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2008 January 05 — Why Now?
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Flash! Wyoming Caucus Was Held

No one mentioned this to me, but apparently Romney wins Wyoming GOP caucuses, CNN projects

(CNN) — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will win the Wyoming Republican caucuses, CNN projects.

With 91 percent of precincts reporting, Romney has won eight of Wyoming’s 12 delegates.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has won two, and California Rep. Duncan Hunter has won one.

I guess “None of the Above” gets the final delegate. Given the stealth nature of this event, it doesn’t look like moving the date forward is an instant recipe for success, unless you are looking for political junk mail to burn in your fireplace.

January 5, 2008   1 Comment

Hmmm

Quiddity of UggaBugga has a little chart up comparing age and finish among the candidates in Iowa. Except for Richardson and Clinton who have only a three week difference in age, in both races the older you were, the worse you did.

January 5, 2008   2 Comments

A Slap-Dash Amendment

As is typical of the Florida legislature, there’s always time to screw things up but never time to to actually fix them. So it goes with Amendment 1 on the ballot on January 29th, along with the possibly meaningless Presidential primary vote. Even if your vote for a Presidential candidate doesn’t count, your vote on Amendment 1 most definitely will.

Republicans will vote for this turkey reflexively because “it’s a tax cut,” without really reading it to find out who’s taxes are being cut and by how much. The Florida division of elections has a PDF of the Property tax initiative, which is actually the existing law with all of the changes made by the initiative superimposed.

[Read more →]

January 5, 2008   7 Comments

Hey, Wait A Minute

The big story on the Democratic side in Iowa was the “massive” turn out, apparently fueled by young people voting for Obama, right? Wrong – there was no massive turn out, there was simply a much better turn out than the pathetic showing in 2004.

There are more that 2 million registered voters in Iowa. The “massive turn out” was a total of less than 360,000 voters for both parties. That is less than 18%. It’s a lot better than the single digit turn out in 2004, but it is not something to be proud of, nor to trumpet. In the meaningless Presidential primary in Florida in 2004 the turn out was better than 20%.

The parties need to look at this mess. Iowa wants to be first, but they don’t bother to show up. Given the brutal conditions in the state at this time of year, Iowa would be better off with a date in the late Spring and give the number one slot to Hawaii. Another possibility is no primaries or caucuses of any kind until after the vernal equinox.

January 5, 2008   8 Comments