, this is not. As it stands, Edwards is apparently significantly behind just about everywhere, Dean and Clark are out, Sharpton’s a joke and Kuchinich’s… actually, Kuchinich is probably doing pretty good for himself with this Real Presidential Candidate routine, given that his voter demographic probably has the highest percentage of nubile college students. Nice gig, if you can get it. That leaves the Democrats… Kerry. John Forbes Did-You-Know-I-Served-In-Vietnam? Kerry.
Oh, boy. This is going to give watching paint dry a run for its money in the Excitement Sweepstakes.
Anyway, tomorrow is the big primary date for the Democrats, and Zogby apparently cares as little as I do, because they haven’t been really polling. I predict Kerry by lots, except in GA, where it’ll be Kerry by a little (and less than what Zogby – who did poll this one – thinks).
Tonight is our caucus night here in MN, which while it does not matter to the delegate count for the presidential primary, is still the first step towards picking delegates for the convention and writing each party’s platform.
Frankly that’s always been the more interesting aspect of political participation anyway.
I can report that the voting was extremely light when I cast mine this morning…yawn….
One guess who I voted for.
(Yes, Dean. For these reasons:
1. I still think he’d be the best president. And I’m very very stubborn.
2. My district is so liberal that he might plausibly have a better shot at 15% than Edwards.
3. Edwards hasn’t made it close nationwide, and he certainly can’t win Massachusetts.
4. If no one but Kerry gets to 15%, as seems likely, the only conceivable effect of my vote would be a protest vote over Kerry’s support of a state constitutional amendment on gay marriage–in some ways worse than his war vote, since he has much more influence over the outcome here. And it makes no sense to do that for Edwards when his record on gay rights is somewhat worse than Kerry’s.
Honestly, #1 might have been sufficient.)
I’m not as upset as you might think. Kerry made a damn good speech about foreign policy the other day–the best of his I’ve read in the campaign:
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0227.html
(I could almost hear the two professors of my terrorism class, swooning.)
Expertise and competence don’t make for an inspiring or exciting candidate, but it would certainly be a change and a relief to have some in the White House.
Refresh our memories, how many States did Dean win again?
A question that’s entirely irrelevant to my post, but:
one! boo-yah!
http://www.ktvu.com/politics/2891541/detail.html:
“Vermont Democrats showed little concern that Dean withdrew from the race Feb. 18 after going winless in the first 17 contests, favoring their former governor by a 2-to-1 margin over front-runner John Kerry, exit polls showed.”
Obviously fairly meaningless but I think their loyalty is rather sweet.
Katherine,
I know it’s not much solace, but I think Dean (if he were serious about winning, and you know I’ve questioned that before) would have been a much stronger nominee than Kerry. Not that I’m not grateful that your fellows didn’t see it that way, but if I were a campaign guru I’d rather package Dean than Kerry any day.