After New Hampshire

[prog]

I could not have asked for a better opening to primary season. So relieved that Iowa and NH had such different results, keeping everything wide open.

I actually don't care much who wins in either side - I like all of these Democrats, and think they can beat any of those Republicans - but I love watching them develop as candidates. Nearly as much, I love watching the horse-race callers get proven wrong, and wrong again, about both parties. (Not that I actually waste time watching the horse race; I just read reactions to it in blog comments.)

A while ago I decided that the only final configuration I wouldn't like is Edwards versus Romney, if only because it'd look dead-boring. Objectively handsome white guy A versus objectively handsome white guy B, and I'm afraid that people would get confused and vote for the one with those super-presidential graying temples. I don't think that's crass of me; surface counts for a lot, in this. But we seem to be safe from that, for now.

Comments

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I'm calling Clinton/Obama vs Huckabee/McCain as the final configuration. This has far more to do with narrative causality than polling.

On the Democratic side, Clinton has the money, the machine and the experience. Obama will contribute his aura of youth and "change", and will be seen as a "president-in-training", giving the Dems an illusion of depth and legacy potential. Also, he's assassination insurance for Hillary: nutjobs who'd want to kill her would be even more opposed to a black man as President. Edwards is too dull, and carries with him the whiff of past losses.

Huckabee/McCain is a harder call, but Huckabee is affable, experienced and has the backing of the faithtards religious right. McCain appeals to the more secular side of things, and they both agree on certain fundamental values, like "torture is bad", which the other Republican candidates apparently have trouble understanding.

Giuliani is a fear-mongering fascist, which is going out of style, and Romney is so unmemorable that I had to check a website to recall his name, as well as having the "weirder by God than me" factor.

And the most compelling logic of all: I'd love to see those teams campaign against each other, particularly because some issues would be right off the table, and whoever won the election, the next occupant of the Oval Office would never wake up wondering, "Who would Jesus torture?"

[prog.livejournal.com]

HuckCain would make me sad on the science front, though. While McCain is strident in support for fighting global warming, he's wishy-washy about teaching science properly, and Huckabee flat-out doesn't believe in evolution. I haven't looked, but I assume their takes on stem-cell research falls along similar lines ('Meh' and 'MURDER!!', respectively).

Obama and Clinton are both pro-science across the board, as far as I've researched, though (according to notes I took in July for a post I never made) O. likes to answer questions about global warming by changing the subject to foreign oil dependence.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

The very existence of the name "HuckCain" makes it aesthetically necessary for them to team up.

Dunno how much it bothers me that they would be bad for science policy, as science policy hasn't been a notable priority of any president in my lifetime, I don't think, and I'm damned sure the only reason any of the previous incumbents since Carter haven't made any comments about evolution is because none of them have thought enough about the issue. So the choice is between apathy and hostility, which is less stark than one might like.

Hillbamma have teh warm fuzzies for science, but neither of them has a clue what any of it means, so they seem to me like managers who are always on about productivity and quality and worker empowerment while off-shoring jobs like there's no tomorrow.

US science policy matters less to me (who as a scurvy foreigner might even stand to benefit from the influx of researchers coming north...) than the restoration of the Constitution.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Science policy is more important now than ever before, I'd argue, specifically because of recent and continuing encroachments on western scientific advancement by both anti-intellectual bible-thumpers and industrial global-warming deniers. GWB and his ilk have let them rot away at the US's status as a leading scientific producer in order to win points with the base. It's critical that we get a president who supports teaching actual science (and only actual science) in the classroom, and keeping the concerns of frightened fundamentalists and psychotic corporations out of the laboratory.

As a side note, I imagine that a HuckCain ticket might be the most bullshit-free one in living memory. I still wouldn't vote for it. (Which is kind of a shame.)

[radtea.livejournal.com]

As near as I can tell, none of the candidates of either party "support teaching actual science and only actual science in the classroom".

Reading the page linked above and trying to interpret the tea-leaves I'd say that HillBama would want a huger bureaucracy that would be even less efficient than what you've got now (I especially like the lack of merit pay for teachers because we all know that pretty much all teachers are the same...) HuckCain would probably to devolve more control of schools to states, while instituting various programs to "encourage" states to teach faith in science class.

Apart from the single issue of evolution, neither seems very interested in curriculum issues. Pre-kindergarten funding (which I read as day-care for the working poor) and teacher pay/school funding formula issues dominate the policy statements.

I agree that HuckCain would run a low-bullshit campaign, and that's why if it comes down to the race I'm proposing I'd give them better than even odds of winning, although I also wouldn't vote for them. I've written on my own LJ that I think Huckabee is eerily similar to Robert Heinlein's character Nehemiah Scudder, which does not bode well at all.