As Lost Returns...

Lost: The freedom this Afghanistan mission was supposed to bring. This is really quite shocking (hat tip JBG):

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Lost: Rudy Giuliani. Both Edwards and Giuliani are out of the race. For Giuliani, this Presidential race will go down as a complete failure to launch. As John Stewart said last night "Giuliani was the frontrunner...until people started voting". Then he became nothing more than a 5th place candidate.


Lost: Mike Huckabee's tough guy edge. Hulk Hogan endorses Obama and Ah-nold is ready to endorse McCain. Hasta La Vista Romney!


Lost: Stephen Harper's composure. Every now and then Harper just seems to slip up and go too far, be it the Navdeep Bains incident last year, or his latest Big Fat Greek Gaffe:

Michel Guimond had just asked if the aforementioned fundraiser had ever paid a visit to 24 Sussex. And this was the Prime Minister's response.

"Mr. Speaker, the Bloc MP has mentioned the names of two people of Greek origin, one who's an employee who works here in Ottawa, and another who's a supporter of the Conservative Party in Montreal. The fact there are two Montrealers of Greek origin doesn't mean there's a conspiracy."

Uh-huh. So, to recap, questions have been raised about Dimitri Soudas using undue PMO influence. It's a completely mini-scandal (all together now: "it's all Greek to me!") but, the point of the matter is, no one had even so much as alluded to race before Harper brought it up. A BCer in Toronto has a good run down on this, include Peter Van Loan, taking it to a whole new level.

The Race Is On

Sure, sure. Romney and Clinton win Nevada, while McCain exorcises his demons in South Carolina. But who cares? The real race, as I see it, is the epic battle shaping up between former "front runner" Rudy Giuliani and...Ron Paul? Here are the results to date:

Iowa - edge Ron
Rudy 4%
Ron 10%

Wyoming - draw
Rudy 0%
Ron 0%

New Hampshire - edge Rudy
Rudy 9%
Ron 8%

Michigan - edge Ron
Rudy 3%
Ron 6%

Nevada - edge Ron
Rudy 4%
Ron 14%

South Carolina - edge Ron
Rudy 2%
Ron 4%

And, in the ever important delegate count, Ron holds down fifth place with 6 pledged delegates, compared to Rudy's...one. Oh, and that only leaves Rudy tied for sixth place on the delegate count with Duncan Hunter who picked up a delegate in Wyoming.

In fairness, Rudy's strategy was always to suck as much as possible at the first few (fifty?) primaries so I'm fairly confident he'll be able to overtake Ron Paul by the end of this thing.

McCain Mitts His Match, and other news

The Mittster came up with a big win in Michigan last night, keeping it a four man race for the Republican nomination. The next big test is South Carolina, where McCain will try and exorcise the ghosts of 2000. Meanwhile, Giuliani's strategy to lull his opponents into a sense of overconfidence by sucking royally in the early primaries appears to be working swimmingly, given his 3% sixth place showing in Michigan.



The markets still have McCain in front but no one seems to stay the front runner for long in this race.

In Other News...

-Having already gone with a brutally bad pun in the post headline, I'll resist the urge to use any obvious "nuclear" play-on-words when recapping the Linda Keen firing. Actually, I won't use any words to recap this one because, truth be told, I haven't been following this story very closely. Thoughts?

-Writer's strike got you down? Well, the CBC will be airing another edition of "Test the Nation" this Sunday. I mention this only because I will be part of the blogging team (which will, I suspect, be quite ineffective without our trusted friend "google"). With over 200 people in studio, this should give me a good idea of what it's like to be a backbench MP, if nothing else.

-PTimHB has more on the upcoming Alberta election - looks like a promise to scrap health care premiums could be in Stelmach's platform. Flip-flops aside, it would be a smart political move on his part and it's not like Alberta is short on cash.

Primary Numbers

It's election night in New Hampshire as the tiny state of one million people helps select the next President. I'll be flipping back and forth between the results and the hockey game so expect updates here throughout the evening. Given that I'm neither a New Hamshirite nor an American, I'm aware that my opinion doesn't really matter but here's my thoughts on the candidates who could still win the Presidency:


Democrats

I would have been on the Gore bandwagon had he decided to toss his hat in but, understandably, he's happy winning everything except the Presidency (although some could argue he has already won that too...). As it is, I keep bouncing back and forth between the three front runners.

I really like what Barack Obama represents...I jut don't really understand why he represents what he represents. I have yet to see any coherent argument as to why he represents "change" more than Edwards or Clinton but, hey, it's a fun ride to watch and he'd make a hell of a candidate. But Hillary's getting attacked by Lou Dobbs right now so that probably means she's doing something right, and Edwards has as much charisma and better policy than either of the other two so I'd be fine with any of them.


Republicans

This race is the fun one. I'm joining Jesus and Chuck Norris in endorsing Mike Huckabee. Not only is a regular on the Colbert Report but, as pointed out recently by a few libloggers, he's made a 22 Minutes cameo:



If you thought Stockwell Day was a fun candidate to follow, just imagine Stockwell Day with a sense of humour!

From Colbert's buddy, we move to Jon Stewart's. John McCain is expected to win tonight and has staged quite the comeback after being left for dead this fall. McCain is probably the most electable man in the field, although the generation gap is going to be the size of the Grand Canyon if it's him against Obama. He gets full marks for the best line of the New Hampshire debates when he agreed wholeheartedly that Mitt Romney is the candidate of change.

Fred Thompson, to the best of my knowledge, is still in this race, but it's possible he's dropped out and I just missed it.

Rudy Giuliani is just hoping no one forgets about him by the time Super Tuesday rolls around. I don't mind Rudy - he cameo'd on Seinfeld once - but I have a hard time endorsing someone if his win means having to look up the spelling of his name every time I post about him during his Presidency.


LIVE UPDATES:

8:00 pm: The polls close and CNN makes the ever-so-bold prediction that...John Edwards will be third! I guess they're going to hold off on that bold "Richardson finishes fourth" call until some more data comes in.

8:05 pm: CNN is profiling Salem now. Full credit to Wolf Blitzer for resisting the obvious Hillary Clinton joke.

8:16 pm: CNN projects that McCain wins New Hampshire. I guess it's time for Romney to get those push polls into the field in South Carolina...

8:32 pm: Clinton 40%, Obama 36%, Edwards 17%, Richardson 4%. You know, I'm shocked that Jed Bartlett's endorsement in his home state couldn't move votes for Richardson.

10:24 pm: Edwards is conceding now and he's using the SNL Gore "health care" speech...or at least a very close approximation to it. Clinton's up by over 4,000 votes with 63% of the polls in, so it certainly appears that she'll eek this one out. Not a great result if you think about it but, given the polls over the last two days, it likely leaves the Democratic nomination as a pick 'em.

I think the take home message from tonight is that Super Tuesday is going to be very interesting for both parties. And, while it's still early, does anyone else get the sense that the Republican nomination might actually come down to a delegated convention?