My 2008 Election Page

Copyright © Tim Horrigan 2004-2008

Barack Obama at the Lundholm Gymnasium, University of New Hampshire

Extra! [April 26, 2008 & May 2, 2008]: I originally created this page on the day after the 2004 election, when it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Jeb Bush would follow his brother into the White House. Jeb actually did no such thing: indeed he even vanished almost completely from public view for a full year after his term as Governor of Florida ran out in January 2007.

I gradually added a long "Enemies List" of the various candidates, plus a few people who weren't running but who tickled my funny bone for whatever reason— such as Kerry Murphy Healey, Joe Scarborough, and American Idol Taylor Hicks. The race was supposed to end in early February on "Super Tuesday" but it didn't.

The Republican race has been unpredictable. The initial front runner, George Allen, got knocked out way back in November 2006 when he failed to win re-election to his Senate seat. (This also happened to a second high-profile candidate, Rick Santorum— although Santorum had no chance of actually being nominated.) Mitt Romney was eventually anointed as Bush II's presumptive successor, but he dropped out on the Monday before Super Tuesday. The mainstream media then reduced the Republican race to two candidates: John McCain and Mike Huckabee— although Ron Paul and Alan Keyes obstinately continued campaigning without the media's permission.

On "Super Duper Tuesday" (March 4, 2008) McCain finally went "over the top" by officially winning a majority of the Republican delegates. Huckabee dropped out that night. Even though Bush II has formally anointed McCain as His presumptive successor, it still seems hard to imagine that the Bush dynasty and the mainstream Republican Noise Machine will actually allow McCain to be the party's nominee. McCain is, after all, a maverick who has strong appeal to independents and even Democrats and who was grossly disloyal to Bush I and Bush II in 2000,

I am definitely wondering if the GOP leadership will come up with some scam to forcibly replace McCain with someone like Jeb Bush—or maybe Bush II can simply issue a signing statement to the effect that he is still eligible to run in 2008. McCain suffered through a short-lived scandal in late February when the New York Times revealed the name of his girlfriend. (Her name is Vicki Iseman, she is 40 years old and she is a lobbyist for the conservative lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay. She somewhat ironically works primarily on behalf of media companies.) The furore instantly morphed into an uproar over how awful it was that the liberal media had covered the story at all. The whole storm blew over quite quickly, even though McCain obviously lied about his (non-)involvement with Ms Iseman..

The Democrats have been running pretty much according to form: the two early front runners, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are still running two-wide. I personally went with third-place finisher John Edwards, who did well in Iowa, not so well in New Hampshire at the polls (although he attracted a lot of casual interest), and was out of the race by January 30th. All the other serious Democratic candidates are out of the race, with the exception of Mike Gravel. (Gravel has, however, severely scaled back what was already a low-budget campaign to begin with— and he also switched parties .)

Even the undauntable Dennis Kucinich dropped out early to defend his Cleveland Congressional seat. He is still raising money: between his Presidential and Congressional campaigns, I think I have given him a couple hundred bucks, even though I voted for Edwards. Dennis won the primary for his House seat by 50%-35%. (Ron Paul also faced serious competition is his House race in the outer suburbs of Houston, although he continued his Presidential run: Dr. Paul won his race 68%-32%.)

On March 6, Dr. Paul finally dropped out of the Presidential race:

JohnEdwards.com





Anyone But Jeb

The anti-Bush forces' battlecry changed from "Anyone But Bush!" to "Anyone But Jeb!" even before Dubya was finished stealing the 2004 election.

Until recently, the presumptive successor to the current President Bush was his brother, Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida. Jeb Bush is best known for delivering Florida's electoral votes to his brother in 2000 and 2004. In 2000, he was successful even though his brother's opponent actually got more voters to the polling places. His efforts in 2004 were just as remarkable!

In 2005, Jeb attracted international notice for his leadership of the fight to bring Terri Schiavo back from the dead.  Also in 2005, Hurricane Katrina passed over Jeb's home state and did relatively moderate damage before gathering strength over the Gulf of Mexico and devastating the Liberal Democrat-ruled state of Louisiana.

The plan was for Jeb Bush to use the scheduled 2008 Presidential election process to ascend to power in his brother's stead. Presently, Amendment XXII to the US Constitution limits George W. Bush to two four-year terms. Therefore the election of Jeb Bush would have been the most expedient means of continuing Bush rule in a time of ongoing crisis. (The 22nd Amendment could theoretically be repealed. However, that would be virtually unthinkable because any new amendment repealing the old amendment would have to also allow Bill Clinton to run for additional terms.)

Jeb opted out of the 2006 midterm elections altogether (which destroyed George Allen's and Rick Santorum's candidacies) by not running for the U.S. Senate. (He couldn't run for a third term as governor thanks to term limits.) The Republican candidate was his close friend Congresswoman Katherine Harris, who was instrumental in preventing Al Gore and the American people from stealing the 2000 Presidential Election from the Bush family. She lost to the Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

Jeb returned briefly to private life when his term as Governor of Florida expired in January 2007. He was planning to begin running for President in response to public outcry for him to pick up his brother's torch. However, there has been little or no outcry on his behalf.

Jeb's and W's Enemies

Here are some web links to a few of Jeb and W's enemies, who are—even in a time of war— still scheming to interfere with the orderly handover of power from brother to brother:

Barack Obama at the Lundholm Gymnasium, University of New Hampshire
Barack Obama in my hometown of Durham, NH, Feb. 12, 2007


Barack Obama, Columbia Class of 1983, Senator from Illinois:




Hillary Clinton in Hampton, New Hampshire, April 14, 2007

Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady and current Senator from New York:

Mike Gravel at Rundlett Middle School, Concord NH, with Channel 9 news team; June 2007
Mike Gravel with Channel 9 news team; Concord, NH; June 2007

Mike Gravel, Colunbia Class of 1956, former Senator from Alaska:
Sen. Gravel played a huge role in ending the Vietnam War back in the '70s: he was the Senator who read the "Pentagon Papers" into the public record. It's a shame that he was not in the Senate during the '00s.

It is by no means a certainty that Gravel will win the nomination at the 2008 Libertarian Party convention (which like the 2008 Democratic convention) will be held in Denver. The Libertarians would love to have 1988 nominee Dr. Ron Paul (who made a good run this time around in the Republican race) to be their nominee again this time. He says he's not interested. But there are some other colorful candidates fired up and ready to go, including another Columbia man, Wayne Root.

Wayne Root with Hooters Girls
Wayne Root with friends. (He is 3rd from the left)

Wayne Allyn Root, Colunbia Class of 1983, Las Vegas oddsmaker & author:

(Root was a classmate of Barack Obama's: they were both poli sci majors.)



Bob Barr clapping in front of huge flag

Bob Barr, former Congressman from North Atlanta:
Bob Barr has spoken out in favor of the impeachment of George W. Bush, but he was vastly more outspoken in favor of Bill Clinton's impeachment. In fact, Barr was already calling for Clinton I's head back when Monica was still in college. Unless Jeb Bush or Mike Bloomberg jumps into the race, Barr will have been the last (at least semi-) serious candidate to enter the 2008 race. He didn't announce the formation of his exploratory committee until April 5, 2008— after several other candidates (including Barr's fellow Atlantan Newt Gingrich) had already begun their 2012 runs.




Daniel Imperato with Maltese cross necklace

Daniel Imperato, Businessman, Philanthropist and Knight:

Imperato is the only candidate to openly admit to being a Papal Knight as well a Knight of Malta. He also says he is a member of the Orden Bonaria and serves as the organization's representative to the United Nations— although it is unclear if the Orden Bonaria in fact actually has an official UN representative. If he wins the Presidential election, his knighthoods could prove problematic, since Art. I Sect. 9 of the US Constitution states: "no person holding any office of profit or trust under [the United States of America], shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." (However, Congress would presumably avert a constitutional crisis by simply going ahead and consenting.)


John McCain, Senator from Arizona:


Dr. Alan Keyes: Former Reagan Adminstration Official, Chat Show Host, and Serial Candidate:
I met Alan Keyes during one of his previous Presidential runs. I vividly remember the event, which was at Dartmouth College's Collis Center, but one detail has slipped my mind: the year! It was probably during the 1996 cycle, but he also ran in 2000. He has run for many offices, carefully choosing only high-visibility races which he has no chance of winning. His most recent run was against Barack Obama: Keyes lost the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race by a mere 43 points. (But maybe that's not so bad considering that he only entered the race 86 days before the general election, and also considering that he was— and still is—from Maryland.)

Dr. Chuck Baldwin: Theologian, Chat Show Host and Former Vice Presidential Candidate:
Well maybe Baldwin is "relatively" unknown just to me: he did run for Vice President in 2004 on the Constitution Party ticket alongside Presidential nominee Michael Peroutka. And now, he is following God's will by running for President this time around.

Not in the Race, but Not to Be Forgotten:

John Edwards in Dover, NH; October 14, 2007
John Edwards, 2004 Vice Presidential Candidate and former Senator from North Carolina:

Al Gore with the Earth's lifeless sister planet Venus
Al Gore with the Earth's lifeless sister planet Venus.
(This is what the Earth will look like someday if we don't heed his words.)

Al Gore, ex-Vice President, 2000 Presidential Candidate & 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate:
(In 2000, Gore went down to total, utter and absolute defeat even though he got more votes than George W. Bush in the presidential election. Nevertheless, in spite of this unprecedented humiliation, he has refused to retire from public life.)

Dennis J. Kucinich, Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio:

Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico

Joe Biden in full cry; Dover NH; June 17, 2006
Joseph Biden, Senator from Delaware:

Rob Paul pylon on the Okemo Gorge sim, Second Lige grid
Dr. Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas:
In some ways (though definitely not in others!) Paul might fit in better with the Democrats. On the key issue of the war, he is blunter even than Dennis Kucinich in saying that the war was totally wrong, and he started saying so just as early. He even challenges the orthodoxy on 9/11, and he is the only candidate on either side who worries about the fact that our government (and even our private sector) is going bankrupt. But he is running very much as a Republican— so much so that his official campaign bio glosses over what he did in the mid-1980s. It says: "In 1984, he voluntarily relinquished his House seat and returned to his medical practice." In the next sentence, 13 years have passed and he is back in Congress. The bio skips over the fact that he ran for President as a Libertarian in 1988 (finishing 3rd in the popular vote, with 0.5% of the vote, just 45.1 percentage points behind Mike Dukakis)— and didn't rejoin the GOP until 1994.


Rev. Mike Huckabee: Former Governor of Arkansas and Bass Player
I actually forgot to put up a section about Huckabee till March 2008. In fact I didn't do it till the day he dropped out. He is, like Hillary Clinton's husband, a musician from Arkansas. But he is much more conservative, though I guess he is a better musician.

Mitt Romney: Mount Cube Farm, Orford, NH, Feb. 1, 2007
Mitt Romney in my old hometown of Orford, NH, Feb. 1, 2007


Willard Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts and 2002 Winter Olympics CEO:


Part of Willard's campaign strategy was to buy ads on extreme rightwing blogs — such as GOPBloggers, which posted racist comments on February 9, 2007 to the effect that Barack Obama is using "the so-called 'racial debate' nonsense" as "a shield from criticism." I posted a remark about GOPBloggers.org on my DailyKos diary, and the head writer for this blog saw my post and went to the trouble of rebutting "this moron from DailyKos."

Extra! Even though Edward M. Kennedy is reviled by Republicans nationwide, only one Massachusetts Republican has come even remotely close to beating him: one W. Mitt Romney in 1994. There is a movement to draft him to try again in 2008, this time against John F. Kerry, who currently has no serious challengers. Of course, there is the minor problem that Willard is in fact, as he pointed out constantly during his campaign, from Michigan or possibly Utah or possibly even New Hampshire, but— as Hillary Clinton can tell ya— that's only a minor problem:


Dr. Kerry Murphy Healey, Ph.D., former Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts:
She would have been a somewhat more credible Presidential candidate than her former boss, although (or perhaps because) she is something of a John Kerry-type, who votes against things after initially voting for them. She ran a terrible campaign for Governor of Massachusetts and is probably retired from politics, but I do have a whole page about her, for some unknown reason.

Fred Dalton Thompson, Actor & Former Senator from Tennessee:
Fred Thompson was the only candidate to have played the part of a President in the movies: he portrayed the fictional President Charles Ross in the recent film Last Best Chance and he has also played the real-life Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew Jackson. It turned out, however, that he was not an performer turned politician in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Or the tradition of Wayne Allyn Root, for that matter.) Instead he turned out to be in the tradition of Gracie Allen and Pat Paulsen. Except, Allen's and Paulsen's campaigns were funny— and they actually went out and campaigned. It was not clear what the joke was behind Thompson's minimalist campaign. And, the joke was in any case obscured by the fact that he actually served a term in the US Senate in the 1990s.

Joe Scarborough, Former Congressman from Florida:

2 smiling Taylor Hickses
Taylor Hicks, 2006 American Idol:
The dude got 13 million more votes than George W. Bush, making him the greatest vote-getter in American history— and he sure looks old enough to be running for President.

 

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