June 17, 2007 by Alpha.

The fine folks over at Pollster.com are much better stats wonks than I am. Plus, they make pretty charts! I encourage you to keep an eye on their site in coming months, as their coverage of the 2006 election was excellent.

One of my favorite things to do is look at the trends they estimate for various polls. The set of these that excite me most are the aggregated poll results for the upcoming Democratic and Republican Presidential nominations.

On the Republican side, the big story of the last six months is a man who isn’t even in the race (yet). At the first of the year, Fred Thompson was polling right around zero. His rise since then has been meteoric, and has been accompanied by losses for Giuliani, McCain and Gingrich.

Here are the scores for the first of the year (approximate) and the current trend for the five major Republican candidates:

Six Months Ago            Today
Giuliani:                 32%                      27%
McCain:                 24%                      17%
Gingrich:               10%                      7.3%
Romney:                7%                       9.9%
Thompson, F.:        1%                     16.3%

Fred Thompson is rapidly approaching the level of political rockstar, which is interesting for three reasons. First, he hasn’t discussed seriously his positions on any of the key issues. Second, he has spent most of the last decade in Hollywood, where he hasn’t been speaking publicly (until recently) or, again, publicly taking any positions on any of the issues this Republic faces. Third, the only paper record we have of Thompson’s behavior in government, from his time in Congress, seems to indicate that he was a knee-jerk conservative and a lousy statesman. Of course, George Bush had had less success in his life when he was nominated and elected, so who really knows what this all means?

Here’s my prediction: Thompson will waste no time in embarrassing himself through some series of gaffs or through a total lack of Presidential aptitude. As Thompson’s campaign fades, so to will McCain’s: his conservative  bona fides are all there but there’s only so far anti-war Republicans will follow John “the War Candidate” McCain. I see a Giuliani/Romney horserace coming to a crescendo right around next February, with Romney ultimately getting to nod. Mitt’s got the looks and the bearing, and as long as he can stop alienating working class Republicans he should secure the nomination.
I’ll get the companion piece to this entry, complete with some predictions about the Democratic nomination, in the next couple of days.

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June 15, 2007 by Stuck In Spokane.

I am currently getting ready to upgrade my copy of the blog software I am using on my server. So if I’m kind of slow posting for the next day or two that is why. I unfortunately have lost “export” functionality and am having to manually export each post and comment. I’m doing this on a test bed to make sure everything is relatively flawless.

Hope all is well!

-Stuck-

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June 11, 2007 by Bravo.

I’m not saying that Walla Walla County is ready to vote Democratic—yet. And maybe it won’t ever—Bill Grant excepted. But the county is experiencing changes that bear watching and political reassessment.

The Walla Walla Valley has seen the number of wineries go from a handful a decade ago to more than 100 today. The region has been reviewed favorably in national and regional publications. Those changes are bringing more tourists, upscale restaurants, and jobs to town.

In addition, the valley has turned into something of an early retirement mecca as scores of Westsiders and Californians have been cashing out the accrued values in their homes and settling here. Property values and new housing starts continue to climb at a breathtaking pace.

And the migrant population that used to move through the region with the fruit crops seems to be, at least to some extent, taking root in a number of Southeastern Washington communities. Their kids are completing school, and they’re building businesses. Latinos represent the largest minority in the state, and they are becoming more politically active.

Walla Walla County is no longer just the reserve of the wheat farmer and the penitentiary guard. Perhaps the time is right for a political realignment here in Eastern Washington.

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June 8, 2007 by Alpha.

Today makes 1,500 days since President George Walker Bush announced Mission Accomplished on board the USS Abraham Lincoln.

On Thursday we surpassed 3,500 American soldiers dead in Iraq, with tens of thousands more wounded.

Let me put it like this: in four years of college I spent about 1,200 hours in class. That’s how long a world-class degree in Political Science took me. Even at just one hour of study a day Mr. Bush should by now have learned a thing or two.

He ought to have learned, for example, that the overall record in occupations heavily favors the natives.

He ought to have learned, too, that counter-insurgency requires something like 1 soldier per 40 people in the entire country. Doubly so, because his man on the ground, General David Petraeus, literally wrote the book on counter-insurgency.

He ought to have learned that there are nuanced but foreseeable consequences for every single foreign policy move. For example, Mr. Bush decided it was a good idea to put part of our anti-Islamofascist Anti-Ballistic Missile “shield” in Poland. The reaction from Russia was obvious: “Hey! You want to act like you don’t trust us, we’ll act like we don’t trust you, which won’t be a big change from the last six years.”

Mr. Bush also ought to have learned, based on his wealth of experience, that the first step in getting out of a hole is to put down the shovel. President Putin’s nose being so understandably out of joint, Bush doubled down on a bad bet, calling the Russians out for backsliding on the democratic reforms of recent decades.

But this is Mr. Bush’s modus operandi, isn’t it? Something doesn’t go his way, and he recommits to it. His support of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is a fine example of process. When it first became clear that something was rotten in the DOJ, Bush threw down and declared his undying love and support of A.G. Gonzo.

This is the same as Mr. Bush’s approach to the occupation of Iraq: If we aren’t “getting the job done” it must be because we don’t have enough troops. Therefore, more troops. In September, I anticipate that General Patraeus will return and describe Iraq as “I need another 30,000 combat troops and another six months.” Or maybe he’ll retire or be promoted, and Bush will find another otherwise honorable officer to haul his water.

This, in itself, is a microcosm for how Mr. Bush deals with any kind of adversity. Here’s a little diagram:

Step 1: Profess proper behavior at all levels.
Step 2: Delay.
Step 3: Deny any specific wrongdoing.
Step 4: Delay.
Step 5: If indicted, profess proper behavior at all levels. Else, throw an underling under the bus.
Step 6: Delay.
Step 7: If convicted, have shills demand pardon. Else, GOTO 5.
Step 8: Go to jail.

Note that something is missing. “Resign and preserve some thin shreds of dignity” is nowhere to be found. Also, note that none of this is contingent on any factual guilt or innocence. Whether or not a loyal Bushie actually committed a crime or neglected their Constitutional responsibilities, the response pattern is the same.

The single principle driving these two systems is Mr. Bush’s early adoption of the Run Out the Clock defense. In fact, I put his conversion somewhere in the middle of 2000. It may be that Bush’s coterie of strategists decided early on that an aggressive, asinine full court press was the best way to preserve their agenda and their political control side by side. This behavior may, of course, have begun as an entirely pragmatic exercise.

In any case, Mr. Bush would clearly prefer to pass on to another President the responsibility for resolving the crises in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Sudan and every school and clinic and place of work and newspaper in America.

A man I am proud to call a mentor once said to me that leaders must either accept responsibility for the results of their actions or expect to receive the blame for them. Mr. Bush, in avoiding the former, chooses the latter.

History will be your judge, Mr. President. Your legacy depends entirely on whether you take the responsibility or the blame.

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June 7, 2007 by Stuck In Spokane.

Alpha has unfortunately had a family emergency that has forced a trip to visit said family. Alpha is not sure how busy its going to be and whether or not there will be time to post. Alpha is looking forward to posting again. Alpha can also be reached at alpha@spokompton.net. Please keep Alpha in your thoughts.
Thanks,

-Stuck in Spokane-

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June 2, 2007 by Stuck In Spokane.

Welcome All,

Welcome to Spokompton.net, the new blog for politics in Eastern Washington, and specifically in Spokane. I will be trying to keep this as up-to-date as possible. I hope to be able to provide the residents of this area (and outside of it) an alternative source of political news.

I’m always looking for new information to write about and I’d love to see other contributors get involved. Email me at info@spokompton.net and we can chat.

More to come,
Stuck in Spokane

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