Posts by Gary Rawnsley
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Electoral Vote has now been updated with the latest (and final) polls: it gives the Dems the Senate 51-49 (Virginia has moved from a tie to the Dems by a single point), and the Congress 239-195 (with one tie). Will be very interesting to see how accurate these predictions turn out to be.
Mr Slack: Tennessee looks like staying red: they're noe up by six points.
Russell: Can't think of any Republican senator quite as self-absorbed and self-righteous as Mr Lieberman.
Does anyone know if there's any live NZ TV coverage of the results? CNN, perhaps?
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We shouldn't pay too much attention to the tightening national polls - they're most likely to reflect a mobilising of the Republican base in strongly-Republican districts which will have little effect in the overall state of play.
Cos this ain't one, national election, but 435 district-wide Congressional elections and 33 state-wide senatorial elections. In looking at the polls of those 468 individual races, things are looking very rosy for the Democrats in the House, and are looking as-close-as-can-be in the Senate.
For the most comprehensive polling analysis, I recommend this site: http://electoral-vote.com/
At present, it's predicting the Dems picking up 36 seats in the House, meaning a 239-196 majority. That's a similar swing to the 1994 Republican Revolution.
In the Senate, they're predicting a five-state pick-up, leaving the Dems with a 50-49 lead (Virginia being tied). In effect, the Senate will come down to four states: Montana, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia. To take the Senate, the Dems can only afford to lose one of these. Considering that Montana, Tennessee and Virginia are all traditionally red states, this is a huge call - but the polls are in the balance.
One final spanner in the works: if the Dems take the Senate 51-49, Joe Lieberman could be the one-seat majority. Could he be lured across the aisle by Karl Rove?
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Russell: Is the intention to give all PA posts a "discuss" button, or only when the author decides he/she wants a comments thread?
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The best spell of ODI fast bowling in a black shirt for many a year. 6-23 against the world's best in a match that promised a World Cup semi-final berth if we won, which left Australia reeling at 84-7.
Unfortunately, we still lost, which just goes to show that heroism doesn't always end in victory, like in the movies... (Or that Michael Bevan is the most infuriating man ever to represent the Australian cricket team.)
Anyway, with the Black Caps preparing for tonight's Champions Trophy semi against Australia, not a bad way to get into the mood...
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Agreed about The Wire: possibly the best show about crime the US has produced this Century.
RB: Crime porn? Interesting term - guess that makes me a crime pervert? Which was kind of what I was getting at - I love this stuff, yet it doesn't make me feel wonderful about myself that what I love is seeing crimes played out and then solved in minute detail. Maybe it is simply the banal knowledge that good will prevail by the end of the hour.
Incidentally, I _would_ count shows essentially about lawyers - so, the _Practice_, _Boston Legal_ and the like - in the same category: they're all about part of the criminal justice system, after all, just a different angle. The phonomenon that Conor points to does make me wonder whether there will also be a whole lot more people wanting to be lawyers, cops, and the like now.
I also find Conor's argument that it's shows about people serving the public more broadly (doctors, teachers, politicians, etc) that dominate the airwaves - some kind of celebration of public service.
I like it instinctively, though let's not kid ourselves that there will be lots of shows about, say, tax inspectors or people who dish out the dole or, God forbid, who-knows-what-the-Hell-they-do bureaucrats. We might like people who do obvious good stuff for the public; but a broader affirmation of the good of the state? Not so much.
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Is there any limit to our appetite for shows about various aspects of the US criminal justice system? If you only watched such shows screening on the three main channels during primetime, you'd already be clocking up more than ten hours of viewing a week.
Saturday: 24
Sunday: CSI: Miami, Numb3rs
Monday: The Unit, Killer Instinct
Tuesday: NCIS, Without a Trace
Wednesday: SVU, Prison Break
Thursday: Criminal Minds
Friday: House (he treats his patients as if he were conducting a criminal investigation)
Currently in hiatus: CSI, the SopranosI love most of these shows, but in the name of diversity perhaps programmers could be a bit more imaginative...
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Yeah, interesting set of issues. And it's all Labourites pushing them: Hobbs, Gallagher, Anderton (a Labour MP in all but name).
Is there some method to this? There does seem to be an effort by Labour to balance its second-term social liberalism (civil unions, prostitution) with some good old-fashioned conservatism, so as to appeal for the types of people who'd usually vote UF, NZF and National but might give Labour a second look were it not so damn liberal. It's re-capturing some of this vote that Labour needs if it's to build a stronger Parliamentary mandate in '08 than it currently has...
And if it loses some adventure-seeking hedonistic liberals in the process, at least they'll probably only jump to the Greens who - whatever its leaders say - will only ever support a Labour-led Government.
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Kiwiblog and PA have true political influence, in that both those covering politics from the Gallery and those practising politics (MPs and their servants) read them diligently. It's scary how regularly the arguments made by Brown and Farrar make their way into National and Labour talking points, or into new angles pursued by the traditional media.