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Richardson, Brownback Are In
 Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) is in the race. He’ll be busy over the next few months, because as a sitting governor, he’s got NM’s legislative agenda to wrestle with. In fact, Richardson is one of the few candidates for president with an actual job to go to. Some are out of office, such as Vilsack and Edwards, while others, like the US senators, just come and go as the please. Sen. John McCain (D-AZ) made only 13% of the floor votes in 2006. The other 87% of the time he was out and about, trying to seem larger than life.
 Richardson also has the most impressive resume in the whole herd. The country’s problems cry out for a diplomat/manager – a person who can motivate others , friend and foe, into positive action.
 Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), former auctioneer and messiah of the Religious Right, told his supporters this week that he’s launching a presidential exploratory mission because, “America needs stronger families.” So can we expect a lot of preachy, anti-gay marriage, hot button horseshit from Brownback until he drops out of the race after getting skunked in all the early primaries? Yes, I’m afraid so.
 Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), a former Baptist minister, is Brownback’s biggest competition for the theocon vote. Huckabee is infinitely more likable and honest on the stump. When he ran for Lt. Gov. of AR back in 1996, Huckabee, he was asked by a voter if he was one of those Baptists who thought only Baptists could get into heaven. “No,” he replied, “I’m even more narrow-minded than that, because I’m pretty sure some of the Baptists aren’t going to make it either.” 
~Jack McEnany
Also see: Bill Richardson, Exclusive LNTV video
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Snake Eyes for Nevada Caucuses
 NH Gov. John Lynch (D) is putting Nevada, the state that Bugsy Siegel built, on notice that its presidential caucuses will not precede NH’s first in the nation primary. Not under any circumstances. In short, screw the DNC and its phony quest for diversity in the nominating process. Q: How many chairmen of the DNC have been white men? A: All of them.
NH Sec’y of State Bill Gardener holds all the cards in this game – you just can’t beat him. He decides when the NH primary will be held, and nobody’s elbowing NH out of its catbird seat. As they say in Las Vegas, Fuggedaboudit.
And we were so looking forward to caucusing at the Chicken Ranch.
Also see: Diversity
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Third in the Nation?
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 The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee voted overwhelmingly last week to insert the Nevada caucuses between the NH primary and the Iowa causes. The full DNC meets this weekend to vote on the change, and unless Kathy Sullivan, the chair of the NH Democratic State Committee, has glossy photos of Howard Dean and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in a public restroom with a fainting goat sandwiched between them, the recommendation will stand.
Sullivan will be in Chicago this Saturday at the DNC annual convention to plead NH’s case one more time, but she knows the likelihood of the full membership overturning the vote of the committee is slim to none.
Hey, who cares? NH state law and Sec’y of State Bill Gardener will have the final word on when the NH first-in-the-nation presidential primary will take place. And if it has to be Boxing Day 2007, then that’s when it’ll be.
The law in question requires that the NH primary occur at least one week before any “similar election.” Iowa gets a pass because it’s a caucus, and a caucus is to a primary as the electric slide is to the Rockettes. But they may be on their way out, too.
Presidential ponderers Sen Chris Dodd(D-CT) and Sen Evan Bayh (D-IN) have pledged their lackey’s votes to NH’s primacy, but that and Bill Clinton’s endorsement will get you bubkus.
So, to avoid a rules fight at the nominating convention in 2008, and a very real risk that NH’s delegates won’t be seated, Nevada will probably get a pass like Iowa.
NH’s Republicans (Sen Judd Gregg, former Gov John Sununu, and former Sen Warren Rudman) wisely coerced the RNC to enshrine NH’s cherished position in its bylaws long ago, so the GOP is gloating over the Dem’s dilemma. And who can blame them? They don’t have much else to smile about these days.
~Jack McEnany
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Holy shite, we all knew it was coming, like a balloon payment on a beach house, but now it’s happened.
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NH’s been pushed ever-so-slightly down that slippery slope into national irrelevance.
 Ostensibly to create greater diversity in the early primary states, the DNC's Rules and Bylaws committee voted late last week to allow NV to hold a caucus the Saturday after Iowa's leadoff caucus tentatively scheduled for Jan 14, 2008.
The rules panel also rewarded SC with an early primary, to be held seven days after the NH primary, currently penciled in for Jan 22, 2008.
But the deal isn't done.
DNC members will vote on the changes at its annual meeting next month in Chicago, and presidential candidates, including Bill Clinton, bearding for his wife (how's that for role reversal), are lobbying hard for the status quo ante. They love NH – they know who the go-to people are, it's geographically small and manageable, and doesn't require a Steve Forbes-sized bank account to be competitive. Besides, pissing NH off, or skipping it all together the way Sen Scoop Jackson (D-WA) did in 1976, has been the death knell for more than one presidential campaign.
It's hard to blame the rest of the Democratic Party for wanting a taste of the Granite State's sweet first-in-the-nation deal. They're just looking for some table droppings from the largesse that presidential aspirants spread around the little New England kingmaker.
First, the state party puts the arm on presidential candidates like they were working for Tony Soprano – you shower us with cash and prestige, and nobody gets hurt.
Then there’s the local pols who don’t have to endorse Joe Biden
or anyone else who's sniffing around for recognition and support; the checks just arrive in the mail. Backbench Congressmen are suddenly powerbrokers, candidates for state office that no one really wants are wined and dined, and dogcatchers get to bend the ears of presidential candidates for more Fatherland Security funds.
Nothing is too good for them – piss ant lawyers become ambassadors to Caribbean nations, auto repair dealers suddenly find themselves in charge of the US UN Mission to Geneva, blowhard governors even end up as White House chiefs of staff (NH has produced two Sherman Adams under Eisenhower, and John Sununu under George HW Bush Unfortunately, both were run out of DC for gross displays of imperial and unethical behavior, which caught them completely unaware since that’s why they went there).
For their piece of the action, NH's local media enjoy confiscatory ad revenues way above their punching weights for the months preceding the primary so they’re not going to be kind to anyone who tries to bump NH off the throne.
But it's not just political power and vested interests that have maintained NH’s vaulted position all these years – it's the law. Since 1976, NH has had a statute on the books that lays claim to the first presidential primary, irrespective of what the national party says. And Sec'y of State Bill Gardener is as scrappy as Karl Rove when it comes to saving NH's ass, which he’s done many times before, and promises to do again.
While its undeniable that NH is far more lily white than the country at large 96% versus 67% it hard to see how a NV primary which the AP described this week as a state where "sin, debauchery and corruption are commonplace," will improve matters much. An earlier compromise to give the District of Columbia the number two spot would have balanced the electoral equation much better, but that proposal was scrubbed perhaps because presidential candidates didn't like the idea of facing so many people with so many legitimate gripes over on the Soweto side of town.
The real diversity problem isn't in NH; it's the presidential candidates themselves who are alarmingly heterogeneous. Not since Jesse Jackson in 1988 has there been a serious African-American contender for the White House. And NH treated him quite well, voting for him ahead of Al Gore, Bruce Babbit, and Gary Hart. Buoyed by his better than expected showing, Jackson went on to win five southern states on Super Tuesday, then the SC caucus four days later, and three days later finished 2nd in his home state of Illinois. Jackson overtook Mike Dukakis in the Michigan with 55% of the votes cast in the caucuses, and became the Democratic front-runner. Tank Boy Dukakis went on to win the nomination, but it was hardly NH’s fault.
So this aint over.
~Jack McEnany
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