2008 USGE RESULTS THREAD PS GOP U LOST DIXVILLE NOTCH LOL

Rossi makes Gordon Smith look like a woodsman

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wasn't kristol's dad a conservative movt bigwig?

Emanuel Accepts Chief of Staff Job

flyover statesman, compare that with:

"It may have been a Cheshire-cat grin, but Obama was not a gloater. There was no high-fiving or obvious schadenfreude. As Axelrod saw him, Obama didn't enjoy a good hate. That would be a waste of time and emotion, and Obama was, if nothing else, highly disciplined."

Referring to Obama's primary win in NC and Bill Clinton's 17 point approval rating drop there.

Oh my. I've heard about the Rossi/Gregoire race but I hadn't seen a picture of him, either. Where do they get these guys?

i'm just basically tired of assholes. you can be an effective, inspiring, scrappy candidate/leader without being a cunt.

Rahm Emanuel is not your guy then.

I had never seen a picture of Gordon Smith until now with that article on the Merkley win. Do people routinely make fun of his fake Ken doll wig?

yes, we do. I still can't believe Merkley might win, last I looked he was down 15K. we also have some really close local races in Oregon that still aren't decided.

Smith has already conceded. Merkley won.

Oh my. I've heard about the Rossi/Gregoire race but I hadn't seen a picture of him, either. Where do they get these guys?

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/05/15/story.stand.jpg

Parts, The Clonus Horror

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YES

Obama, by contrast, lost weight. He regularly ate the same dinner of salmon, rice and broccoli.

choom gang r.i.p.

Parts, The Clonus Horror

They're about ready to go to...AMERICA!

nahh u aint see that barry smokes broccoli on the daily

Between the Sanford/Jefferson mix-up and these "lithium crystals," Obama runs the risk of alienating my watches-too-much-TV demographic

Is it wrong that I find these Newsweek "How He Did It" soap opera's endlessly entertaining and fascinating every four years? It feels dirty somehow.

The Sanford/Jefferson gaffe was the first thing he has said that I was appalled by. xp

It's a good read.

I liked the '96 one a lot, between that and Michael Lewis's book it covered an odd year.

The 92 one was good as well, I always like reading these after the election.

The '04 was depressing, but still fascinating. Made me hate Clinton all the more w/ his deathbed "come out hard against gay marriage" bullshit.

I admit with this one I'm just briefly skimming bits...I'm waiting for the Palin-and-after chapters.

Won't Palin be in the next one?

Should be!

The whole thing is really a good read. I end up feeling more sympathy for HRC than I expected to.

^^ this. what a mess she had to deal with.

I feel sorry for her too. Being married to Bill doesn't exactly seem like it's all fun and games.

On the other hand, he didn't drag her off caveman-style so ya make your bed, etc.

yah both the McCain and Clinton campaigns seem like complete messes

obama's campaign was run on a few clear ideas with a clear gameplan, and they got people who would stick to the script and execute. hillary seemed to collect a bunch of the "best" people around her and then hope something materialized out of it. mccain was just hopeless.

salmon, rice and broccoli

dude eats my favorite foods too?

Post-election revelry ends at jail

NE-2 still outstanding

Heh, one of my professors who lives in Charles Village was all "Man, those Hopkins students were going crazy!" yesterday.

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Part 5 is up at Newsweek...

By picking Palin, Schmidt argued, McCain could snatch the "change" mantle away from Obama. Not for the first time, Salter came around to Schmidt's way of thinking. In the home of one of Cindy McCain's business associates, the two men tried to impress on Palin just how grueling the coming months could be. She did not seem intimidated—in the least. She was up front about her family, telling the McCain aides that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter Bristol was pregnant.

Nov. 6, 2008 | Bill Kristol, "Fox News Sunday" -- Dec. 17, 2006

"If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she's going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her ... Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single democratic primary. I'll predict that right now."

Karl Rove, "Fox News Sunday" -- Aug. 19, 2007

On Hillary Clinton: "The Democrats are going to choose a nominee. I believe it's going to be her. That's their business…But I think she's going to be the nominee."

Peter Mulhern, Real Clear Politics -- Oct. 1, 2007

"In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. Fred Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons."

Ann Coulter, "Hannity & Colmes" on Fox News -- Dec. 20, 2007

"I think it's probably going to be Romney for the Republicans, Hillary for the Democrats."

Jonah Goldberg, National Review -- Jan. 4, 2008

"I think it's worth imagining a certain scenario. Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he's the nominee -- and then imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary's inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he's denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid."

Rudy Giuliani, the Washington Post -- Jan. 12, 2008

"We'll win Florida. It's an unconventional strategy, but I've never followed conventional wisdom before; it's always worked."

Hillary Clinton, ABC News -- April 3, 2008

A source with "direct knowledge" of Hillary to Bill Richardson concerning Obama: “He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."

Pat Buchanan, MSNBC's "Hardball With Chris Matthews" -- May 21, 2008

On McCain's vice-presidential choice: "My guess is he's going to win Florida by himself. And Charlie Crist, of course, would seal it, but McCain will win it by himself. Jindal is a tremendously popular figure with conservatives. He's a traditionalist Catholic, Chris. But I just don't see McCain going to Louisiana. I agree with Norah on that. I think Romney is somewhat more likely because I think McCain is going to go north."

Rudy Giuliani, MSNBC's "Road to the White House" -- Aug. 6, 2008

"And when you look at the serious questions that face us, whether it's energy or the economy, or the war on terror, I think John McCain's experience ends up being something that will win the race for him."

President Bush, Republican National Convention -- Sept. 2, 2008

"We live in a dangerous world. And we need a president who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain … When the debates have ended and all the ads have run and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates -- and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket."

George Allen, the "Today" show -- Sept. 24, 2008

"I think Virginians are really getting fired up for this ticket of McCain and Palin … but the key issues of Virginia: national security, energy security, lower taxes, and that's why I think ultimately John McCain will win here in Virginia."

Hugh Hewitt, Townhall.com -- Oct. 3, 2008

"So, despite the rapture of college students and the registration of the homeless in Ohio, the common sense of Americans will override curiosity about Barack Obama and infatuation with his celebrity, and trust John McCain to pilot the country for the next four years ... America is a great and good nation, and it will not turn itself over to a party in the grip of its hardest left cadres, its most corrupt machine and its least experienced nominee ever. Especially not when it has a man of enormous courage and proven devotion and sacrifice at the ready to lead through difficult times."

Tom Ridge, CNN -- Oct. 28, 2008

"I believe we need to prevail in Pennsylvania for John to win. And I think we will … I think John made an excellent choice. I've been with Gov. Palin. I've seen her energize the crowds. I know how the Republican Party and the base feels about her. John wasn't looking for a candidate to help in one state, he was looking for a candidate to help in all 50. I think he found that running mate."

Rush Limbaugh, interview with London Telegraph and on his radio program -- Oct. 31, 2008

To London Telegraph: "I think [Obama has] been dead in the water since the primaries. He is going to need to be up 10 to 12 points to win by 3 or 4 … Don't forget that Hillary winning was a foregone conclusion, too. If the polls had been right it would have been Giuliani versus Hillary. That's why polls a year out are worthless."

On his radio program: "My gut hadn't been giving me any indication on this race, but it started talking to me last night … Barack is headed back to Iowa. That should be a lock; it’s a dead heat … Florida, Ohio and Nevada look like pretty good McCain certainties here. Obama still has to run ads in California."

McCain advisor Charlie Black, as reported in Time -- Nov. 2, 2008

"McCain is in a good position to win every red state ... Plus he is probably going to win Pennsylvania and Iowa."

Carl Cameron, Fox News -- Nov. 3, 2008

"When you look at what's happened in the polls in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida -- they believe that they've strengthened. Essentially, the conservative districts in those states are now secured. That they still have a little bit of work to do, particularly in the much-vaunted GOP ground game: knocking on doors, making phone calls, lots of e-mails to shore them up entirely. But most of the red states they think they're now safe in ... In places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri expect a late night. No quick calls tomorrow.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review -- Nov. 4, 2008

Shortly before Pennsylvania was called for Obama on Election Night, Lopez wrote on the Corner blog: "Barone … throws serious cold water on the Pa. calls."

Ed Morrissey, Washingtonpost.com -- Nov. 4, 2008

The Hot Air blogger predicted that John McCain would win 51 percent of the popular vote and beat Obama in the electoral vote 273-262. He also predicted that Al Franken would receive only 36 perecent of the vote in the Minnesota Senate race.

Dick Morris

Morris released a book in October 2005 titled "Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race."

Schmidt and Salter met with her as soon as she arrived in Flagstaff on Wednesday. The three talked late into the night. Schmidt and Salter probed and pressed and looked for gaps between her views and McCain's. Palin shrugged off substantive differences. "What's the big darn deal?" she asked, smiling and, in her frontier-girl way, half defying, half flirting with her interrogators.

Yech.

bullet dodged

Speechwriter Matt Scully and senior communications aide Nicolle Wallace were instructed to fly to Cincinnati and were given the name of a small, nondescript hotel. When they arrived they found Salter sitting on the curb, smoking, while Schmidt stared at his BlackBerry.

That's what happens when you charge by the hour.

Schmidt opened the door to the suite and said, "Meet our vice presidential candidate." It took Scully a few seconds to register who she was. Wallace, still a little dopey from painkillers from a root-canal operation, had no idea.

Can David Lynch do the film version of this please?

Palin remained phlegmatic the next day when the left-wing blogs began speculating that 5-month-old Trig was actually Bristol's child and that Palin was covering for her daughter. When an aide told Palin that he had started receiving calls from "respectable news organizations" demanding physiological proof that Trig was actually Palin's son, she quipped, "What, do I have to show them my stretch marks?"

AAAAAAARGH

More from the 'towel' incident:

Salter tried to strike up a conversation. He knew that Todd was half native Alaskan and a championship snow-machine racer.

"So what's the difference between a snowmobile and a snow machine, anyway?" Salter asked. "They're the same thing," Todd replied. "Right, so why not call it a snowmobile?" Salter joshed. "Because it's a snow machine," came the reply.

Later, Schmidt and Salter went outside so that Salter could have a cigarette. "So how about the Eskimo? Is he on the level?" Schmidt asked. Salter just shrugged and took another drag.

HOW BOUT THAT ESKIMO

LOL, XXP

Todd Palin is a total dude.

elmore leonard's get palin

This election is a gift that keeps on giving.

played by fred ward, of course

More seriously, the turning point:

In mid-September, McCain was in Florida when the financial crisis broke. First the venerable investment-banking house Lehman Brothers announced it would file for bankruptcy, then the giant insurer AIG sought an emergency loan from the Federal Reserve, then the giant Merrill Lynch collapsed in a fire sale to Morgan Stanley. At a rally in Jacksonville, McCain trotted out a familiar line from his stump speech. "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," McCain insisted, as he had for months. "But these are very, very difficult times … I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government."

At Obama headquarters, the oppo team wasted no time. "We're grabbing up YouTube, we're driving it, everywhere," an aide recalled. "McCain says economy 'strong'," read an e-mail from the Democratic National Committee. In Colorado, Obama openly mocked McCain, in a way that not too subtly depicted the 72-year-old senator as mentally out of it. "It's not that I think John McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of most Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he say, today, of all days, just a few hours ago, that the fundamentals of our economy are strong? Senator, what economy are you talking about?"

Now it was McCain's turn to seem caught unawares, to appear knocked back and unsteady. His campaign tried to explain that by "fundamentals," he meant American workers, and if Obama disagreed with that, well, then the Illinois senator was clearly against American workers. This spin was so outrageous that the regular traveling press laughed out loud.

McCain, the fighter pilot, began to swoop and veer. On the "Today" show, he declared, "We are in crisis. We are in total crisis." He called for a 9/11-style commission to investigate what exactly had gone wrong. He was ad-libbing; his staff was caught by surprise. Obama attacked again, mocking McCain for offering up "the oldest stunt in the book—you pass the buck to a commission to study a problem." McCain never mentioned the commission again.

But he continued to lurch. He announced that as president he would fire Chris Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was pointed out to him that the president does not have the power to fire the SEC chairman, who serves a fixed term. McCain, now in forgiveness mode, called Cox a "good man" but said he would ask for his resignation anyway.