“No! Don’t make me go out there! You can’t do this to me! I’m not going…!”

Regardless of who runs in 2008, it will be a fascinating election (says the political scientist geek). There hasn’t been a presidential election without an incumbent or presumed incumbent (VP) in 50 years. 2 wide open primaries ought to be fun to watch.

On the “day after” side of things, my colleagues were unsurprisingly quiet. Academics tend not to take political defeat of any kind well, so I was expecting some noise. But I think the shock of the turnaround after the afternoon’s (false) exit polls really messed with their heads. Oh well, I can bear it.

And Wichitaboy, I think I mentioned it last night, but I’m *not* going to be the advisor for the Young Republicans. I still have 4 years before tenure review, so I’m going back into my shell.

Between that & the blue dress, I know what I’d rather be remembered by.

Ask your doctor, or look around. There’s a known effect for heart bypasses: a small but significant reduction in intelligence afterwards. It’s usually not a big deal, and considered better than the alternative, but it’s also not discussed much, for obvious reasons.

Bill Clinton is one of the brightest people around. Hilary can, when she isn’t paying attention to what she’s saying, be almost as abrasive as Teresa. Without Bill to break trail, so to speak, I don’t think Hilary will get farther than Senator — and she might not even hold on to that. What will be the result of a small but noticeable reduction in Bill’s capability to Plot?

Regards,

Ric Locke

I’m no economist, but it seems to me that when government gets involved, it adds to the total cost.

The claim is often put forth that for really large-scale stuff, you just need the government, but hey, look at cell phones. They don’t work without towers, and towers are expensive to put up, and hey, it all happened without the government. (Or maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.)

The Libertarian party seems to attract anarchists, I’ll agree. I’m more of a Hayekian myself.

***

On health care, I’m personally convinced that health insurance is part of the problem, not part of the solution. For any given cohort, it’s not that hard to figure out how much routine costs to expect and then mark that up. In order to stay in business, if an insurance company is covering routine costs, it has to charge more than those costs. Therefore, you the consumer are paying more than you would otherwise (except that your employer is paying part of it for you rather than giving you that cash).

What happens then is the costs of health care are hidden to everyone, and you’re paying for a whole lot of people to process pieces of paper with your name on them.

I think it’d be smarter to have catastrophic-only coverage. It would have to cost less allover, and it would expose all the routine costs to the bright glare of the market place.

My take on ’08:

Hillary will run, but her negatives are way too high. If the Donks are serious about getting back in the White House, they’ll run Obama. Best Republican defense against this? Get on the ball right away & build up Rice as the Heir Apparent and follow through with it. Do it long before the Dems have settled on Obama so it looks like the Donks are playing “me too!”. I’d go one further, and run Bobby Jindal as her veep so as to set up for 2016. He’ll help shore up the bible-thumper base as well.

Prop 66 WAS DEFEATED!! Woohoo!

“I think this is like India and Pakistan. We really are two countries.”

:::::sigh:::::

You’d think after the spanking, the Dems just might look AT THEMSELVES for once…

For what its worth, I don’t quite buy the ‘blessing” idea.

I’ve had a hard time believing that a former President suddenly discovers 90% blockage like that. call me suspicious, but I’ve thought since August that the more likely scenario is that he knew of the blockage, and planned the required operation for after the convention. Recovers in just enough time to help out JK campaign.

Again, he had it both ways.