Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

"Always in motion is the future."  ---Yoda

The primary schedule from here on out:

May 3: Guam
May 6: Indiana and North Carolina
May 13: West Virginia
May 20: Kentucky and Oregon
June 1: Puerto Rico
June 3: Montana and South Dakota

Meanwhile, the National Association of Secretaries of State has an idea for 2012:

• A lottery would be held to determine which region would begin the sequence the first year of the plan. The next presidential election year, the region that held the first position would move to the end of the sequence, and the other regions would move forward.

• Iowa and New Hampshire would retain their leading positions in the presidential selection process based upon their tradition of encouraging retail politics.

• Primaries/caucuses in each state of a given region would be scheduled on or soon after the first Tuesday in March, April, May or June of presidential election years.

Regional Groupings Under the NASS Plan

East: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

South: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

West: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and Guam.

Your poll awaits.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Note:  I think we'd be a better country if, instead of the politics of petty partisanship, we practiced the politics of dancing...the politics of oooooh feelin' good.  The fact that we don't makes me bitter.

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the North Carolina and Indiana primaries: 13
Days 'til Mother's Day: 18
Amount Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other retailers were collectively fined for not labeling analog TVs as virtually useless after the 2/17/09 switch to digital TV: $3.9 million
(Source: USA Today)
Increase in college tuition costs since 2000: 60%
(Source: Parade)
Number of members in the Gold Prospectors Association of America: 45,000
Increase in membership over the past few years: 40%
(Source: The New York Times via The Week)
Number of llamas disguised as nuns that voted in the Pennsylvania primary: 4

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Mid-week Rapture Index: 167 (including God's Chosen One marrying Satan and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra ice cream).  Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.  

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Nice ass.

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CHEERS to a pleasant evening.  What did I do last night?  Um...ate a cheeseburger.  Walked the dog with my sweetie.  Did the dishes.  Watched Idol (David Archwaycookies killed).  Worked on C&J.  Read a little.  Went to bed early.  Basically got myself psyched up for tonight's Pennsylvania primary results, which I'll be liveblogging starting at 7.  Why do you ask?

Ha Ha, I keed, I keed!

CHEERS to the morning after the biggest anti-climax of the year.  Congratulations to Hillary Clinton for her predicted-since-time-began 9.999-point win last night.  Like Ohio and Texas, she threw everything at her worthy opponent.  And while exit polls say voters considered her tactics overly-negative, they worked.  Unfortunately for her campaign, the results do little to change the delegate count, the popular vote, or the number of states won.  But primary season rolls on, so guess what, North Carolina and Indiana?  Tag---you're it!!

JEERS to Terry McAuliffe: dishonest jerk or brilliant psychic?  Last night on MSNBC, the former DNC chair and Clinton surrogate rattled off Michigan and Florida among states Hillary had won.  Really?  Please send me that press release---I must've been napping.

JEERS to ignoring the elephant in the room.  Watching last night's primary coverage, I was struck by how many discussions about the general election took place without taking into account the trail of despair and destruction and Darth Vaderism with which George W. Bush and his enablers have paved the GOP's road to the White House.  It's as if John McCain is running in some kind of vacuum.  No, my friends, he is not.  No matter how much barbeque he serves up to the media, he still bears the scarlet letter: R.  Which stands, of course, for LOSER.  If you spelled it backwards.

CHEERS to the wisdom of John and Jane Q. Public.  Talk about living in historic times.  President Bush is now---and shall forever be---the least-liked president ever.  If you don’t count the few weeks in 1910 when William Howard Taft's popularity dropped to twelve percent after he accidentally sat on a basket of puppies.

P.S. Happy 217th Birthday, James Buchanan.  Your present, sir, given the above poll numbers: rising to #42 on the presidential greatness list.  And a pair of socks.

JEERS to getting emphysema at 35,000 feet.  Can you believe there was a time when smoking was allowed on commercial airlines?  I still remember traveling with my parents and having to sit at the back of the plane because my mom dragged on King-size Kents (when I was born the first thing I did was blow smoke rings).  What were we THINKING??!  Thankfully the movement to ban airborne puffery went into effect twenty years ago today.  So now all we have to worry about is catching an exotic disease from the passenger two rows back that causes instant diarrhea and gruesome facial disfigurement.  But you'll have the pinkest lungs!

CHEERS to new and improved representation.  Alaska senator Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens has a fight on his hands in November.  From the DSCC:

As mayor of Anchorage, [Mark] Begich helped create nearly 10,000 new jobs and eliminated a $33 million city budget deficit.  If elected senator, Begich has pledged to restore trust and transparency in our government and to expand the G.I. Bill to give veterans everything they need to earn a college degree.

Scandals have rocked the Republican Party in Alaska.  Even Ted Stevens himself is under investigation by the FBI and is going to be extremely vulnerable this cycle.  The latest polling already shows a dead heat, even before voters start paying attention and learning all about Stevens' sordid past.

Can Stevens sell ice to the Eskimos one more time...or will Democrats get yet another pick-up seat on their way to a filibuster-proof majority?  Stay tuned!  The answer is coming up right after this seven-month commercial break....

CHEERS to Eugene Robinson.  He's become a fantastic commentator on MSNBC, and yesterday's must-read column in the Washington Post picks apart the many weaknesses (Iraq, Iran, the economy, emotional volatility) in the cranky, tone-deaf, Depression-era codger that is John McCain:

Both Democrats, in making the "electability" argument, have painted McCain as an awesomely formidable candidate. The reality, though, is that he's a flawed candidate whose views on the major issues confronting the nation differ from those of most Americans---and whose talents and temperament are not well suited to facing those challenges.

McCain is no pushover, mind you, but he's eminently beatable. The hypothetical matchup polls mean very little at this point; most of the fundamentals still favor the Democratic candidate in the fall.

And I, for one, can't wait 'til we have the chance to tear him to ribbons.

JEERS to the Titanic of marketing plans.  Twenty three years ago today, the geniuses in Atlanta foisted New Coke onto the nation.  The response was...um...flat.

JEERS to bamboo.  Ugh...the bane of the back yard has begun its annual infestation, and soon it'll be growing three inches a day.  But never fear---we're armed with our traditional defoliant: our chocolate lab, Molly's, pee.  Cue the 1812 Overture and let the battle begin.

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One Year Ago in C&J:  April 23, 2007...

CHEERS or JEERS to doin' double duty.  It's a plane!  It's a heli-o-coptor!  It's the non-battle-tested, not-completely-reliable Osprey tilt-rotor lighter than air machine and it's making its first combat-zone appearance in Iraq.  The early reviews are in and most troops agree: we'll grab the next Humvee that comes along, thanks.

CHEERS to mood mud.  Says here that playing in the dirt may act as a natural anti-depressant.  No wonder Karl Rove always looks so happy.

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And just one more...

CHEERS to the Hypocrite Slayers.  Today is the fifth blogiversary of Americablog. The folks who exposed Jeff Gannon/James Guckert's prostitution past---not to mention scads of other Republican- and corporation-fueled shenanigans---seem to nestle themselves snugly between the snarky brevity of Atrios and the lengthier analysis of DKos.  They're always one of C&J's daily "must-read" blogs and we wish them many more years in the pursuit of truth, justice and orchids, orchids, orchids!

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Oh, and happy birthday, Bill Shakespeare.  Nice tights.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

"Going to Cheers and Jeers, having to listen to Bill in Portland Maine, to me that’s torture."
---John Ashcroft
4/21/08

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