No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 7th, 2008

Presidential Pool – The New Hampshire Cracked Hard-Boiled shell prediction

by @ 20:11. Filed under Politics - National.

Will they be closer to the Iowa version of this or my Wild-Card Weekend lack-of-performance? Only one way to find out, and the vote-counting begins in about 3 hours.

Democrats

Barack Obama – 43%
Hillary Clinton – 32%
John Edwards – 21%

This race is over, folks.

Republicans

John McCain – 35% – Once again, the New Hampshire crowd will go for the maverick who will die in South Carolina.
Mitt Romney – 28% – Romney’s Last Stand will come up short.
Ron Paul – 10% – They love their Nuts in New Hampshire.
Rudy Giuliani – 9% – There is a serious myth about New Hampshire being conservative.
Mike Huckabee – 7% – The dynamic of the last couple of elections is setting up, and unfortunately for Huck, they hate Evangelicals in New England.
Fred Thompson – 4% – See Giuliani’s wrap, and add in the fact that Fred didn’t kiss any hindquarters there.
Duncan Hunter – 4% – It’s officially a “message” campaign for Hunter now.

Heads up, Kenosha and Racine

by @ 16:00. Filed under Weather.

You have confirmed incoming tornadoes, very high straight-line winds, and good-sized hail.

Is Clinton done?

by @ 15:39. Filed under Miscellaneous.

The signs are starting to show up:

– The blogosphere is all a-twitter over a Drudge Scoop™ that she is looking for a graceful exit to save the “Clinton brand”.
– She has pulled out the crying card.
– The phones aren’t getting answered in New Hampshire (or do they have call-waiting and have been instructed to avoid MKH?).

Human sacrifice, dog and cats living together; mass hysteria

by @ 15:27. Filed under Weather.

That about explains the weather here in my corner of the land of cheese and beer. After a cold-and-snowy December, we’ve got thunderstorms and tornado warnings going on, and we’re not even a full week into January.

Roll bloat – enigmatic edition

by @ 15:25. Filed under The Blog.

Dave Casper, late of Ask Me Later and founder of Drinking Right (next edition is tomorrow, even non-drinking Patrick will be there), has decided to start anew with The Dave Casper Experience.

Resistance is futile (or how the Borg helped crush Hillary)

by @ 14:57. Filed under Politics - National.

Don’t let the title I gave this thing fool you, but Christian Schneider makes a pretty strong case for Jeri Ryan being the woman that changed the world over at his employer’s (the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute) blog. I can’t do him justice by either excerpting or stealing, so go read it. (R&E part 2 – 7:29 pm 1/7/2008) – If that crashes on you, Chris cross-posted it over at Atomic Trousers. I waited as long as I thought I could before doing theft below; sorry about that, Chris.

I can, however, offer the obligatory picture…

jeri-ryan.jpg

Revisions/extensions (7:03 pm 1/7/2008) – Michelle Malkin delivered a Malkinlanche to the WPRI that almost crushed the server, so I’ll steal it except for the pic Chris used (not the one I chose). While I would prefer the commentary to be either at the WPRI or Malkin’s place, I’ve already picked up a comment here, so I can’t exactly shut that down now.

With Barack Obama’s meteoric rise topping the news these days, many people have forgotten the bizarre series of events that paved the way to his stunning ascendance. It’s especially interesting given that some personal and minor details, thought at the time to be insignificant, could now eventually shape the world we live in – given that Obama has a realistic chance to win the presidency. In retrospect, Obama’s presidential run was the candidacy that almost never happened.

Back in 2004, Barack Obama was an Illinois state senator with some modest accomplishments on his resume. He spearheaded welfare reform in the Illinois statehouse, and took the lead in passing a law that required interrogations in murder cases to be videotaped.

After unsuccessfully challenging strong Democratic incumbent Bobby Rush in a Congressional primary in 2000, Obama returned in 2004 to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Obama emerged from a crowded Democratic primary that included multi-millionaire Blair Hull, who spent $29 million of his own money in the primary alone (including paying homeowners $75 a day to keep his signs in their yards). In an 8-candidate race, Obama garnered 53% of the vote, routing his opponents.

Yet despite running away with the primary, Obama still had a formidable challenge in Republican Jack Ryan. Ryan was an impressive candidate – attractive and wealthy, with law and business degrees from Harvard. After making a fortune at Goldman Sachs, Ryan left to teach in an inner city school.

Yet Ryan had a problem – during the campaign, he was going through a messy divorce from actress Jeri Ryan, of "Star Trek: Voyager" fame. Details of Jeri Ryan’s testimony contained lurid details about Ryan forcing his wife to go to sex clubs in Paris. These details were toxic to Jack Ryan’s campaign, and he saw his poll numbers plummet – eventually, Republican leaders pressed Ryan to quit the race, fearing he was toxic to the statewide ticket.

Eventually, Ryan bowed out, leaving the Illinois Republican Party to find a candidate to run against Obama. This led to the national embarrassment of Alan Keyes moving to Illinois to run. Naturally, Obama won 70%-27%, buoyed by his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

The rest is history. Certainly, Obama deserves all the credit for the way he has excited Democratic crowds around the country – leading to his rout of Hillary Clinton in Iowa. And he may have beaten Jack Ryan on his own. But it’s fascinating to think that the salacious testimony of a woman scorned could one day fundamentally alter the path of the world in which we live. Without it, Barack Obama could still be sitting in the Illinois statehouse, planning his next political move.

Feed housekeeping – Flopping Aces

by @ 7:32. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Revisions/extensions (4:13 pm 1/7/2008) – Curt’s also moved his feed to FeedBurner. The previous link I had here will work as well, though the original Flopping Aces feed will no longer work.

Just like VodkaPundit before him, Curt has moved Flopping Aces to WordPress. For those of you who read the site through your feed reader, you’re going to have to change the feed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/FloppingAces”.

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