Cylinders of Hope, Turning and Yearning

… into pendulums of weary hesitation: [Fifth Dimension]

  • David Leonhardt of the New York Times dislikes the influence wielded by Iowa and New Hampshire in selecting presidential nominees. At Commentary, Jonathan Tobin agrees, but bemoans any likelihood of anyone doing anything about it.

    The argument (as presented by Leonhardt) is statistics-based, so there might be something to it. However, here are my favorite debunking factoids about the importance of the New Hampshire Primary:

    • The last Republican to win a contested NH primary, and go on to win the election, was George H. W. Bush in 1988, six elections ago.

    • The last Democrat to win a contested NH primary, and go on to win the election, was Jimmy Carter in 1976, nine elections ago.

    Bottom line: if you're running unopposed, you might be OK, but otherwise winning NH is more like a kiss of death than a boost. Just ask Presidents Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Kerry, Pat Buchanan, Al Gore, Paul Tsongas, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, …

  • In local news, one of our citizens is thinking outside the box:
    A convicted criminal who claimed he was from a "fifth dimension" was held Tuesday on $25,000 cash bail after he was charged with using a hammer to carry out a car-jacking and leading police on a chase on Interstate 95 on Monday.
    I expect he'll find a three-dimensional jail cell pretty easy to escape.

  • David Bahnsen tries to convince liberty-lovers that Ron Paul is undeserving of their support, mainly due to his simplistic blame-America-first view of foreign policy and advocacy of military isolationism.
    America is the leader of the free world, and that is a descriptive fact, not really worthy of being haggled over. Our responsibility to defend ourselves and our way of life is totally and completely incompatible with Ron Paul's view of foreign policy. America's moral responsibility in preventing genocide is indisputable. If at the end of the day, a group of folks attracted to the rhetoric of freedom ideology believe that their objectives can be obtained without a strong and muscular foreign policy, they will find out the hard way that they are wrong. The ability of the United States to deter Jihadists, and better yet, to kill them before they kill us, will be the foundational condition on which a future "freedom at home" may be built. We are at war. We did not start the war. I hope and pray Ron Paul's followers will come around on this. I know what will change their minds, and I do not like it.
    Link via Jen Rubin, also not a Paul fan.

  • I got 17 right out of 20 on this quiz about Robert A. Heinlein. Can you do better? (I'm looking at you, Granite Groksters!)


Last Modified 2017-12-03 5:49 AM EDT