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

[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.