I wonder what your opinion is on this:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4362346a28.html

I wonder how it's been legally enforced – I wouldn't have thought the McDonalds contract would say anything about your behaviour after you were employed by them – during maybe.

LBJ's Great Society/War on Poverty acts were also, in a broader sense, civil rights laws

While he did stuff that was disproportionately helpful for African Americans, those things that you've listed aren't civil rights in a broad sense Danielle. Civil rights are legal rights – right to vote, redress, right…

The alternative to LBJ in '64 was Goldwater,…

Just conjecture, but fascinating.

King is clearly the catalyst, and I don't mean to imply that LBJ is a colossus on the…

With the Whip being less important in American politics than it is in the Westminster system, I would have thought LBJ's moral authority was as essential in mobilising the political apparatus as MLK's was in mobilising the grassroots.

I can't buy that. The significance of LBJ in advancing civil rights…

With all due respect to Mr. Califano, I don't think he's caught the central fatuity in HIlary Clinton's 'it takes a President' comments.

LBJ had to do more than just sign the Bill into law, he had to ensure that it had the numbers in the House & in the Senate.…

It's not exactly good campaigning advice is it. When running against a significant candidate of part-African descent, running down MLK's achievements, and running up the flag for the crusty white guy who agreed to sign the actual laws, ain't the best plan.

To be fair to Johnson, 'the crusty white…

On the list of international figures from which…

With all due respect to Mr. Califano, I don't think he's caught the central fatuity in HIlary Clinton's 'it takes a President' comments.

Well, yes, Hilary you do actually have to be President to sign bills into law. Nice to see you stayed awake during grade school civics.

Lyndon…

Hillary and McCain in the lead nationally. On the surface of things Hillary appears to be benefiting the most from Edwards' decline.

In Nevada it's a 3 horserace with

Barack Obama: 32 percent
Hillary Clinton: 30 percent
John Edwards: 27 percent

And in South Corolina things are…

I'm not sure if the Bugle counts as media. In fact, I just listened to episode 11, and it's the opposite end of the scale from serious.

Indeed, and I thought it was mildly funny (though The Daily Show is obviously getting John Oliver's best work). I just think, with…

perhaps the British media shouldn't get their sneer on too loudly while they're living in a country with an unelected upper house, the peculiar distortions of an FPP electoral system and a hereditary head of state.

I'm not sure if the Bugle counts as media. In fact, I just listened…

Perhaps Clinton's team thinks the same thing. They seem to say some really dumb things at time

Oy, talk about good Kiwi understatement... I know this comparison really upsets some folks, but Carl Rove really should start invoicing the Clinton campaign. Seriously, why doesn't someone just come out of the…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/audio_video/podcasts/the_bugle/

John Oliver of Daily Show.

"The caucus is like selecting your leader with a tea party, amazing it hasn't caught on"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granita_pact

Well, I/O, I think Blair and Brown will go to their graves saying the 'Granita Pact' never happened, and they sure didn't go to the hustings in 1997 with their little time-share arrangement attached to the manifesto.

I don't recall it being common knowledge before the 1997 election, it came…

And I take your point too Craig, but is it really a 'back room deal' when everyone seemingly knows about it and is resigned to it?

Well, I/O, I think Blair and Brown will go to their graves saying the 'Granita Pact' never happened, and they sure didn't go to…

If Neil's prediction is correct then that country will have been ruled by two families for 32 years.

28 – Bush senior only had 4 + Mr Clinton's 8, Bush junior's 8, plus a possible Mrs Clinton 8 = 28.

But yes to your overall point.

Heh heh — but…

Yes, take a seat at the back of the bus Mr Obama, it's not your turn yet. I think Peter Costello serves as a good example of why anyone with leadership aspirations shouldn't politely wait their turn.

Well, IO, I'm a little short of sympathy for folks like Costello or…

If Neil's prediction is correct then that country will have been ruled by two families for 32 years.

28 – Bush senior only had 4 + Mr Clinton's 8, Bush junior's 8, plus a possible Mrs Clinton 8 = 28.

But yes to your overall point. Particularly given that if…

Remember, if the Dems win this year they will inherit the shit avalanche that's about to drop on the US, and in 2012 the Repubs will spin it as 'what you get when you elect a Democrat to the Whitehouse'

And I've never heard a politician stand up and say…

Clinton and Obama are both good candidates IMO, but in the many dozens of articles and opinion pieces I have read on the race for the Democratic nomination, I have very seldom read discussions of the policy differences between the leading candidates. Just shite about Clinton´s inevitability or her…

Anyway, my main objection to Clinton is that surely in a country of 300million the USA can do better than continually handing the presidency to the same friggin families

I agree with you to the extent that there's always something queasy-making about any democracy coming to resemble a Ruritanian fiefdom,…

And to be blunt WTF makes Clinton so special that she's beyond criticism from the left or within the Democratic Party

Craig, she isn't beyond criticism, it's the type of criticism that is being objected to. I think there is a point about that. We saw it with Thatcher and…

In general the liberal (mostly white, male, middleclass) pundocracy has been anti-Hillary. They have all been almost uniformly repeating the mantra that she is unelectable, she's too divisive etc for the past few years despite the fact that she's been riding high in public opinion polls.

Neil: I'm sure that's…

Do you really think Talking Points Memo is some kind of Clinton-hating bearpit?

i wouldn't put it quite so strongly but, yes I do. The same for The Nation apart from a few exceptions. In general the liberal (mostly white, male, middleclass) pundocracy has been anti-Hillary. They have all been…

HP print a lot of lies about HRC which are immediately deinied by those concerned

Or it could be a truth that everyone concerned quite wisely wanted to back away from as quickly as decently possible – I don't know for sure. And I make no apologies for saying that's…

But I think we can both agree that if the Huffington Post has convinced everyone that a 'swift boat'-style smear campaign isn't worth the risk , then they've done political discourse a great service.

HP print a lot of lies about HRC which are immediately deinied by those concerned but…

Well, if I've read this and this correctly (which I wouldn't bet my immortal soul on), Obama lost by two points and still walks away with a (bare) majority of NH's delegates because he's pledged three of…

Sigh, Craig – as with Ralston's "Labour nuke", come back to us when this actually materialises.

OK, Don, Bill Ralston just made it up. Talking Points Memo – a blog I'd characterise as highly partisan but pretty wingnut-lite and hardly kneejerk anti-Hillary – is running a baseless smear. Give me…

The Guardian is reporting a higher vote for HRC among woman amongst other factors. Maybe Obama…

Not saying it won't happen, just commenting on events so far. And we are not that far away from the end of the primaries now.

I do think the Dems have run a pretty clean campaign against each other so far. Most mudslinging seems to have come from "other sources" such as Drudge whose interests are not exactly dispassionate.

Oh come on, Don. Can we return from Fantasy Island for a moment, and acknowledge that…

And it's loathsome to play the gender card in Clinton's defense.

Who did that?

If Obama gets the democratic nomination the country will go backward ... seriously?

Not very inspirational, is it?

But criticising that statement is very different from saying "she cackles, witch". Pointing out that Obama's campaign is…

The drama of the primaries looks to continue. With 11% of votes counted HRC is in the lead (probalbly due to early counting of smaller communities more likley to vote HRC). And McCain looks unbeatable.

Well, I don't actually think it says anything more about Edwards than Democrats who felt…

Hillary Clinton, long criticized as cold, shows a bit of feeling and is attacked as overly emotional.

I thought it was genuine and nice to see, but still wasn't a big fan of it.

If Obama gets the democratic nomination the country will go backward ... seriously?

...much sympathy when they lost their shit under pressure on...

it wasn't so much a matter of sympathy for HRC, she's a big girl in a rough game she freely chooses to be part of, but rather what it said about Edwards.

The drama of the primaries looks to continue.…

Regards Obama's speech delivery. It is great and I suspect influenced as much by his…

In a recent TV debate Edwards and Obama decided to gang up on Hillary, apparently she's the "status quo" or something. Edwards did the dirty work while Obama looked more than a little pleased.

Oh, hell, Neil. Bill should have taken Ann Coulter's favorite fagoot and Barak Osama out to…

The most telling laugh line in Obama's stump speech is his description of the dreadful charge his opponents make against him. "Obama's talking about hope again," the candidate says, mimicking his foes. Then his tenor drops to a low, conspiratorial pitch: "He's a hope monger."

…

Katha Pollitt's take on Edwards.

When I heard Obama's speech following the primaries, I thought he was similarly remixable. You couldn't remix Huckabee into anything.

Obama, the black candidate who never mentions his race, gets to smile his mile-wide smile and be a rock star. [Emphasis added]

Did an alleged progressive writer on a left-wing magazine just go…

the real change will be from a Republican admistration to a Democrat one. Whether that's Obama or Clinton is on the level of hard vs soft pineapple lumps.

Any son of a bitch will do, as long as s/he's our son of a bitch? Let's just agree to disagree on…

Obama just gets that that cynicism is real and 'change' is more than a bumper sticker slogan.

the real change will be from a Republican admistration to a Democrat one. Whether that's Obama or Clinton is on the level of hard vs soft pineapple lumps.

Obama's "change" branding is as…

But the reality is always the prosaic business of getting legislation passed.

Yes, and I'd respectfully suggest you don't get much of that done if you treat half the electorate – and the people they elect – like malicious fuckwits. Don't know about you, Neil, but if was a Congressional…

Obama is promising to bring people together because that's what the voters want to hear. It's politics.

very standard politics. Obama can position himself as an outsider, as some one who will go to Washington untainted by the Beltway. And so can promise reconcilliation and bipartisan etc etc. Nice fantasy.…

The GOP is sailing towards the borders of clinical insanity (I cite the Iowa caucus nomination of Huckabee as evidence) – I really don't see the point of healing the gaps with a party that is praying itself into electoral annihilation.

Well, Danyl, I don't really see the point of…

it seemed a bit confusing and it made my brain hurt

Yeah, sorry 'bout that. It's a topic that could perhaps best be split into several posts. One on the process, another on Iowa, and it might all have been a little less headache-inducing :-)

George W ... attractive as hell and says all the right things.

Yeah. Yeah, now I see. :o<

I wonder if the George W malapropism countdown calendar comes with pictures...

:o<

I'm also an Obama fan, purely on the basis of his charisma – but I do worry that what people like me see when they look at Obama is what people on the right saw in…

Obama, $117 per vote.
Edwards, $48 per vote.
Clinton, $113 per vote.

And yes, they're not really votes, I know. Still, I need a measure I can understand, and that's close enough. Edwards has far more support than donors, perhaps…

Proportion of votes came within 10% of the proportion of advertising, with Clinton behind in votes to…

And Martin Kettle gives a plug to that rather bizarre argument that HRC is "too divisive". There's a strand of support for Obama which is based purely on him…

And he used a lot of repeated sentences components ("Hope is..; hope is...") which intensified with repetition. It's a MLK trademark, but it's also pretty common nowadays. Of course, MLK was a *lot* more intense, but he had the voice and the power for it.

Yep. And King got it…

Hillary was not the key player in her husband's presidency that she is trying to make out...

I agree she was not a key player in foreign affairs, but she would have seen Bill's thinking and decision making process, well, intimately. What he got right and wrong on foreign policy…

In both 1992 and 2000, foreign policy was not the big…

A subject I do my very best never to think about. Nearly as scary as the hair on her scrotum.

if she can't mount a straightforward and consistent defence of her own voting record on Iraq in the primaries,…

Hillary has more gravitas that Obama, and gravitas counts in foreign policy. That is simply the point I was making, and one I think most people and commentators agree with.

Morgan Freeman has gravitas. I'll respectfully agree to disagree whether Clinton has anything of the kind. Personally, and I may…

The FEC's shutdown could affect the election in a number of ways. The first and most obvious is the oversight role it plays with third party…

8 years watching Bill deal with the world has to count for something.

Gee, I'd love to see John McCain remind folks of his twenty years in the Senate – which might just count for a little more. Seriously, if Clinton wants to play the gender card she would be…

Maybe I am placing too much on Obama's "I'll meet with anyone no preconditions" statement in a debate, but…

Hillary is definitely beatable as she has shown herself to be lousy on the campaign trail...

Down but not out.

Obama is as naive as he is inexperienced; he would most likely be the next Jimmy Carter. Nice guy, means well but an utter failure as a President.

I think you are over stating this point but there ibis some truth in this – compared to Hillary Obama he will…

The documentary, broadcast on HBO throughout November & December 2006, exposes the dangers of voting machines used during America's mid term and presidential elections. Electronic voting machines count approximately 90% of America's votes in…

If you like the idea of voting for your candidates – you could do worse than the Greens, who let their members choose their candidates in a 'list ranking process'. It's a secret, postal ballot, where members…

Having just watched (in Australia, no link, sorry) a documentary on the Diebold voting machines I have to say I'm very fearful of the future of any 'democracy' in the USA.

Obama may look like a winner now, but all that…

Not that I think the US President elections are actually very democratic, just ask Al Gore

Take it as read that I wasn't a particularly happy chap on Sunday, September 18 2005. Just because a result is agonisingly close, and not to my liking, doesn't make an election 'undemocratic'.

I should also point out that a Prime Minister isn't a President, and especially not a US-style executive President. Constitutionally, they're princeps, not dominus – first among equals, not an elected king.

But the Iowa caucus, or indeed any of the primaries, don't elect a President. It's a political party…

Obama's no firebrand, but I think he strikes a good balance as being calm, intelligent and generally nice, whereas – crass as it may sound – I don't think he wants to be seen as a fire-up black man.

Well, yes, it was crass – I think Obama just doesn't…

I'm not sure when he picked up the style, but his way of speaking is quite like a non-religious version of MLK. Not just his references to the man and his message, but his way of speaking, and what he says.

It's a soft version of the Southern inflection at…

I'm not sure when he picked up the style, but his way of speaking is quite like a non-religious version of MLK.

Nope, Denzel Goes To Washington. Seriously...

I'm not sure when he picked up the style, but his way of speaking is quite like a non-religious version of MLK.

Nope, Denzel Goes To Washington. Seriously...

This would all be a good point if what happened today (yesterday) was an election, not a primary.

It's a good point for primaries as well. I agree that parties can pick their leaders however the hell they want to, but if you wan't to claim the mantle of democracy,…

Iowa has a population of 3 million. So that is 335,000 represents 11% of the population, including those under 18 who cannot vote.

Something I didn't mention – it was nearly 3000 words as it was – Iowans who will be 18 at the election, but aren't yet, get to…

Not a bad tactic at all. You can see why young people are flocking to him.

It's not just the MLK cadences, but the cool. He seems assured and natural, which I think lends him credibility. I can't help but find him quite exciting. Matthew Yglesias is electrified.

He should…

I'm not completely clear on his policies, but my god he has charisma ....

I'm not sure when he picked up the style, but his way of speaking is quite like a non-religious version of MLK. Not just his references to the man and his message, but his way of…

Given the timing and limited duration of the caucus – a two-hour window on a weeknight – I don't think it is entirely a matter of "choice".

Seriously, if a country held an "election" where the poll was inconveniently timed and open for a very short window of time, they'd…

If the rest choose not to vote, that is an equally democratic choice.

Given the timing and limited duration of the caucus – a two-hour window on a weeknight – I don't think it is entirely a matter of "choice".

Seriously, if a country held an "election" where the poll…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZaq-YKCnE

I'm not completely clear on his policies, but my god he has charisma ....

If the rest choose not to vote, that is an equally democratic choice.

Just under 220,000 Democrats caucused tonight. About 115,000 Republicans did. That is a very big vote in itself.

The next pres will be a Dem no doubt about that. 335,000 people get to have a direct and personal say in who the next most powerful person in the world will…

The traditional candidate selection process in New Zealand, then?

Yeah, but at least that happens amongst party officials. It has no place in a popular election.

Democrat results are here, BTW.

META-STORY

Beyond who won on each side, there's a very big partisan message out of tonight. Just under 220,000 Democrats caucused tonight. About 115,000 Republicans did. That is a very big vote in itself.

Like what, the potential for intimidation, bullying, and thuglike behaviour?

The traditional candidate selection process in New Zealand, then?

To me if implemented well this system has a lot more to offer than secret ballot voting.

Like what, the potential for intimidation, bullying, and thuglike behaviour?

There's nothing in there that couldn't be captured by a simple preferential system – which would also have the advantage of encouraging a…

You could make an argument, but if you're running an election and want to state government to pay for polling clerks and voter education etc. you probably can't complain too much.

I'd figured it was something like that. But at the same time, it really does seem like it should…

Really high turnout apparently too (still much lower than a primary, of course).

Also, Obama has pulled ahead by a couple of percentage points.

The Obama folks say they're expecting a turnout of 207k, which would be at the highest end of expectations.

I think 2004 was around 120k and that was considered a high turnout caucus.

From a comment on Election Central:

What's rural and what's not in Iowa? I…

The other thing to remember is that 90% of the time the delegates at the convention have only one job – waving…

Right now, Hillary, Obama, and Edwards are basically in a statistical dead heat — each has roughly 32%, with 513 of 1,751 precincts reporting.

A caveat: The small, rural precincts report first, which is why Edwards has been ahead for the early part of…

Waaay to early to draw heaps from them

Well cnn are already predicting a Huckabee win...

A bit of drama here in precinct 23. The two women with the baby came in about 10 minutes late, and sat quietly in the Hillary camp. A few minutes later, the baby began to cry, and they took the…

As for the Republicans – Huckabee or Romney? Gee, gonnorhea or syphilis? Would be nice if McCain makes a credible showing (despite pretty much joining Guiliani in passing on Iowa and New Hampshire) because he's about the only person in the GOP field who isn't barking mad.

It's been interesting…

It's all very nineteenth century, isn't it?

Early 20th century, actually. The first primary wasn't held until 1910 (it was very much closed shop until then).

while I'm at it: why are the states determining primary dates? Isn't it the private business of the local party, and no business of…

It's all very nineteenth century, isn't it?

Well, yes indeed. And I am sure the Soviet Politburo was elected along similar lines :-)

However, it does seem to give the folks of many states an extraordinarily close up view of the various candidates over an extended period of time. When…

Would be nice if McCain makes a credible showing (despite pretty much joining Guiliani in passing on Iowa and New Hampshire) because he's about the only person in the GOP field who isn't barking mad.

I wouldn't go that far – he's been crawling into bed with the religious right,…

(I was going to say it also allows donors greater influence – donations…

Would be nice if McCain makes a credible showing (despite pretty much joining Guiliani in passing on Iowa and New Hampshire)

Giuliani may be passing on the small early contests to focus on some big races (a very risky strategy that must account in part of his long slide in…

[And if you don't feel like discussing electoral rules in the comments, feel free to expound on whom do you want to win? Or think will win. Or want to lose...]

Oh, please please please, may Clinton lose by a humiliating margin if only for the pleasure of watching the…

:-)

Now it really is hours to go. Anyone prepared to buck the trend of punditry everywhere and make solid prediction?