Random Political Intrigue Items

You might not be intrigued by I am a news junkie with politics.

First thoughts are that we need to not presume the press and pundits and polls are remotely accurate. To say that they missed what was going to happen in New Hampshire is an understatement. Something went wrong. I don't know if the pollsters asked the wrong questions or if people lied or what took place. It could possibly be that the people of New Hampshire were annoyed that others were telling them what to do. Maybe the Democratic Party is not yet ready to coronate a Presidential candidate as of yet. I sincerely like Hillary Clinton and always have. I love listening to Obama but I worry that he doesn't have the experience to step in and deal with the mess he's going to have to deal with. I wish he'd been in the Senate longer. I felt truly bad for him last night. He went through the day thinking that he was in the process of having a great win only to find out he lost. It has to hurt.

I'm getting a sense that John Edwards is done.

My wife shared with me that a woman called the Francine show and said that she had attended Worship at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Trinity is the largest church in my denomination and is pastored by Jeremiah Wright one of the most prominent African American preachers/pastors in the country.

The woman in a magnificent display of religious and cultural bigotry was appalled that this African American congregation in an African American part of Chicago acted like an African American congregation. She was offended that Wright was pro-African American rights.

She said that Wright was anti-semitic. Actually, he's pro-Palestinian which does not make him anti-semitic.

And, of course, this church did the horrible thing of welcoming everyone. She felt that the world needs to know what kind of church Obama attends so that they don't vote for him.

Amazing.

I suspect with Hillary and Barack in this race we are going to see that there is still a great deal of sexism and racism in the country. Someone at a Hillary rally was shouting that he wanted her to do his laundry. Makes you hope that he's single...

In the last Senate elections racist ads ran against Harold Ford and they worked. It is difficult to believe that people would sink low enough to make such ads....it is difficult to believe that people still have those feelings.

Many people believe that the northeast is this wildly left wing place where anything goes and will always vote for the most left-winged candidate.

Here are some realities of the northeast.

The old line northeast has a large blue collar population. They work hard and are getting crushed by the prosperity around them----prosperity that hasn't hit them. Growing up in New Jersey, New Jersey is a state of amazing contrasts. It is one of the poorest and most affluent state in the country all rolled into one small package. People vote for the Democrats consistently and pundits misconstrue the region as liberal. It's not. Many of these people still have their homes and give credit to any prosperity they might have to the unions.

I certainly have very mixed feelings about unions. They've done some good and some bad. Big time, both ways. But I understand why people are loyal to them. They are the reason that the Democrats often win in the northeast.

Who will play well in that region?

Hillary already does. Obama probably does, but I don't see him being as strong there as Hillary will be. John Edwards won't play at all there.

Amongst the Republicans, Rudy is a native. Rudy is a walking, breathing, example of many New Yorkers. I wonder if he's too New York to play elsewhere, however.

McCain will play okay there. People do like war heroes and he is one.

Huckabee won't play there at all. It is a largely Roman Catholic region and the Baptist thing doesn't play well there. It just doesn't. It's not because he is Baptist, that's not an issue. It's just so central to who he is and he speaks in a theological language that Roman Catholic people do not speak. Religion is cultural as much as it's theological and the Evangelical culture and the Roman Catholic culture are quite different.

Mitt Romney, however, plays quite well in the northeast. He is very attractive to the 'newer' northeasterners and the people who have been very economically prosperous. His religion, in the northeast, won't matter. He may be a devout Mormon, but it doesn't seem to define him as much as Huckabee is defined.

What I do find interesting about these races is that we are seeing the vastness and the cultural differences of states and regions. It is an amazing civics lesson for everyone.

Except maybe the woman who called Francine...