I was just about to write this, and then bang, I see a reader of NRO has already sent in the analysis.

Everyone's acting like Mitt must win New Hampshire to survive. But that's based on old facts which are no longer facts at all -- chiefly, that Giuliani had a large fraction (over 35%) of the Republican vote and Romney would need to win the early states to even challenge Giuliani.

That analysis hardly holds, anymore, given that Giuliani has cratered -- and indeed most of the evangelicals previously willing to back him have found a new candidate in Huckabee -- and given, especially, that at least one poll names Mitt Romney as the new national poll leader.

I find it strange that Romney is considered to have lost last night. Yes, he came in second. But he was hit by Hurricane Hucakbee, which no one saw coming until the past month. And everyone was hit by Hurricane Huckabee; Romney weathered the storm the best.

I do think that Fred had a good night -- a very necessary good night -- and even John McCain can take some satisfaction in his fourth-place finish. But I don't agree that one can say these men "won" while Romney "lost." Sure, Romney lost to Huckabee. Everyone else lost worser.

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 AM | Comments (52)
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I didn't know that. Did you? Unless you're a Wyomingan, probably not.

There haven't been any polls conducted and only a few candidates have even visited there. But among them: Teh Fred. And their campaign guys remind everyone that Liz Cheney is supporting him.

Then again, The Huckster got an endorsement from the Governor.

Fred's post-Iowa rally:

Click To Play

Romney, meanwhile, tries to take The Maverick down a peg before New Hampshire:

More on Wyoming: Who has the best ground game there?

Turns out it's Mitt Romney. Again. Sheesh, this guy is everywhere.

Gotta give it to the guy: He plays to win.

Posted by: Ace at 11:06 AM | Comments (28)
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Second bit of quoted text.

"I have 1000 notarized signatures stating that you should
have semi-anonymous sex with me."

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (14)
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Eh. Fans are greeting the news of this with joy, but the fact is that MMORPG's are almost all about killing things and taking their stuff.

Which did happen on Firefly. But the wit of the show was in humor and character interaction, something that's just not going to be available in an MMORPG, unless you think "LOL I PWNED YOU!!1111!!!" constitutes witty banter.

On the other hand, who knows, maybe if the game's a money maker it will prod Fox into greenlighting another movie.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (20)
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Thanks to Hot Air for this, via The Corner. This is from The American Prospect's Ezra Klein:

Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.

Did he just call Obama, essentially, the Lamb of God?

So we've got Huckabee with Jesus as his running mate versus, it seems, the Second Coming of Jesus Himself. I guess religious voters are going to have a hard time deciding here.

Good Lord.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (40)
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Tomorrow night, ten presidential candidates will gather in Manchester, N.H for back-to-back Republican and Democratic debates. Many around here have pooh-poohed the modern debate format. There are several problems:

(1) Too many candidates on the stage.Why should we entertain the hopes of Alan Keyes or Dennis Kucinich when there is no chance that they will be nominated?* It is quite possible that letting these folks continue merely to "raise issues" unnecessarily damages the viable candidates and quite certain that they distract from the real contest.

(2) Not enough interaction between the candidates. Once upon a time a debate took place between two or more people. It looked nothing like the question-and-answer format embraced by the legacy media, which isolates the candidates from one another. The use of separate podiums adds to this problem. This is related to the third problem:

(3) The moderator is too much in the spotlight. Moderators too often give in to their inner media demon and end up taking attention away from the candidates. In part, they're having to prove to their bosses that they were worthy picks to moderate a debate. The result is uniformly bad though diverse, and includes things like vapid gushing ("Pearls or diamonds?") and gotcha questions ("Raise your hands, gentlemen.").

(4) The format seems designed to cut off debate. The candidates are instructed to watch for the yellow and the red lights telling them when to shut up. It's artificial and leads to just what we'd like to avoid: sound-bite answers, as candidates try and spit out the outline of an answer before the light goes red. This is done in the name of fairness, since it wouldn't do to allow one candidate to have more time than another.

Well, morons, Charles Gibson has heard our plea. For Saturday, he is trying something new:

"I'm going to put a question on the table, and to the extent that I can, I'm going to disappear," he says. "It's not about me. It's not about showing I can ask a clever question. It's about them."

The ABC anchor, who admits to being nervous, will be in the extraordinary position of quizzing both Republicans and Democrats in back-to-back debates Saturday night, with just a few minutes separating the two 90-minute sessions. The showdowns are scheduled on the heels of the Iowa caucuses and three days before the New Hampshire primary.

"This is sort of a high-wire act," Gibson says. "I could fail miserably with this."

Among other things, Gibson plans to have the candidates seated in a semicircle, the better to foster what he likens to a dinner table discussion. "Every debate I've watched, they feel very Balkanized behind the podium," he says.

There will be no blinking lights or artificial time limits, with Gibson meting out what he calls "fair time" based on clocks tracking the candidates' performance. And ABC's strict criteria for participation could mean as few as four contenders of either party onstage -- a crucial winnowing for the first prime-time debate to be carried by a broadcast network this season....

Gibson plans to devote the first 45 minutes of each debate to three big topics -- different for each party -- and basically let the candidates go at it...

For the next 30 minutes, Gibson and Scott Spradling, an anchor at WMUR-TV, the ABC affiliate in New Hampshire, will quiz the candidates in more traditional fashion, with rebuttals allowed. The last 15 minutes will feature questions tailored to individual candidates, with no rebuttals unless someone is attacked by name.

That winnowing has already taken place. Duncan Hunter, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel have been dropped from the debate according to the rules laid out by ABC last week. That puts the Democrats in good shape, with only Obama, Clinton, Edwards, and Richardson on the stage.

The Republican debate will be a little more crowded. The first four placers in Iowa will be included (Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Thompson). Those who poll above 5% nationally are included (Giuliani). Those who poll above 5% in New Hampshire are included (Paul).

I'm hopeful that these will be good debates owing to the new format, though as you know, I like seeing the candidates squirm and squabble on stage. Your mileage may vary.

Sadly, I already have plans tomorrow night and so am going to miss the debates. You'll take notes for me, right?

_{*One possible reason is that it gives them a chance to "try-out" for a vice presidential slot. I think the opposite is true and possibly a good thing: it gives the bottom candidates a chance to disqualify themselves in the eyes of voters and the eventual nominee from being selected as running mates or cabinet members.}

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:24 AM | Comments (17)
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I'm sick of Iowa this morning. Ok, I've been sick of Iowa for the past 37 mornings. Enough.

I need a candidate I can really get behind. Someone classy. Articulate. And with really great hair. Someone whose apartment smells of rich mahogany, with many fine leatherbound books.

Yesterday morning, I read about this very man. A man who is ready to take on Chet Edwards, D-Texas. A man who invented the wheel. A man who built the Eiffel Tower with brawn and steel. That man is Rob Curnock.

...

He doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

via that Waco radio guy from Long Island (no link to his page, it wants to install WMP, sorry) more...

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 06:08 AM | Comments (23)
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How well did Fred need to do in Iowa to stay in the race? Apparently the answer is around 13% of the vote and a virtual tie for 3rd.

ABC News' Christine Byun reports: Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson says he is staying in the race.

"It's pretty clear we're going to have a ticket to the next dance," Thompson said as the audience cheered.

He thanked his wife, Jeri, who he called his "number one dance partner," and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, for his support.

So, Fred lives to dance another day. Does he put a lot of effort into Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire or focus on South Carolina on Saturday, January 19th?

Posted by: DrewM. at 09:55 PM | Comments (64)
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I'm still rooting for it.

Y'all?

Posted by: Jack M. at 09:27 PM | Comments (36)
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I just got back from the caucus, and I'm polishing off a bottle of Boone's Farm with a Hardee's Ham & Cheese Sammich. The long national nightmare is now over, and New Hampshire, I've got one thing to say to you:

TAG! YOU'RE IT!

Here's the raw numbers from Madison County (both the city & rural precincts combined):

Mike Huckabee 395 (43.5%)
Mitt Romney 146 (16.1%)
Fred Thompson 139 (15.3%)
John McCain 96 (10.6%)
Ron Paul 85 (9.4%)
Rudy Giuliani 31 (3.4%)
Duncan Hunter 12 (1.3%)
John Cox 3 (0.3%)
Alan Keyes 1 (0.1%)

When they asked me to come up on the stage to give my speech, they had me sitting between our local State Representative (who was there for Romney) and Huck's sister (who was there for, duh!). There were people there for Giuliani (some dude I've never met), McCain (a high school chick, who did a darn good job, though she did appeal to emotion a little too much), and some other guy who was there for the Paul-bots. I was a little disappointed to see some familiar faces there with Paul stickers on, but I guess you never can tell.

I had to rip the speech down to it's bare bones, 'cuz the first time I tried to read it, the clock hit 2:30 while I still had three paragraphs to go. I made it through the speech without feeling the tap on my shoulder from the chairman (the Paul guy got tapped three times before he finally shut up), and my wife's got video of the speech on her digital camera.

Yeah, right. Like I'm gonna share it with any of you. Morons.

I'll write more tomorrow about the statewide numbers after I've had a chance to unwind & reflect on the event.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 08:25 PM | Comments (32)
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