Back from a Long Journey
By Socrates Posted in Elections — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I had a particularly difficult semester at the Academy this fall, studying the intricacies of characteristic equations of linear recurrences and optimal thread interleaving for massively parallel processors. If all of that sounds Greek to you, rest assured, in the beginning it sounded English to me.
Paying scant interest to my political avocation, I seem to have missed much that transpired in the intervening months. And yet, though much transpired, little occurred.
Mitt Romney is still himself: afraid to let his personal convictions carry over into public positions, lest someone accuse him of intransigence. Fear not, Mitt, no one shall bring that particular charge.
John McCain, the media nominee, got there by being George W. Bush. I'll let that one lay on the podium until the smell goes away.
Rudy fell from favor because, as expected, Republicans found him to be a bit too socially liberal.
Huckabee failed to gain traction with actual voters because A) someone pointed out that following Christ doesn't mean being charitable with other people's money and B) he still has a funny name.
Duncan Hunter and the other minors failed to distinguish themselves, and thus failed.
There is no shame in finding failure at the level these men encountered it.
On the other side of the aisle, John Edwards is hanging around, hoping against all reason to win some State, any State, so that he can be chosen as Barack Obama's running mate. He won't be Hillary's, as she would have to choose Obama (or possibly Oprah).
Barry Obama has found a clever way to play the race card without playing it. He says "Interest in me shows that people have gotten past race." Oh. Right.
Hillary Clinton, in allowing her husband to campaign for her, is doing well to abide by the saying "ride the horse that brought ye". Without Bill, she's just another crooked lawyer. She's failing to use the winning approach toward Obama: "If you're going to vote for Barack Obama because he is a man and I am a woman, then go ahead. But if you're going to vote for me because I am White, then stay home, because I don't want the racist vote."
But as I said, I've not been paying attention.
though, but since you paid attention you know it.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
I was eager to warmly welcome you back and advise you to celebrate the fact that you have missed out on the below the belt, eye-scratching, ear-biting slug fest. But I see you have stepped into the pile right off. :)