HorsesAss.Org

Sen. John McCain wins! At least that’s what you might think from the TV punditry in the immediate wake of McCain’s fourth-place finish in yesterday’s Iowa Republican caucus. The desperation of our media elite to elevate McCain into front-runner status is exceeded only by their lazily dismissive effort to brand Sen. John Edwards as “angry.” Gimme a break.

In fact there were winners and losers in yesterday’s caucus, and some of them not so obvious as you might think.

The Big Winners:

The Democratic Party:
The big news coming out of Iowa was not Obama’s or Huckabee’s somewhat comfortable wins (or McCain’s spectacular fourth-place victory) but the caucus itself, which saw record-busting turnout on the Democratic side and well, not so much for the Republicans. In 2000, the last time both parties caucused, the Republicans turned out 87,000 voters and the Democrats only 59,000. In 2004, the Democrats drew 125,000. Last night Republicans produced 115,000 voters, a modest increase from 2000, while a stunning 236,000 Iowans swarmed the Democratic caucuses. It doesn’t take a Beltway pundit to understand what this energized (and independent engorged) Democratic base could mean next November, up and down the ticket.

Obama and Huckabee:
Yeah, they both won, so I suppose that makes them both winners, though of the two I think Barack Obama goes into New Hampshire in the much stronger position. I came away from his June appearance in Seattle wondering if the polls might be underestimating Obama’s support. The audience was filled with new faces, somewhat younger, many of whom told me they’d never even voted before, let alone contributed to or volunteered for a political candidate, and if these folks actually turned out, the “likely voter” model on which pollsters rely would have to be tossed out the window. Well… they turned out. If that holds true throughout the primary season and into November, nothing short of an assassin’s bullet will keep Obama out of the White House. (I hope Obama has really tough security.)

Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden:
Yeah, they lost, and they lost big. But at least they had the common sense to get out and return to life as almost normal. And while Dodd came away from Iowa with only a single delegate, he’s gained the newfound respect of progressives nationwide, who are already mounting a grassroots campaign to have him replace Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader.

Fred Thompson:
He’s rich, he’s famous, and he has a much younger, buxom wife, despite being rather ugly and shriveled himself. How can he lose?

The Big Losers:

The Republican Party:
Evangelical Christians turned out in large numbers to push Huckabee over the top in the Republican caucus, but other than that, what does the GOP have? Not much. This is a fractured party with an extremist base that independents are fleeing in droves. If I were a Republican running in a competitive race anywhere in the nation, I would be very, very nervous right now.

Mitt Romney:
Two years and a kajillion dollars later, and a distant second-place finish behind a preacher from Arkansas is the best he can muster? For a guy whose biggest claim to the White House seems to be nondescript competency, losing Iowa runs counter to message. He’s not out of it, as both Huckabee and McCain are ripe for self-destruction, but even in this pathetic Republican field I’m not so sure Romney’s campaign theme of “I’m not one of the other guys” is enough to garner the nomination.

Hillary Clinton:
Again, not out of it, but this has to be a huge blow. I never bought in to the inevitability meme (or the Hillary can’t win meme either,) but a lot of folks did, and Clinton’s marginally third-place finish will have a lot of voters reevaluating their options. Obama didn’t just win, he won a comfortable majority of women voters, a core constituency Clinton had counted on. If she can come back from Iowa, she deserves to be president.

Rudy Guiliani:
Sure, Guiliani didn’t even campaign in Iowa, but for the man who led in the polls for much of the year to come away with only 3% of the delegates, a distant sixth place behind Ron Paul for chrissakes, well, that’s just pathetic. Expect similar results in New Hampshire, where Guiliani has also declined to campaign, instead choosing to pin his hopes on winning Florida. Sure, I’d rather spend my winter in Florida than in Iowa or New Hampshire, but it’s not exactly an obvious path to White House.

Bill Richardson’s press release writer:
I got a lot of ridiculous spin emailed my way last night, but by far the winner for the most pathetically grasping was headlined: “Bill Richardson Makes Final Four”. Um, yeah… with 2% of the delegates. I like Richardson, and I feel bad for him that he hasn’t gained more traction, but somebody with a conscience had to write that headline, and it is he to whom I offer my deepest condolences.

Bill Richardson, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter:
As expected, they lost, and they lost big. And yet they don’t seem to have the common sense to get out.

Not Quite So Big Losers:

John Edwards:
Yes, I know even Edwards said he had to win Iowa, but he didn’t really, and beating Clinton I think gives him a little air. Edwards must now pin his hopes on Clinton imploding, while he picks up most of her support; not a likely scenario, but possible. The best spin one could possibly put on Edwards performance is that for most of the past year this was covered as a two-way race between Clinton and Obama, and now it is legitimately a three-way. (Assuming the pundits legitimize that spin.) On the bright side, Edwards has had a huge impact on the race as a whole, with Obama, Clinton and Huckabee increasingly picking up his economic populist message.

Ron Paul:
Sure, he came in fifth with only 10% of the vote, but my God… Ron Paul got 10% of the vote! Paul is a nutty candidate, but he’s running for the nomination of a nutty party, and thus I think he’ll pick up traction before he fades away. With his gobs of cash, his anti-war message, and his psychotically fervent base, Paul could end up picking up enough delegates to give convention handlers a fit next summer. I’m looking forward to it.

Gravel and Kuccinich:
They lost big, but then, neither one is really running to win, so what does it matter?

Sen. John McCain:
No, he wasn’t a big winner (unless he was actually shooting for fourth place) but with Huckabee trouncing Romney, he didn’t exactly lose either. McCain’s strategy must be to outlast Romney and Guiliani, becoming the only real alternative to Huckabee and his Christian soldiers, but it won’t be easy without much money, and well, being McCain. McCain had long counted on independent voters to carry him to a good finish in New Hampshire, but if Iowa is any measure, independents seem to be stampeding to the Democrats, and particularly Obama.

That’s my take on Iowa, and I stand by it, even the parts that are complete bullshit.

Nothing else at all happened yesterday as the world stopped and a smallish-midsized rural state without many delegates apportioned them to this summer’s nominating conventions for the two major parties’ 2008 presidential candidates.

The final tally:

Democrats

Obama 38%
Edwards 30%
Clinton 29%
Richardson 2%
Biden 1%
Others 0%

Republicans

Huckabee 34%
Romney 25%
Thompson 13%
McCain 13%
Paul 10%
Guiliani 3%
Others 0%

(A few obvious notes: on the Dem side, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd all ran hard in Iowa, and have squat to show for it — so much for a fourth “dark horse” being propelled into the race. Dodd and Biden, in fact, dropped out of the race late last night. Among the top three, in the larger scheme of things Obama’s extra delegates over Clinton and Edwards are meaningless, and he is from one state over; this settled nothing.

The Dem caucuses attracted far more Iowans than the Republican side; of the latter, one poll showed 60% identified themselves as Christian evangelicals, which tells you all you need to know about the roots of Huckabee’s rise. Even though he didn’t campaign much there, Guiliani’s showing, for a candidate leading the pack in national polling most of the year, is shocking. And when will people start taking Ron Paul seriously? Exhibit A: This unbylined, condescending Seattle Times article, which fails to mention — as did the entire Times web site Iowa coverage — that Paul pulled 10%, only three percent behind McCain & Thompson, and instead seems shocked that Paul intends to “continue his presidential campaign into New Hampshire and other states.”)

Of course, because this is the first actual contest that counts for anything, after a full year of wall-to-wall polling and breathless analysis of candidates’ haircuts, church attendance, and tipping habits, this morning the Iowa caucuses are getting the sort of news treatment generally reserved for (other) great natural disasters. Savvy reporters are also already filing their what-did-it-all-mean stories and launching your next round of blanket coverage and pointless speculation, hosted for the next five days by New Hampshire.

Welcome to election 2008. It’s going to be like this, in greater and lesser amounts, for another 306 days.

While the earth did, in fact, stop on its axis yesterday, and all six billion of its people held their collective breaths, a few miscreants did generate other news this morning. Our Friendly Mr. Dictator, Pervez Musharraf, made the news (and doubtless lots of new friends) by essentially blaming Benazir Bhutto for her own death. And Rep. Jane Harman released a declassified letter showing that contrary to CIA public statements, the CIA planned to destroy their torture interrogation tapes two full years before they actually did so. Oh, and in a classic bury-outrageous-news-on-a-day-when-it-won’t-be-noticed move,

After a two-year investigation into the killings of up to 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, the Marine Corps has decided that none of the Marines involved in the incident will be charged with murder.

Betcha Iraqis (who consider this case right up there with Abu Ghraib among American outrages) notice anyway. Way to win hearts and minds.

Locally, the P-I gives us “Leaky leaf blower leaves slippery slick on Green Lake path,” the sort of alliterative headline about a trivial story you’d expect in, say, the local Forks paper (no disrespect to Forks). Over at the Times, the breaking local scoop is even better: “A lone coyote was spotted roaming the south parking lot of Discovery Park Wednesday morning.”

(Someone should tell our friends in Bothell that coyotes have been sighted all over town for two full years now. For example, Danny Westneat wrote a column about it six months ago in the, um, Seattle Times. Which in turn followed this story from October 2006 in the, um, Seattle Times. And so on.)

And to add to the local news mix, local TV last night gave us graphic images of our treacherous area highways, and their tragic victims (and near-victims), here, here, and here.

Maybe the Iowa coverage isn’t so bad after all.

How the first round went vs. the results we’re seeing now? (Can it be done?) In other words, what role did the second-guess play in shaping the final results? Because the other primaries aren’t going to be like this, no? You make up your mind and cast your vote and that’s it. No mulligans…

This week’s Birds Eye View Contest is not likely to be unsolved for very long.

Dominic Holden has an article in The Stranger this week that deserves as wide an audience as possible.

Also, Jim Miller is not clear on why no Democrats have responded to his request. I think my colleague Carl already covered this when he explained, “Maybe it’s Because You’re An Idiot?.”

Driving home from a New Years Eve party I noticed it was business as usual at one local McDonald’s, where no matter what hour of the day or night the drive-through lane appears clogged with cars, an apt metaphor for the passengers’ arteries. But whatever the health of its customers, this burger joint appeared to be thriving, despite the fact that only hours before, Washington state had raised its minimum wage to a nation high best $8.07 an hour. Our state’s lowest paid workers now earn $2.22 an hour more than their counterparts across the border in Idaho, and yet McDonald’s franchises in both states manage to profitably sell double-cheeseburgers for a buck a piece. Go figure.

When organized labor put Initiative 688 on the ballot back in 1998 — raising Washington state’s minimum wage to $6.50 while mandating automatic annual increases pegged to the Consumer Price Index — our business community, right-wing “think tanks” and Republican establishment warned of dire economic consequences: lost jobs, small business closures and a steady stream of industry moving to greener (ie, cheaper) pastures out of state. I-688 we were told, would hurt those it was intended to help most: unskilled and young workers who would be better off earning a low wage than none at all. Yet since its passage, Washington workers have not only enjoyed the highest minimum wage in the nation, but one of the strongest state economies as well.

While our economy certainly isn’t immune to downturns, Washington has weathered recent economic turbulence well, currently boasting robust job growth, record state budget surpluses and a real estate market that continues to defy the gravity of a nationwide housing bubble collapse. And while it would be silly of me to argue that I-688 deserves much of the credit for Washington’s prolonged economic boom, it would be even sillier still to argue that our state’s relatively high minimum wage has produced any sort of noticeable economic drag. Hell, even Forbes Magazine ranks Washington state as having the fifth best business climate in the nation. What more do the pro-business lobbyists want?

What I-688 has done is made the lives of our state’s 80,000 to 90,000 minimum wage workers just a little bit easier. The difference between Washington’s $8.07 an hour and even the recently raised federal minimum of $5.85 is the difference between earning $16,786 a year for a 40-hour work week versus only $12,168, and it doesn’t take an economist to figure out what an extra $89/week can mean to our state’s working poor. Plus, a higher minimum wage raises the bar for all workers, resulting in larger paychecks for more skilled jobs. No, such policies don’t come free, and at least some of the costs are passed on to consumers. But given the choice between a race to the bottom and a race to the top, Washington’s voters proved wise to choose the latter.

It took ten years and a new Democratic majority to finally raise the federal minimum wage from where it stood back when I-688 went to the polls, and despite Washington’s decade of prosperity in the face of what should have been a competitive disadvantage, minimum wage opponents trotted out the same old dire warnings that failed to hold true here in the Evergreen state. Conservatives used to hold forth states as laboratories for experimentation, but when these experiments disprove their firmly held theses, the lessons learned are quickly dismissed and discarded. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that workers have been harmed by Washington’s minimum wage law or that our economy has been significantly disrupted, while the benefits to our state’s low wage workers are as obvious as the extra dollars in their wallets.

What the other side fears, what they refuse to acknowledge, and what they so vociferously reject in rejecting the minimum wage is that experience tells us that sometimes government regulation of the market does indeed improve the lives of many of our citizens while ultimately costing the rest of us little or nothing of consequence. If the minimum wage, a concept absolutely anathema to the principles of an unfettered free market proves a net benefit to the economy as a whole, what sacred tenet of the anti-government / anti-regulatory ideologues will fall next? First the minimum wage, next “socialized” medicine? If government is given the opportunity to prove it can provide universal health care security where the market clearly cannot, is it Katie bar the door to a new progressive era that re-embraces the principles of managed economy that helped us rise from the Great Depression, irrigate and electrify rural America, defeat the Japanese and the Nazis simultaneously, construct the interstate highway system and build the United States into the greatest military, industrial and economic power on the planet while providing its citizens the highest standard of living average workers have ever known?

Like Social Security, the minimum wage has been a target of the right since its inception, not because it harms workers and business owners, but because its failure to do so refutes the core principles at the heart of right-wing ideology. Eight buck per hour workers producing double per buck cheeseburgers is an example of something that government does right, and as such is a threat to the agenda of those who would see our destiny placed solely in the hands of corporatists and preachers, for whatever reason.

A lot of establishment Republicans, fearing the inevitable ass-kicking should Huckabee or Romney ultimately be the party’s nominee, are crossing their fingers that Sen. John McCain’s recent surge within the media and Beltway elite gets translated into a respectable showing in Iowa and New Hampshire. Why? Because politics is about winning, and McCain’s reputation as a “straight talker” still resonates with voters who haven’t been paying close attention, setting him up as the Republican with the best chance of winning come November. You know, straight talk like this:

The name Shannon Harps rang a vague bell from sustainability circles, so I did a search and there she was in my inbox and address book, in various email threads relating to a Sierra Club project called Kilowatt Ours. Over the next few days other sixth-degree connections will return from ski vacations and holiday excursions, only to open email from the dead. This may be one reason why the community is in such shock. Email and blogs and Flickrs and YouTubes equate to digital immortality far more enduring than anything an obituary can provide. More on Harps, including a sketch of the suspect, in today’s P-I coverage. Yet to be addressed: Is the relative effectiveness of emergency care an issue on New Year’s Eve? Might be a story there.

The Harps tragedy merely builds on 2008’s uplifting theme of death and dying. Over at The Times there is wonderment at whether a mentally ill son who killed his mother has the right to her estate. And the archives continue to swell at both papers with stuff from the Carnation Christmas eve killings, the Christmas Day state trooper shooting and other acts of homicidal holiday cheer.

Also, Seattle police have added surveillance cameras at 18 intersections, which gladdens my bicycling heart (anything to induce paranoia in the few crazy-ass drivers who threaten to give law-abiding drivers like yourselves a bad name) even as I admit these things are not so much for traffic monitoring as just another get-used-to-it data mining of our everyday lives for a plethora of doubtless innovative end uses. Someday we’ll have real-time video of an entire Capitol Hill stabbing and no one will be asking if that’s a good or bad thing.

Apart from that, what’s interesting about The Times opening screen is that a third of it is taken up by real-estate ads. When you’re facing a $6 million deficit, every little bit helps. After all, who knows how many property-ad dollars there’ll be six months from now, as Seattle hits the wall that has squished everyone else (no real-estate ads on the home page of the San Francisco Chron, for comparison). For the time being, we who have no shame humbly point out that HA remains a relative bargain for all you marketers looking to sell to smart investors like the Rabbit.

Perhaps on any other day, oil passing $100 would be Page 1 news. But an anxious nation has the Iowa caucuses to divert its attention. The Times, in one of those “amazing” measures that helped save it $21 million, does not appear to be sending anyone to cover Iowa, something even The Stranger found the wherewithal to do. As for me, pecking away in the quiet comfort of my north Seattle home office, man am I glad someone else has to do tomorrow’s headlines.

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Man, I love caucusing. Voting is a solitary affair; you fill out your ballot alone in the voting booth or at the kitchen table, and then turn on the TV to watch the results. But caucusing is a social event; you vote, you argue, you persuade, you horse trade, you vote again… it’s democracy at its rawest and most exciting. Throw in a little beer and it gets even better.

We got a great crowd at the Drinking Liberally caucus last night; 51 patriotic Americans signed in to help show Iowans what to do tonight, and the first round of balloting contained few surprises:

Candidate:	Votes:	Delegates:
John Edwards	20	3
Barack Obama	15	2
Chris Dodd	6	1
Hilary Clinton	4	1
Dennis Kuccnich	2	0
Mike Gravel	2	0
Bill Richardson	1	0
Fred Harris	1	0

And if this were a primary, that’s pretty much were it would have ended — no second guessing, no second chances for those who threw their vote away on a losing candidate. But caucus goers get the opportunity to temper their votes with reality, and move to their second or third choices if their first choice goes bust. A half an hour of drinking and negotiating and more drinking later, and the Dodd camp leverages their initial strong showing into an even stronger one:

Candidate:	Votes:	Delegates:
Barack Obama	17	2
John Edwards	16	2
Chris Dodd	13	2
Hilary Clinton	5	1

So goes Drinking Liberally, so goes the nation: a three-way tie between Obama, Edwards and Dodd. That’s my prediction for Iowa, and I’m standing by it.

One of the news stories I expect to be following closely in 2008 is the case of Marc Emery, the Canadian marijuana seed seller who faces an upcoming extradition hearing to decide whether he should be sent to the United States to face trial. The effort to extradite him has been led out of the US Attorney’s office right here in Seattle (originally by John McKay, and then by his replacement Jeff Sullivan) and will re-commence in a courtroom in Vancouver, BC on January 21.

As we’ve seen with the Ed Rosenthal case in the Bay Area, prosecuting outspoken drug law reform advocates has been a very high priority for the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. In that particular case, even after the presiding judge urged US Attorney Scott Schools to drop the case, they continued with their futile prosecution attempt, even as it was clear that Rosenthal would never be punished and the number of white-collar crimes being investigated around the country plummeted.

The fact that Emery is Canadian (and that the DEA has openly admitted that he’s being targeted for his political views as well as his business) makes this case extremely important up north. What he does is technically not legal in Canada, but the Canadian government has long felt that it has more important things to do than to try to break up a multi-million dollar industry that isn’t hurting anyone.

Writing in the National Post, Ontario attorney Karen Selick expresses her opposition to the extradition attempt in an open letter to Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson:

Dear Mr. Nicholson: On Jan. 21, 2008 an extradition hearing will begin in Vancouver for Marc Emery, Canada’s pre-eminent activist for the legalization of marijuana. Marc has been charged in the U.S. with conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, and conspiring to launder money. If convicted under U.S. law, he faces possible life imprisonment without parole.

Should Marc be extradited to the U.S.? The Canadian court will almost certainly say yes. It has little choice under the Extradition Act. Marc openly admits selling marijuana seeds over the internet to customers around the world, including the United States, for years. His conduct would have been grounds for criminal charges here, although Canadian authorities never chose to charge him. But that’s enough under the Act to make it mandatory for the judge to commit him for surrender to U.S. authorities.

That’s where you come in, Mr. Justice Minister. Once the court has ruled, the Extradition Act gives you discretion to refuse to surrender Marc if it “would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances.”

I’m obviously no expert on Canadian law, but if Selick is correct, there seems like a valid rationale for the Justice Minister to intervene. This could be one of the reasons why there was some discontent in the Western Washington US Attorney’s office over former DEA head Karen Tandy’s politicization of the case. Either way, Emery seems eager for a confrontation and feels destined to become a martyr.

I won’t copy and paste the remainder of Selick’s letter, but she makes one very important point. Emery has dutifully paid over half a million dollars in taxes from his business. He assisted the Canadian government when they needed to implement a medical marijuana program. But now they appear ready to turn their back on him solely because the United States can’t come to terms with the failure of our own marijuana prohibition (which we continue to try to impose on the rest of the world). How can the Canadian government profit and benefit from a man and his business for years, then allow for the United States to put him in jail for life without even a fight?

I’m afraid I have to take exception to this statement by Goldy:

Oh… and the fact that polls generally show Edwards as being the toughest Democrat to beat… that doesn’t hurt him in my book either.

I suppose Goldy is relying on national head-to-head polls like these. The problem with such national polls is that they don’t reflect the way we elect our Presidents.

Rather than looking at the national head-to-head polls, we should be examining state head-to-head polls and take into consideration the number of votes each state gets in the Electoral College.

In fact, I have been doing just that for a number of months. Essentially, I’ve collected the state head-to-head polls taken in 2007 and have been analyzing the polls as a way of evaluating the relative strength of candidates.

Now I am going to switch into statistical wonk mode and explain my analyses. If you just want to see the results, skip over the Methods section and pick up from the Results.

Methods

To analyze the poll data I take the last month of polls for each state as a way to increase the certainty and (hopefully) minimize biases inherent in individual polls. If there is no polls taken in the last month, I use the most recent poll available in 2007. The analysis could stop at this stage after simply tallying the number of Electoral College votes each candidate would receive for each state based on the poll data.

The one problem with this approach is that it doesn’t account for the uncertainty in the polls. For example, suppose a poll in Pennsylvania of 500 individuals gives Clinton 51% and Giuliani 49% of the vote. Clinton’s lead comes from only five individuals who went for Clinton instead of Giuliani. In fact, statisticians would tell us that there is substantial sampling error because of the small sample size and the very close percentages. The statistician would do some calculations (or simulations) and tell us that the poll indicates that Clinton has only a 69.9% chance of winning, and Giuliani has a 30.1% chance of winning.

In simulating a national election, I do this same evaluation over all states. Here is how it works. I simulate elections using only information from state head-to-head polls (with one exception discussed below). Each single election proceeds state by state, pooling polls from the last month (or the most recent poll if no polls were taken in the last month). For each person polled in the state, I randomly draw votes according to the observed probabilities found by the state’s poll(s).

After conducting such elections in all fifty states (plus Washington D.C.), the electoral vote is totaled and a winner determined from the electoral vote count.

This process is repeated 10,000 times. The result is a distribution of electoral votes for the pair of candidates that fully accounts for the sampling error in the polls used. For example, here is the distribution of electoral votes for a Clinton—McCain match-up from a few days ago:

In this example Clinton won 9,167 simulated elections and McCain won 779 simulated elections. (There were also 54 ties that would go to the House of Representatives and almost certainly result in a Clinton victory.) Thus, the poll data suggests that, if the election were held today, Clinton would have a 92.2% chance of beating McCain.

Oh…about that exception I mentioned above. Some states have had no polls taken at all. In that case, I always assign the electoral votes for the state according to the 2004 presidential election outcome. For the most part, states that have had no polls taken are not likely to hold any surprises. In any case, this procedure slightly favors the Republican candidate (since Bush won in 2004).

Results

Here are the results after simulating a variety of match-ups. (Additionally, I provide a link to my most recent analysis. In most cases the published analysis is slightly older than the analysis from today given in the table below, but the numbers are close.)

Republican	Democrat	Probability the Democrat wins	Average electoral votes for Democrat	Link
Giuliani	Clinton	100%	342	Analysis
Huckabee	Clinton	100%	335	Analysis
McCain	Clinton	92.1%	293	Analysis
Romney	Clinton	100%	385	Analysis
Thompson	Clinton	100%	354	Analysis
Giuliani	Edwards	4.90%	237	Analysis
McCain	Edwards	99.4	303	—
Romney	Edwards	100%	388	—
Thompson	Edwards	100%	358	—
Giuliani	Obama	27.7%	258	Analysis
Huckabee	Obama	88.7%	277	—
McCain	Obama	4.4%	237	—
Romney	Obama	100%	376	Analysis
Thompson	Obama	100%	329	—

Right now Clinton does better against Republican challengers—she beats every one of them with a high degree of certainty. Edwards does very poorly against Giuliani, although he does a little bit better than Clinton against McCain. Obama doesn’t do well against either Giuliani or McCain right now.

Keep in mind that the analysis only suggests what would happen if the election were held right now. (Interpret this the way you might the speedometer on a long trip—it gives you some idea of your progress even though you know your speed is going to change along the way.)

Things will certainly change in the next ten months, but what we can say now is that Clinton has some advantage over both Obama and Edwards in a general election. Is Clinton’s advantage right now important in the long run? It’s hard to say. It’s not even clear to me that her advantage should be considered over more fundamental characteristics like political philosophy and policy positions. Perhaps some readers will use this information as a tie-breaker.

As for me? I still have no idea who I will support at tonight’s straw caucus. Maybe I’ll pretend to be a Republican….

The caucus/primary season officially kicks off tonight, one day ahead of Iowa, when the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally holds its first-in-the-nation presidential caucus, 8PM, at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue East. Republicans and Democrats alike are invited to join us for this momentum setting event that will surely set the tone for tomorrow’s better known if Johnny-come-lately Iowa caucuses.

And when the caucusing kicks off, expect me to be firmly in the camp of Sen. John Edwards.

It wasn’t an easy decision, and it was a long time coming, but in the end, when I look closely at the campaigns of those Democratic candidates who have gained any sort of traction with voters nationwide, Edwards is the only one who appears to be running as a Democrat. Delivering a consistent message of economic populism at home and abroad, Edwards is the only front-runner who seems to know what he wants to do with the office, and the only one whose specific proposals on health care, regulatory reform and economic justice seem targeted toward addressing the real issues that ail our nation. While other candidates promise hope or experience or competency, Edwards is the only Democrat truly promising change… and change is what we’ll most desperately need after eight years of a Bush Administration that has left our nation balancing precariously on the edge of abandoning the core values that have long nurtured our democracy and our economy.

Don’t get me wrong, if Obama or Clinton (or Richardson, Biden or Dodd) go on to win the nomination, I will enthusiastically support them; each of the others has much to recommend them, and would be the clear choice over any Republican alternative. But it is Edwards who speaks to me and my vision of a more prosperous, free and just America for all our citizens.

Oh… and the fact that polls generally show Edwards as being the toughest Democrat to beat… that doesn’t hurt him in my book either.

The other night I saw a promo for an episode of “KCTS Connects” with Enrique Cerna about the condo boom in Ballard:

One of Seattle’s oldest neighborhoods is getting an extreme makeover. Ballard is booming with new condos, new restaurants and new businesses. The area once known as a quaint Scandinavian corner of the city is becoming one of the hippest and hottest spots in town to work, live and play. But is the modernization of Ballard tearing the neighborhood apart?

I’ve been visiting Ballard for years, and while the area has always had a Nordic vibe to it, it isn’t anything like other urban ethnic enclaves in America. It’s not like Southie, or New York’s Little Italy, or half a dozen of the Polish or Irish neighborhoods in Chicago or any other big city in America. Frankly, the whole “Ballard-as-cultural-touchstone” is overrated.

That’s not to say that Nordic history doesn’t have roots in NW Seattle. There are several important Nordic cultural institutions still around, but how many of them are recruiting younger folks? These places were ebbing long before the condo boom.

I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’m sure there will be the usual smattering of “density is bad”, rich people, blah blah blah,” “new people, blah blah blah.” I can’t wait.

Pete Guither ridicules Markos Moulitsas for trying to make the case that Ron Paul is a racist.

Does this man sound like a racist to you?

I’m not talking about the sculpture of Chief Sealth, which I like just fine. (It’s the one in the middle) But what the hell are those boards behind him on either side? They look like they were done by a bunch of eighth graders drunk on grape soda.

Leaves, dollar signs and crosses. Lemme guess… dollars signs and crosses are bad, leaves are good.

Really, folks. Chief Sealth was a great Native American, to whom the current residents of this area owe a great deal. We certainly owe him more than this underwhelming art installation.

What bugs me the most was that somebody approved this. Since this is Seattle, the decision was probably made not by an individual but by a group of people.

To be a fly on the wall at that meeting…

1st Guy: Look folks, we’ve got to finalize a design for this Chief Sealth art thing. Any ideas?

2nd Guy: How about something in bronze with ornate inlays, done by skilled craftsmen with an eye for detail. Creative consulting work by members of the Duwamish tribe. Something classic yet modern, accessible and informative. Something that remembers Chief Sealth for who he was and preserves his memory for years to come.

1st Guy: That’s good, I’m liking it. Anything else?

3rd Guy: How about we run down to Home Depot, get some paints and some plywood, and have my kid’s eighth grade class crap something out for us. I’m thinking something like-

1st Guy: Stop there, Bob, you’ve struck gold. Don’t say another word because that is genius.

While some of you might say, “hey asshole, who asked you to be the big critic guy of all the art?” Folks, we’re not talking about the crappy turd-shaped ash trays you made for your parents in ceramics class. This art display is in a city park. A park you pay for! That means it’s fair game for me, or anyone else, to have a go at.

Some bureaucrat approved this thing, and it’s my right (no, duty!) to speak truth to power. Downtown residents like myself deserve better than this!

UPDATE [Lee]: What is written on those things anyway? I can’t find anything using Google. I’m pretty sure there are no actual languages with question marks and superscript w’s.

UPDATE [Lee]: OK, I found it now, it’s definitely a real language. Check this page out.

What do the signs say? I have no idea.

UPDATE [Lee]: This is the last one, I promise. I’m learning a lot today. From commenter “Smartypants”:

The languages are Lushootseed (front) and English (back). Lushootseed is the local dialect of the Coast Salish language that was used by the Duwamish people.

English translation Panel on Left: Chief Seattle Now The Streets Are Our Home

English translation Panel on Right: Far Away Brothers and Sisters We Still Remember You

Here’s the explanation of the work: “With the sculpture Day/Night the theme of the porcelain panels seeks to proclaim that for many transient inter-tribal people the streets of Seattle are home. Secondly it is declared that although these tribal citizens have sought refuge in the urban centers which have sprung up on Indian Territory around them, the far rural tribal communities from which the originate hold each and everyone’s memory in close and high regard.”

This morning’s fare from the local dailies looks a lot like their TV counterparts: both are highlighting crime (a New Year’s Eve murder on Capitol Hill) and the frivolousness of people swimming in cold Lake Washington and Seattle’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display being delayed a few minutes by a computer glitch (oh, the humanity!)

Nationally, the Iowa caucuses (cauci?) will dominate headlines tomorrow, but today it was international news: the post-election chaos in Kenya, and the post-assassination chaos in Pakistan.

Oh, and a bunch of college teams played football yesterday. In breaking news, exactly 50% of them won their games, a total one seasoned analyst described as “about average.”

In other words, yesterday was a holiday, and nothing much happened. Iowa (and New Hampshire next Tuesday) should change that for the next few days.