blog.lancehaun.com

…and it isn’t pretty.

Good for them. I don’t think I could give two shits about the Republican base any more. They’ve seriously screwed themselves out of their majority and if they want, they can screw themselves out of the Presidency too. They deserve it and are lucky that the party across the aisle from them is about as inept at getting their shit together as well because it makes it a close race.

And despite posts like this, I am mostly over debating politics with anyone at any length during this election cycle. So if I don’t respond to your comment, you’ll understand that I am doing it on purpose but not on a personal level. And no, I’m not going to stop posting about politics, just the debating part.

No, not for winning Florida. He lost terribly.

Not for gaining momentum. In fact, if you don’t drop out tomorrow, it will probably just another week.

No, congratulations for having one of the stupidest campaign strategies in history by skipping all of the early contests, losing out on critical free press over the last month, and cornering the market on people who constantly say 9/11 to nearly any challenge they may face.

You will live on in thousands of political science courses by being the candidate who raised the second most money in their party and had less than a handful of delegates to show for it before dropping out.

Bye Rudy.

Sorry, this thing is so stupid.

I don’t mean any ill to those in financial strife. On the contrary, this isn’t going to help them. But to be honest, this isn’t about people pulling themselves out with a helping hand. This is trying to give a shot to the economy in a way that doesn’t help. And really, the problems with the economy aren’t the ones advertised by the media.

It is incredibly irritating to see Congress and the President railroad this through though. It makes me circle into political cynic mode which is never good.

We seem to be so incredibly scared of normal economic cycles and any market disruption that we are willing to sacrifice the very bedrock of our economic system for some short term stability.

So essentially what we are getting is an early tax refund (a couple months after we get our refund for 2007). Whoopee.

So now, we get an early $1,200 to pay off a few more debts. Something that would have been a couple months out anyway.

Is there anybody qualified to run the country? Everyone is incompetent.

I am trying to ask this in a non-snarky way but it probably is going to come out this way:

1. Are the people who are enthusiastically getting behind Hillary Clinton the same people who got behind John Kerry?

I think Kerry was probably one of the dumbest choices for the Democrats and it seemed like nobody thought about it until it was too late and he got the nomination. I feel like the same people are pushing for Hillary right now. Electability is a really crummy way to nominate someone and I think that is what is driving Clinton supporters (even though, I think the jury is still out on whether she would actually do better against any of the potential Republican candidates).

2. Does Romney remind anyone of Bill Clinton in 1992 only a liberal Republican (rather than a conservative Democrat)?

First of all, people will probably consider this an insult (either to Clinton or Romney) but I mean no disrespect. I don’t have a problem with Clinton from 1994-2000 really. He was incredibly more conservative than his talking points place him today. I don’t really have a terrible problem with Romney either (I am more apathetic). Somebody probably already said some of these things but I’ll repeat them pretending they are my very unique and special thought:

• Both of them are incredibly politically savvy, very good at speaking, very good at playing the part
• Both of them were governors in hostile territories (Clinton in Arkansas, Romney in Massachusetts)
• Both have the the tendency to compromise with their rivals (even on important issues) to maintain power rather than fight to any serious degree
• Their chief rivals were/are facing the possibility of a third party run from a candidate from their same state (Bush from Perot in Texas, Clinton from Bloomberg in New York)

Anyway, I feel that it is a battle between McCain and Romney now unless Rudy can pull of some fireworks in Florida. I have more faith in Rudy pulling something in Florida than Huckabee and I don’t think Huckabee is going to be competitive if he can’t do something spectacular in Florida.

This is probably boring to most of you…and it is a 3am post so you know it probably isn’t going to make a ton of sense. (Read on …)

I am watching the Tonight Show and Bill Maher is on and he is being surprisingly less prickish than usual. The funny thing is that like three people so far have interrupted with some sort of stupid chant from the crowd. I heard something about impeachment. And Maher and Leno were just making fun of them and then it happened right after that and right before commercial break, it happened again.

Couldn’t happen to a better guy. I laughed.

The SEC blows and I get tired of hearing about “The Greatest Football Conference Ever.” From my time down south, I can tell you that they have the most obnoxious fans in the world. Example:

All three of those fans are sanctimonious pricks deserving of a good, healthy beat down. Especially that guy on the far right as he has a very punchable face and the woman on the bottom isn’t half bad either.

NY, LA and Boston sports fans don’t have anything on these guys. And while I secretly knew that OSU wasn’t going to win the BCS selected fake championship game, I couldn’t help but to root for them with as much energy as I could stand.

I really hope NCAA football goes to a playoff system of some sort. I’d like the championship to be played for, not narrowed down to two using subjective measures.

So my grandma on the other side of my family died on Friday. This came as really crummy news. Over the course of six months, the number of grandparents I have was cut in half.

Half of the issue I am having right now is that my grief isn’t coming easy on this. With my grandpa in July, it flooded in and I had no problems letting it out. Like I said in my posts around that time, my grandpa and I spent a lot of time together especially when I was younger. His death wasn’t a total shocker but you knew the guy was as tough as nails. He had gone through this exact surgery before and didn’t lose anything from it. When he died, it seemed like part of my childhood went with him. With my grandma, she had an advanced form of dementia in the last six years and had been affected by the disease since I was in junior high. I can remember the last conversation where I felt she totally understood me and it was before I left for college. It wasn’t anything big, it was just nice knowing that she knew who I was, where I had been in my life and where I was going. It was a feeling I never really got from her again.

I know that at some point, I am going to realize what happened and what I lost. I loved my grandma and I felt so powerless over the past few years because I couldn’t do much to help her. And when she went Friday, I felt that she had suffered in an irreversable state of fear, confusion and ill health long enough and it seemed her body agreed with me.

For some reason though, I feel guilty for giving up on her and not feeling the same emotions as I had six months ago when my grandpa left. My grandma had a great laugh (one that I never heard in the past two years) and she was always welcoming. And while she cooked some great food in her prime, I’ll always remember the bologna sandwiches she used to make for lunch when I came to visit. One piece of bologna between two slices of Wonder bread.

I have a lot of great memories of her. She will be missed.

On the Democratic side, I think it is going to be interesting. Here are the scenarios I’d be looking for:

1. Obama 2. Clinton 3. Edwards

or

1. Clinton 2. Obama 2. Edwards

I think Obama has to win outright in order to gain momentum into NH otherwise I see him being a perennial second placer in every race after. That second scenario isn’t a typo either. I think if Clinton wins, it will be very close between Obama and Edwards, enough to essentially call it a tie. My hope is obviously for the first scenario because Clinton is awful.

I think beyond Iowa, you are going to see either Clinton run away with it and see second tier candidates fall behind her or Obama wins a couple early primaries and people start to feel the momentum and get beyond that. Obama has to win Iowa and South Carolina outright and place a strong second in NH. I do not think Edwards has the ability to extend beyond Iowa and South Carolina and I do not think he will be the VP candidate again. I also do not think a VP candidate will be picked from the current crop of candidates.

The most likely scenario is Clinton winning and picking a white male as her running mate from her inner circle (sorry Richardson).

On the Republican side, I think we are going to see something surprising in Iowa:

1. Romney 2. McCain 3. Huckabee

This is a huge stretch since McCain isn’t polling at that level at all. I think McCain is going to at least get third place though and I think it will carry him on to win in New Hampshire (with Romney a close second). From there, it will be a three man race (with Rudy entering the fray after the early primaries) but I think that ultimately Rudy pulls out against all conventional wisdom. No way Thompson can pull out of his current slump, Huckabee doesn’t have enough to win it and I think that Romney and McCain can be worn down by Rudy, president of 9/11.

This would be amazing of course since Rudy likely won’t place better than third in any of the early nominating contests. That won’t matter when he wins big on Super Tuesday though.

My preferred scenario is McCain gaining momentum from a surprise showing in Iowa, a win in New Hampshire and to win out on Super Tuesday and become the nominee. Ultimately, I still don’t agree with McCain on everything but I think he is better than the viable alternatives (sorry Paul). The best part about McCain is that he is right on economic conservative values and that is the most important consideration for me personally. None of the other candidates inspire that confidence.

This is not to mention the fact that I would feel very comfortable voting for McCain over Clinton and I think a lot of people would agree. I have already determined that I will not be voting for Rudy and that Mitt doesn’t inspire anything in me to care if he gets elected over Clinton or not. Let’s double that apathy if Democrats nominate someone other than Clinton. In fact, if Rudy is the nominee and someone other than Clinton is the Democratic nominee, I can see myself going blue this election (under the right circumstances of course). And if it is Rudy and Clinton, I am going to be looking at a third party.

It is kind of sick but I am excited. I didn’t think I would be (and I might not be after February 5th) but it is exciting to think of the different possibilities.

My wife rocks in so many ways.

I am not going to go into mushy details but she is just awesome.

That is all.