MSM = 'Media Saves McCain'?
Plus--Krugman: From shrill to shill!
Backfill.: Rasmussen reports that immigration is the #1 issue in the Iowa race:
Twenty-five percent (25%) of likely caucus participants identified immigration as the most important voting issue. Twenty-one percent (21%) named national security as their top issue while 18% said the economy was most important and 14% ranked the War in Iraq as the top issue- ...
Immigration is also #1 in the New Hampshire primary. ... 3:14 A.M. link
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Amateur Questions:
1) Does the DNC stripping Michigan and Florida of their delegates (to punish them for too-early primaries) make a brokered, or at least contested, convention more possible by creating a large overhanging pool of uncommitted delegates that might conceivably be counted later? ... Between them, Michigan and Florida would seem to have almost 15% of the delegates a candidate would need to win the nomination. ... [Thanks to alert non-reader D.J.P.]
2) Obama and Huckabee lead their respective races in Iowa. Suppose those two actually win their parties' nominations. Wouldn't an Obama vs. Huckabee race be so quirky it would have a good chance of attracting potential third-party or independent candidates? Candidates more experienced and less of a semi-revolutionary "stretch" than Obama, less "socially" conservative than Huckabee, more fiscally conservative than either of them, and maybe less filled with Broderesque compassion for illegal immigrants? Candidates who are more boring? ... P.S.: Suddenly, Unity '08 doesn't look irrelevant. ...
12:39 A.M. link
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Sunday, December 2, 2007
Brendan Nyhan on the Carteresque silliness of Obama's idea of providing (in the NYT's description) "live Internet feeds of all executive branch department and agency meetings." ... For a good example of how idealistic "open meeting" laws can gum up government by forcing officials to endure hours of for-show public meetings with grandstanding interest groups before actually getting down to business, read Lynn and Whitman's terrific account of Carter's welfare-reform failure. ... P.S.: How about live internet feeds of all Obama staff meetings? The voters of Iowa deserve no less! ... 11;42 A.M.
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Who Said It: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford or Simpsons Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby?
Is Wal-Mart in Trouble? Is Amazon to Blame?
Is Your State Bird a Stupid State Bird? What It Should Be Instead.
Photograph of Ann Coulter on Slate's home page by Brad Barket/Getty. Photograph of a wedding cake with two grooms on Slate's home page by Hector Mata/AFP Photo. Photograph of Princess Diana on Slate's home page by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images.