QUOTE
Overshadowed
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007; 7:55 AM
The presidential campaign has clearly been eclipsed this week--by the holidays, by the San Francisco tiger attack, and now, of course, by the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
The suicide attack at a rally in Pakistan is a stark reminder, if any were needed, that it's a dangerous world out there, and might shift the conversation from what had been shaping up as a campaign focused mainly on domestic issues.
Early yesterday morning, even before the candidates started issuing their statements, Ankle Biting Pundits put up a post asking: "What Effect Will Bhutto Assassination Have in Iowa and New Hampshire?"
Soon afterward, Fox showed Hillary Clinton telling an Iowa audience that she had known Bhutto for a dozen years, that the former prime minister was willing to take risks for democracy, and pivoting to her argument that we need to pick a president who'll be ready on day one. Then it was Rudy calling in to Fox and MSNBC, saying this shows "why we have to remain on offense against Islamic terrorism."
No one really knows--could it help Hillary, Biden, McCain?--and the impact may turn out to be negligible. But one reason the campaign is taking a back seat is that candidates, in the stretch run, return to their closing themes, meaning that other than Huckabee firing at pheasants, they aren't breaking much new ground. It's the same old song about change vs. experience, yadda yadda yadda.
A Los Angeles Times poll has a virtual tie in New Hampshire (Obama 32, Hillary 30) and a three-way dead heat in Iowa (Hillary 29, Obama 26, Edwards 25). The survey has Huckabee trouncing Romney in Iowa, 37-23, but drawing only 9 percent in New Hampshire, where Romney outdistances McCain, 34-21. More telling is the post-Bhutto interpretation:
"Other poll findings suggest Clinton might gain stature in both states if Democrats' concern about world affairs increases in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The poll shows that Democrats in both Iowa and New Hampshire -- as they do elsewhere around the country -- consider Clinton far-better equipped than her rivals to safeguard national security." (In fact, 79 percent of Iowa Dems say she's prepared to be president; just 43 percent say Obama is.)
"Such a shift in focus away from domestic policy could also affect the Republican presidential contest and benefit Sen. John McCain . . . The poll found that Republicans in New Hampshire and Iowa consider McCain best qualified to handle foreign affairs."
Says the Boston Globe: "Giuliani, whose campaign appears to have been hurt in the polls when it has been centered on domestic issues, was the first candidate to release a statement after the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday, linking her killing to the threat of terrorism against the United States . . .
"In polls, Huckabee is vulnerable on foreign policy. In the most recent Pew polls, released late last month, Huckabee was the candidate of choice for 24 percent of Iowans -- but only 10 percent said he would be the best at fighting terrorism."
A Hillary-Obama spat quickly erupted, as Politico reports:
"Obama adviser David Axelrod . . . seemed to draw a connection between Clinton's initial support for the invasion of Iraq and Bhutto's death. 'Barack Obama had the judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, and he warned at the time it would divert us from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, and now we see the effect of that,' Axelrod told reporters. 'Al Qaeda's resurgent, they're a powerful force now in Pakistan, they may have been involved -- we've been here, so I don't know whether the news has been updated, but there's a suspicion they may have been involved in this. I think his judgment was good. Sen. Clinton made a different judgment, so let's have that discussion.'
"That drew a retort from Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. 'This is a time to be focused on the tragedy of the situation, its implications for the U.S. and the world, and to be concerned for the people of Pakistan and the country's stability. No one should be politicizing this situation with baseless allegations,' Singer said."
John Dickerson: "To the extent that unpredictable news about the dangerous state of the world helps anyone, it helps the 'safe candidates' (Clinton, McCain, and Rudy) rather than the untested, roll-of-the-dice candidates (Obama and Huckabee) . . .
"McCain is probably the one this helps the most, though not just because he has foreign policy experience and Giuliani doesn't. He's competing in the early caucus and primary states, which means he's in that news coverage--especially today, since he's in Iowa. Rudy is in Florida."
Except that Rudy, through the magic of satellites, was on CNN and Fox last night.
Bill Richardson's demand that Bush force Musharraf to step down draws a rebuke from Captain Ed:
"At one point, I considered Bill Richardson the most prepared Democrat for the Presidency, based on his extensive experience in foreign relations, Congress, and the executive branch. That experience doesn't do much good without common sense, and Richardson keeps proving his lack of it . . .
"The stupidity of this statement cascades through several levels. First and foremost, how would the U.S. 'force' Musharraf to step down? Should we invade Pakistan to fight on the side of al-Qaeda and the Taliban?"
National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez isn't pleased by a Huckabee gaffe:
"A Team Huck official assures me 'the intent of the governor's remarks this morning was to convey 'sympathy' not 'apologies.' . . . We all make word-choice mistakes, but when you're running for president and already have a rep for having a foreign-policy handicap . . . this doesn't help."
Huckabee also seemed to suggest that Pakistan was still under martial law.
Ann Althouse spanks the "Today" show for dealing with lots of fluff after the attack on Bhutto.
The Huffington Post publishes a September blog post from Bhutto on why she was returning to Pakistan: "I didn't choose this life. It chose me." And here's her Slate diary from 1997.
The Western-educated Bhutto met plenty of American journalists, several of whom seemed shaken by her killing. Ann Curry, Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews replayed interviews they had done with her. Joe Klein recalls his meeting with Bhutto, Arianna Huffington remembers their debating days, and Harry Shearer recalls his dinner with her.
To divine the meaning of next Thursday's caucuses, I turn to Iowa oracle David Yepsen:
"On the Democratic side, a third-place finish will severely wound a leading candidate, perhaps mortally. On the Republican side, it just might provide a shot of political steroid for a lagging candidate as the race heads to New Hampshire . . .
"While a third-place finish will hurt the Democratic front-runner who winds up there, it will still provide a small springboard on the Republican side. In Iowa, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are battling for first. Romney led early, but polls show Huckabee in the lead now. Neither seems likely to finish third.
"That slot is vacant, which is why Fred Thompson, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain and Ron Paul are all rediscovering the joys of Iowa here in the last few days of the caucus campaign. (Had any one of them paid closer attention to the state earlier, he would be in a better position to take third. But don't ask me to explain the strategic decisions of any of these candidates. They seem to be making them up as they go along.)"
John Edwards has been denouncing the role of 527, even as one such union-backed group runs ads on his behalf. But this leak to the New York Times raises questions:
"The Edwards campaign may have expected the support of the group, Alliance for a New America, set up by a local of the Service Employees International Union. An Oct. 8 e-mail message circulated among the union leaders who created the group suggests that they were talking with Edwards campaign officials about 'what specific kinds of support they would like to see from us' just as they were planning to create an outside group to advertise in early primary states with 'a serious 527 legal structure.'
"The message, sent by the president of one of the locals involved, was obtained by a rival campaign."
That's how it works, folks.
The media-versus-Hillary case that I first made two weeks ago -- and which was validated by a Center for Media and Public Affairs study I quoted in Monday's column -- is picking up steam. Here, Open Left's Chris Bowers tries to analyze the reasons behind it:
"The evidence that Clinton has faced a more difficult media gauntlet than Obama is mounting. Assuming for the moment that these studies are accurate, I have a simple question: why does the established media like Barack Obama more than they like Hillary Clinton? What is it about Obama that they like, which they also find lacking in Clinton?
"I honestly can't figure this one out. Perhaps it is because of sexism, but the established media, especially the punditry within the established media, is just about the whitest profession in the country. Perhaps it is because of Obama's post-partisan, post-ideological talk, but remember that Hillary Clinton is a senior member of the established media's favorite political organization: the DLC. Both Clinton and Obama are from Illinois, they have voted about the same during their time in the Senate, and don't seem to scare the establishment much at all. Why then does Obama get more favorable coverage than Clinton?
"There are only two theories that I find plausible. First, Clinton held large leads for several months in this campaign. As a result, both consciously and unconsciously, news outlets were waiting, hoping, and helping Clinton to stumble. Second, the Republican Noise Machine still exerts considerable influence over established, national news outlets, and the Noise Machine simply hates Clinton more than it hates Obama."
I agree with the first point, but the noise-machine argument is a stretch. Of course, wouldn't the noise machine turn on Obama if he became the nominee?
Paul Krugman, who has mounted a one-man crusade against Obama, takes to the pages of Slate to argue that the media are misguided in their Barack coverage:
"A year ago, Michael Tomasky wrote a perceptive piece titled 'Obama the anti-Bush,' in which he described Barack Obama's appeal: After the bitter partisanship of the Bush years, Tomasky argued, voters are attracted to 'someone who speaks of his frustration with our polarized politics and his fervent desire to transcend the red-blue divide.' People in the news media, in particular, long for an end to the polarization and partisanship of the Bush years -- a fact that probably explains the highly favorable coverage Obama has received.
"But any attempt to change America's direction, to implement a real progressive agenda, will necessarily be highly polarizing. Proposals for universal health care, in particular, are sure to face a firestorm of partisan opposition. And fundamental change can't be accomplished by a politician who shuns partisanship.
"I like to remind people who long for bipartisanship that FDR's drive to create Social Security was as divisive as Bush's attempt to dismantle it. And we got Social Security because FDR wasn't afraid of division . . .
"So, here's my worry: Democrats, with the encouragement of people in the news media who seek bipartisanship for its own sake, may fall into the trap of trying to be anti-Bushes --of trying to transcend partisanship, seeking some middle ground between the parties. That middle ground doesn't exist -- and if Democrats try to find it, they'll squander a huge opportunity."
Krugman is right that the media tend to celebrate bipartisanship (remember how the Senate's Gang of 14 were lionized?). But no journalist with a month's experience believes you can get health care reform or any other kind of reform without taking on entrenched interests--and that should be reflected in their copy.
Michelle Obama talks about her husband to Vanity Fair: "When he comes home, he's taking out the garbage and he's doing the laundry and he's making up the beds, because the girls need to see him doing that, and he knows I need him to do that. And that was a meeting of the minds that we had to reach. I wasn't content with saying, 'You're doing important things in the world, so go off and be important and I'll handle everything else here' -- because the truth is, if I did that, I'd probably still be angry."
The media are fully on board with the McCain Comeback story. (The stories all say he had been left for dead, without noting that it was journalists who declared him to be toast last summer, when the senator had his fundraising and staffing problems.) Latest sign: a New York Times front-pager about his family. Upshot: John has been a difficult and sometimes distant dad, but he's no Rudy.
"Among the Republican candidates, Mr. McCain, 71, of Arizona, has the greatest number of children, who span four decades, two marriages, numerous states and a broad swath of the political spectrum. But they are largely absent in a primary battle in which families -- and all that their presence implies -- are central ornaments.
"Yet unlike the absent children of Rudolph W. Giuliani, who have strained relations with their father, the McCain children speak with endearment of Mr. McCain. They have maintained close relations with him in spite of long absences during childhood, a period of intense disappointment -- among his older children when Mr. McCain remarried -- and the breadth of geography and generations."
But some conservatives aren't buying into the McCain surge, among them Leon Wolf at Red State:
"The main problem that McCain has right now is that he lacks a plausible path to the nomination. His ascendence in New Hampshire has been very impressive, and he has won both of the last two debates I saw by being the adult in the room. As he dared to knock ethanol pork in front of Iowa reminded the fiscal conservatives that McCain is probably the candidate who sits most in their corner when it comes to spending (not just taxes). His strong rhetoric in favor of the war has convinced many potential Rudy supporters that he will be as strong in the prosecution of the war as Giuliani would be. And during this campaign season, he has made all the right noises about supporting life issues.
"However, the fact remains that after New Hampshire comes a string of states in which McCain remains relatively anemic in the polls, making it difficult to imagine how he would turn a New Hampshire win into a win in Michigan or South Carolina, and he desperately needs one of those states to avoid total decimation in Florida. In short, while I'd be fine if McCain got the nomination, I just don't see a way that it can happen.
"I think a reason for that is that a lot of Republican voters share pretty much the same view of McCain as I do. We personally admire his character and his life story, and we've come around to the idea that his positions are not so far away from ours. But in the back of our minds, we all have reason to remember at least one instance when he stabbed us in the back, whether through McCain-Feingold, the Gang of 14, or comprehensive immigration reform. And many of us have questions about his temperament."
Finally, this sad news:
"Hotel heiress Paris Hilton's potential inheritance dramatically diminished after her grandfather Barron Hilton announced plans on Wednesday to donate 97 percent of his $2.3-billion fortune to charity."
Like, what a bummer.
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007; 7:55 AM
The presidential campaign has clearly been eclipsed this week--by the holidays, by the San Francisco tiger attack, and now, of course, by the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
The suicide attack at a rally in Pakistan is a stark reminder, if any were needed, that it's a dangerous world out there, and might shift the conversation from what had been shaping up as a campaign focused mainly on domestic issues.
Early yesterday morning, even before the candidates started issuing their statements, Ankle Biting Pundits put up a post asking: "What Effect Will Bhutto Assassination Have in Iowa and New Hampshire?"
Soon afterward, Fox showed Hillary Clinton telling an Iowa audience that she had known Bhutto for a dozen years, that the former prime minister was willing to take risks for democracy, and pivoting to her argument that we need to pick a president who'll be ready on day one. Then it was Rudy calling in to Fox and MSNBC, saying this shows "why we have to remain on offense against Islamic terrorism."
No one really knows--could it help Hillary, Biden, McCain?--and the impact may turn out to be negligible. But one reason the campaign is taking a back seat is that candidates, in the stretch run, return to their closing themes, meaning that other than Huckabee firing at pheasants, they aren't breaking much new ground. It's the same old song about change vs. experience, yadda yadda yadda.
A Los Angeles Times poll has a virtual tie in New Hampshire (Obama 32, Hillary 30) and a three-way dead heat in Iowa (Hillary 29, Obama 26, Edwards 25). The survey has Huckabee trouncing Romney in Iowa, 37-23, but drawing only 9 percent in New Hampshire, where Romney outdistances McCain, 34-21. More telling is the post-Bhutto interpretation:
"Other poll findings suggest Clinton might gain stature in both states if Democrats' concern about world affairs increases in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The poll shows that Democrats in both Iowa and New Hampshire -- as they do elsewhere around the country -- consider Clinton far-better equipped than her rivals to safeguard national security." (In fact, 79 percent of Iowa Dems say she's prepared to be president; just 43 percent say Obama is.)
"Such a shift in focus away from domestic policy could also affect the Republican presidential contest and benefit Sen. John McCain . . . The poll found that Republicans in New Hampshire and Iowa consider McCain best qualified to handle foreign affairs."
Says the Boston Globe: "Giuliani, whose campaign appears to have been hurt in the polls when it has been centered on domestic issues, was the first candidate to release a statement after the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday, linking her killing to the threat of terrorism against the United States . . .
"In polls, Huckabee is vulnerable on foreign policy. In the most recent Pew polls, released late last month, Huckabee was the candidate of choice for 24 percent of Iowans -- but only 10 percent said he would be the best at fighting terrorism."
A Hillary-Obama spat quickly erupted, as Politico reports:
"Obama adviser David Axelrod . . . seemed to draw a connection between Clinton's initial support for the invasion of Iraq and Bhutto's death. 'Barack Obama had the judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, and he warned at the time it would divert us from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, and now we see the effect of that,' Axelrod told reporters. 'Al Qaeda's resurgent, they're a powerful force now in Pakistan, they may have been involved -- we've been here, so I don't know whether the news has been updated, but there's a suspicion they may have been involved in this. I think his judgment was good. Sen. Clinton made a different judgment, so let's have that discussion.'
"That drew a retort from Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. 'This is a time to be focused on the tragedy of the situation, its implications for the U.S. and the world, and to be concerned for the people of Pakistan and the country's stability. No one should be politicizing this situation with baseless allegations,' Singer said."
John Dickerson: "To the extent that unpredictable news about the dangerous state of the world helps anyone, it helps the 'safe candidates' (Clinton, McCain, and Rudy) rather than the untested, roll-of-the-dice candidates (Obama and Huckabee) . . .
"McCain is probably the one this helps the most, though not just because he has foreign policy experience and Giuliani doesn't. He's competing in the early caucus and primary states, which means he's in that news coverage--especially today, since he's in Iowa. Rudy is in Florida."
Except that Rudy, through the magic of satellites, was on CNN and Fox last night.
Bill Richardson's demand that Bush force Musharraf to step down draws a rebuke from Captain Ed:
"At one point, I considered Bill Richardson the most prepared Democrat for the Presidency, based on his extensive experience in foreign relations, Congress, and the executive branch. That experience doesn't do much good without common sense, and Richardson keeps proving his lack of it . . .
"The stupidity of this statement cascades through several levels. First and foremost, how would the U.S. 'force' Musharraf to step down? Should we invade Pakistan to fight on the side of al-Qaeda and the Taliban?"
National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez isn't pleased by a Huckabee gaffe:
"A Team Huck official assures me 'the intent of the governor's remarks this morning was to convey 'sympathy' not 'apologies.' . . . We all make word-choice mistakes, but when you're running for president and already have a rep for having a foreign-policy handicap . . . this doesn't help."
Huckabee also seemed to suggest that Pakistan was still under martial law.
Ann Althouse spanks the "Today" show for dealing with lots of fluff after the attack on Bhutto.
The Huffington Post publishes a September blog post from Bhutto on why she was returning to Pakistan: "I didn't choose this life. It chose me." And here's her Slate diary from 1997.
The Western-educated Bhutto met plenty of American journalists, several of whom seemed shaken by her killing. Ann Curry, Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews replayed interviews they had done with her. Joe Klein recalls his meeting with Bhutto, Arianna Huffington remembers their debating days, and Harry Shearer recalls his dinner with her.
To divine the meaning of next Thursday's caucuses, I turn to Iowa oracle David Yepsen:
"On the Democratic side, a third-place finish will severely wound a leading candidate, perhaps mortally. On the Republican side, it just might provide a shot of political steroid for a lagging candidate as the race heads to New Hampshire . . .
"While a third-place finish will hurt the Democratic front-runner who winds up there, it will still provide a small springboard on the Republican side. In Iowa, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are battling for first. Romney led early, but polls show Huckabee in the lead now. Neither seems likely to finish third.
"That slot is vacant, which is why Fred Thompson, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain and Ron Paul are all rediscovering the joys of Iowa here in the last few days of the caucus campaign. (Had any one of them paid closer attention to the state earlier, he would be in a better position to take third. But don't ask me to explain the strategic decisions of any of these candidates. They seem to be making them up as they go along.)"
John Edwards has been denouncing the role of 527, even as one such union-backed group runs ads on his behalf. But this leak to the New York Times raises questions:
"The Edwards campaign may have expected the support of the group, Alliance for a New America, set up by a local of the Service Employees International Union. An Oct. 8 e-mail message circulated among the union leaders who created the group suggests that they were talking with Edwards campaign officials about 'what specific kinds of support they would like to see from us' just as they were planning to create an outside group to advertise in early primary states with 'a serious 527 legal structure.'
"The message, sent by the president of one of the locals involved, was obtained by a rival campaign."
That's how it works, folks.
The media-versus-Hillary case that I first made two weeks ago -- and which was validated by a Center for Media and Public Affairs study I quoted in Monday's column -- is picking up steam. Here, Open Left's Chris Bowers tries to analyze the reasons behind it:
"The evidence that Clinton has faced a more difficult media gauntlet than Obama is mounting. Assuming for the moment that these studies are accurate, I have a simple question: why does the established media like Barack Obama more than they like Hillary Clinton? What is it about Obama that they like, which they also find lacking in Clinton?
"I honestly can't figure this one out. Perhaps it is because of sexism, but the established media, especially the punditry within the established media, is just about the whitest profession in the country. Perhaps it is because of Obama's post-partisan, post-ideological talk, but remember that Hillary Clinton is a senior member of the established media's favorite political organization: the DLC. Both Clinton and Obama are from Illinois, they have voted about the same during their time in the Senate, and don't seem to scare the establishment much at all. Why then does Obama get more favorable coverage than Clinton?
"There are only two theories that I find plausible. First, Clinton held large leads for several months in this campaign. As a result, both consciously and unconsciously, news outlets were waiting, hoping, and helping Clinton to stumble. Second, the Republican Noise Machine still exerts considerable influence over established, national news outlets, and the Noise Machine simply hates Clinton more than it hates Obama."
I agree with the first point, but the noise-machine argument is a stretch. Of course, wouldn't the noise machine turn on Obama if he became the nominee?
Paul Krugman, who has mounted a one-man crusade against Obama, takes to the pages of Slate to argue that the media are misguided in their Barack coverage:
"A year ago, Michael Tomasky wrote a perceptive piece titled 'Obama the anti-Bush,' in which he described Barack Obama's appeal: After the bitter partisanship of the Bush years, Tomasky argued, voters are attracted to 'someone who speaks of his frustration with our polarized politics and his fervent desire to transcend the red-blue divide.' People in the news media, in particular, long for an end to the polarization and partisanship of the Bush years -- a fact that probably explains the highly favorable coverage Obama has received.
"But any attempt to change America's direction, to implement a real progressive agenda, will necessarily be highly polarizing. Proposals for universal health care, in particular, are sure to face a firestorm of partisan opposition. And fundamental change can't be accomplished by a politician who shuns partisanship.
"I like to remind people who long for bipartisanship that FDR's drive to create Social Security was as divisive as Bush's attempt to dismantle it. And we got Social Security because FDR wasn't afraid of division . . .
"So, here's my worry: Democrats, with the encouragement of people in the news media who seek bipartisanship for its own sake, may fall into the trap of trying to be anti-Bushes --of trying to transcend partisanship, seeking some middle ground between the parties. That middle ground doesn't exist -- and if Democrats try to find it, they'll squander a huge opportunity."
Krugman is right that the media tend to celebrate bipartisanship (remember how the Senate's Gang of 14 were lionized?). But no journalist with a month's experience believes you can get health care reform or any other kind of reform without taking on entrenched interests--and that should be reflected in their copy.
Michelle Obama talks about her husband to Vanity Fair: "When he comes home, he's taking out the garbage and he's doing the laundry and he's making up the beds, because the girls need to see him doing that, and he knows I need him to do that. And that was a meeting of the minds that we had to reach. I wasn't content with saying, 'You're doing important things in the world, so go off and be important and I'll handle everything else here' -- because the truth is, if I did that, I'd probably still be angry."
The media are fully on board with the McCain Comeback story. (The stories all say he had been left for dead, without noting that it was journalists who declared him to be toast last summer, when the senator had his fundraising and staffing problems.) Latest sign: a New York Times front-pager about his family. Upshot: John has been a difficult and sometimes distant dad, but he's no Rudy.
"Among the Republican candidates, Mr. McCain, 71, of Arizona, has the greatest number of children, who span four decades, two marriages, numerous states and a broad swath of the political spectrum. But they are largely absent in a primary battle in which families -- and all that their presence implies -- are central ornaments.
"Yet unlike the absent children of Rudolph W. Giuliani, who have strained relations with their father, the McCain children speak with endearment of Mr. McCain. They have maintained close relations with him in spite of long absences during childhood, a period of intense disappointment -- among his older children when Mr. McCain remarried -- and the breadth of geography and generations."
But some conservatives aren't buying into the McCain surge, among them Leon Wolf at Red State:
"The main problem that McCain has right now is that he lacks a plausible path to the nomination. His ascendence in New Hampshire has been very impressive, and he has won both of the last two debates I saw by being the adult in the room. As he dared to knock ethanol pork in front of Iowa reminded the fiscal conservatives that McCain is probably the candidate who sits most in their corner when it comes to spending (not just taxes). His strong rhetoric in favor of the war has convinced many potential Rudy supporters that he will be as strong in the prosecution of the war as Giuliani would be. And during this campaign season, he has made all the right noises about supporting life issues.
"However, the fact remains that after New Hampshire comes a string of states in which McCain remains relatively anemic in the polls, making it difficult to imagine how he would turn a New Hampshire win into a win in Michigan or South Carolina, and he desperately needs one of those states to avoid total decimation in Florida. In short, while I'd be fine if McCain got the nomination, I just don't see a way that it can happen.
"I think a reason for that is that a lot of Republican voters share pretty much the same view of McCain as I do. We personally admire his character and his life story, and we've come around to the idea that his positions are not so far away from ours. But in the back of our minds, we all have reason to remember at least one instance when he stabbed us in the back, whether through McCain-Feingold, the Gang of 14, or comprehensive immigration reform. And many of us have questions about his temperament."
Finally, this sad news:
"Hotel heiress Paris Hilton's potential inheritance dramatically diminished after her grandfather Barron Hilton announced plans on Wednesday to donate 97 percent of his $2.3-billion fortune to charity."
Like, what a bummer.