TO MOLLIFY LINGJACKSON OVERDRIVEBERT WHO IS THE SQUEAKY DESERT FIEND, POST ON THIS THREAD AND ONE OF YOUR FRIENDLY ITR MODS WILL TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE WICKED AWESOME, AND POSSIBLY OFFER AN EFFUSIVE ST

Dan... wow. Just wow. I sometimes like to think that I'm imagining the crazy racism of the current R party, but then I get the stuff from my family and I'm like, OMG I AM IN DENIAL HERE.

In your Dad's defense, though, I don't want to believe that current shit is real.

PS Dan, you should come home and ban HI DEAR in person.

Who is HI DEAR?

He's this wacky guy who is on some kind of new sunshine drug.

FB, let me be the first person to promise to buy you a drink if your optimism plays out in November. No joke.

okay megafucking lolz at Giuliani (aka the Howard Dean of 2008)

Biden just announced he's going to actually drop out, instead of just being an embarrassing hopeless hanger-on for a few weeks.

I am seriously freaked out by Giuliani, both in terms of politics, and also in terms of looks. Maybe he could go on to a fulfilling career in B grade horror flicks.

lol poor Biden, srsly why was he even in it in the first place?

In the o_O but factually true comment category on CNN just now "Iowa has never elected an African-American to anything".

MN really ought to take this opportunity to build that southern border wall while we still can.

Oh, Chris Dodd out, too.

I'm sure this was your point, but Iowa is almost as white, as, like North Dakota, isn't it?

lol John, get out there with your tool belt and some boards

NOTE NOTE NOTE: None of my vitriol towards Iowa has anything to do with the couldn't be more awesome Democratic result this evening.

BTW African-American population of Iowa = 2.3%, so yes.

I think we all know that you just fear the cornfields, John.

xpost

I refuse to get excited about the results, even though the D results were what I hoped for. Too cynical?

Still, Obama's victory speech was really good and definitely historic results and omg I'm going to talk myself into getting excited. I'd better go find a snack.

FB, let me be the first person to promise to buy you a drink if your optimism plays out in November. No joke.

Don't misread my favorable response to the IA caucuses as optimism. A lot of water will flow under the bridge between now and November, but if I'm reading the trail signs right, I do believe that right now, ten months before the event, the Dems are in a stronger position than the the Republicans.

Long trail, it's true, and I am NOT saying I disagree with you. Only that I'm afraid to agree with you; I just take it all too personally.

And I'm serious about the drink because nothing would make me happier than to have been wrong about this.

(wrong about my depressing cynicism which I will probably pass on to my two kids, creating a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy! Just say yes to the drink offer! It will create good karma or something!)

I really hope I'm wrong, FB, but your portrayal of the events seems colored by a belief in an imaginary unified Democratic front vs. a fractionary and squabbling Republican one. Also, the designed by a crazy person square-dance structure of the Iowa Dem caucus structure limited the possible results to clear shared winners vs. abject and complete losers, where the Republican straw poll version guaranteed the sort of winner to loser bell curve you see over there.

All I'm saying is that there are a bunch of Republican dudes sitting around high-fiving about the fact that Hillarys third place finish/the three way split means the dems are showing that they are a house divided.

(xpost to Sara)

I totally get your meaning. I just want to be clear that I am not optimistic, even though Republican enthusiasm and unity are repressed relative to the recent past.

Next is NH. Who knows what the outcome will be in NH. The NH primaries rarely look like the IA caucuses.

Just catching up with you, John. (watching Deadwood WOOT)

WOOT!

I hate it when I agree with John on politics. HATE IT.

But here's the thing: Democrats are often difficult to keep on the same page, Republicans not so much.

So if someone could please just time machine me to mid-November, I'd really appreciate it.

Deadwood good?

Just finished up BLACK BOOKS last night; hilarious and still SO in love with Dylan Moran and his adorable dimples. Looking forward to getting more ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT from a friend; also really enjoying DEXTER (creepy!).

the dems are showing that they are a house divided.

Okay, the Republicans can say that all day, but it's the first contest on both sides in just one state, so any other sort of results seems kind of unlikely given how the Ds run the caucuses. (That being said, what is said in the media becomes true through self-fulfilling prophecy sometimes. So ick.)

IA caucuses always look like that. The three way split is pretty common. I'm personally happy to see Hillary scraping by, but that's another thing.

I do believe that, relative to the recent past, the Democrats are less disharmonious, and the Republicans are a less well-glued-together coalition. I also believe that, as far as base support goes, I think their candidates are relatively weaker than ours.

I never made a statement supporting "an imaginary unified Democratic front vs. a fractionary and squabbling Republican one".

FB, I think John is just extrapolating a bit from what he thinks you mean.

So do you mean that you want Hillary to stay in the race, or to be out of it? Because, all things being equal, I'd love to see a woman be President, but honestly, it's the baggage of the past that she carries that makes me not want her. I want someone who can win in the general election and I can't believe that she can.

I don't care for Hillary. If she carries the Democratic endorsement, I will vote for her. I enjoy seeing Obama leading in IA. Can't hurt him.

Makes sense. Iowa voted exactly as I hoped they would with the Ds. It's not even that I don't like Hillary; I don't mind her, but I don't like her that much either. And I've met enough DEMOCRATS who dislike her that I just think that in the general, she's doomed.

On a personal level, I like Obama best of Hillary-Edwards-Obama, but I haven't been paying much attention to actual issues and rhetoric (school and Xmas have gotten in the way of politics obsession).

Curious to see what happens in New Hampshire... especially for Republicans. I can't see Huckabee doing as well there.

http://wcco.com/minnesotawire/22.0.html?type=local&state=MN&category=n&filename=MN--SpecialElection.xml

Okay, I didn't expect this, especially since Ray Cox is well known and liked in Northfield, but...

Deadwood is fucking incredible. Shakespearian is a word that has been bandied about and I won't argue against it.

Okay, wow. I will add that to the queue (which is now almost full), and probably also add The Wire, since Molly (the ILX librarian) has been recommending that.

Heard wonderful things about the wire.

I need to move all the kid's stuff to the kid's queue before I can add THE WIRE. But then I can rearrange my queue, and I love doing that for some reason.

Good night, ITR and thanks FB and John for politics talk.

Also, hopefully by morning my eyes will have stopped being affected by the dilation drops. It fades sooooooo sloooooowly for me...

ok itr-ers i have a politics question: (keep in mind i'm a nzer)

when you vote in the primaries, do you only vote once i.e. for the candidate you want to eventually see president, or do vote for both the republican and democrat candidates? in nz you vote twice on the same day: one vote for your MP (member of parliament) who represents the electoral area you live in, and therefore represents the interests of your community, and a second vote for the party you want to be in government (the party decides the leader/prime minister, not the public).

Yes, I've been confused about american primaries ever since the first season of 24

My v good bro who has been in Nepal and surrounds doing docterly goodness things. His latest photo upload. I thought it was a beautiful shot: http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j171/mdanielwalter/P1060202.jpg

It is

The primaries/caucuses are how candidates secure their party's nomination. I can vote within the party of my choice to nominate a presidential candidate. These are contests internal to the parties and are not actual elections.

However, any candidate can run for president in the general election. All of our votes are for individual candidates. We do not vote for parties. We vote for the President directly. She is con elected by congress.

Cool photo!

She is con not elected by congress.

Also, good morning, etc.

Oh, good morning!

I totally want to get con elected.

It's FB's vision, his dream, his reason to be. Join him!

ahhhhhh... thanks FB, i didn't realise that. i figure i need to start learning all this stuff since i'll be living in the US in the very near future.

w4lter, that is a way cool pic of your bro.

To make it even more entertaining, the rules of how caucuses work are completely different depending on what state you are in, and which party the caucus is for! WHOOHOO WACKY AMERICAN SYSTEM!

You might not actually want to come here, we're kind of stupid.

i'm getting more and more scared about living in the US, and more and more appreciative of the lifestyle available to NZers. your healthcare system for example: totally fucking wack. it's gonna cost me and the boy an extra $380 p/month to insure me. and the shit that your politicians get away with, with practically zero accountability - i almost can't fathom it.

but i guess it's a trade off. living day to day is so easy in nz, but it's BORING - there just isn't the same kind of arts/literature scene available as there is in parts of the US.

Make sure you move to a non-boring place and you'll enjoy those aspects of the US anyway.

And yeah, the It's Different In Every State thing is really confusing. Yesterday I had to explain some of how Minnesota does it to another Minnesotan. It's really only the hyper-interested who participate in caucuses and primaries.