Da Rumble in Des Moines
Wednesday, January 19, 2000
There were 2.3 angstroms of snow yesterday afternoon in Washington, DC. Naturally, the city was paralyzed at rush hour and the radio stations were awash in cancellation announcements.
The Iowa Caucuses take place on Monday, January 24. Mullings will descend like a bald, middle-aged locust upon Iowa on Saturday and will have special editions on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday mornings. Get the inside scoop. Or at a minimum, find out what people were saying in the bar at the Marriott.
If Gore wins with a large margin in Iowa it will make McCain's strategy of not competing in Iowa but putting all his chips in the pot in New Hampshire look smarter and smarter. Bradley is far behind in the polls in Iowa despite spending time, staff, and advertising dollars there and has shifted almost all his assets to New Hampshire. But yesterday's ABC/Washington Post poll shows him dead even with Gore in New Hampshire.
McCain has only been to Iowa twice, both times to appear in nationally televised debates. Otherwise he has pretty much camped in New Hampshire almost constantly and is hanging on to a four-point lead (40-36) in that same poll.
As noted before, there is some feeling that the independent voters in New Hampshire - who can choose in which party's election they would like to vote when they show up at the polling place - are a zero sum game. If Bradley is fading those voters might go to McCain. But, if Bradley surges again the votes might split more evenly and there might not be enough to go around for both McCain and Bradley to post wins.
It is becoming more and more clear that Bill Bradley and Al Gore do not like each other. This will, over the next several days and weeks, leak into the way the staffs deal with each other, then the way the volunteers treat each other, and finally the way their general supporters treat each other.
At the Democratic debate in Des Moines, the big moment came during the racial profiling section after Gore said he would, as President, sign an executive order to end such practices. Bradley asked Gore why didn't he just trot his little earth-toned butt down to Bill's office with such an order already drafted and say, "here, sign this" or words (as Samuel Johnson once said) to a like effect. Bradley supporters roared.
Gore responded (with that arched-eyebrow-I'm-superior look he has adopted) that President Bill Clinton didn't need a lecture from Bill Bradley on policy toward African-Americans. Gore supporters roared.
For those who doubt they really will spend any money left in Washington consider this: According to wire reports, President Bill Clinton (who does not need a lecture from Rich Galen on how to spend the surplus) announced new programs totaling $795 million. In one day.
A Mull-worthy catch, by brother-in-law John Curran, of a Reuters' headline: "Britain Inches Grudgingly Towards Metric System" The notion of inching toward the metric system is amusing, even for the Brits.
The official name of David Letterman's show is "The Late Show with David Letterman." Following the appearance of Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham it almost had to be renamed, "Show with The Late David Letterman." Oh, lighten up. He's doing fine.
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