Howard at the bat

[HolyWarrior]

Howard at the Bat
by Ben Shapiro

December 10, 2003

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the leftist nine that day;
The score stood Bush at 54 with but one year to play.
Then when Edwards got 6 percent, and Kerry did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A centrist few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to hope which springs eternal in each Democratic breast;
They thought if only Howard could but get a whack at that --
They'd ditch all the matching funds now with Howard at the bat.

But Gephardt preceded Howard, as did also Ol' Wes Clark,
The former was mind-numbing and the latter question-marked;
So upon that far-left multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Howard's getting to the bat.

But Gephardt dropped in Iowa, to the wonderment of all,
And Clark, indecisive, could not heed the Clintons' call;
And when the dust had lifted, and the left saw what had occurred,
There was Wesley beyond repair and Dickie in deep merde.

Then from Al Gore and his cronies there rose a lusty cry;
It rumbled throughout Harlem, it rattled in N.Y.;
It frightened Mrs. Clinton, and it knocked McAuliffe flat;
For Howard, mighty Howard, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Howard's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Howard's bearing, a stiff smile on Howard's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he said Bush was a rat,
No leftist in the crowd could doubt 'twas Howard at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him in the Democrat debate;
Five thousand tongues applauded when about Iraq he'd prate.
Then while President Bush ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Howard's eye, a sneer curled Howard's lip.

And now the pro-defense public came hurtling through the air,
And Howard stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the crowd unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Howard. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches stuffed with Franken fans, there rose a muffled roar,
Like cries of "No more war for oil" from Washington press corps.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted peaceniks on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Howard raised his hand.

With a smile of metrosexuality Howard's visage shone;
He redid his Revlon makeup and then bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and the pro-marriage crowd flew;
But Howard still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Howard and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his forehead strain,
And they knew that Howard couldn't let that vote go by again.

The sneer is ripe on Howard's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now that cowboy holds the crowd, the election's a go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Howard's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this leftist land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and in Europe hearts are light,
And somewhere gays are laughing, and somewhere appeasers shout;
But there is no joy in Leftville -- mighty Howard has struck out.

[img]graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[khazadman]

And that pretty much sums it up. A poll just released in New Hampshire showed Bush would beat Dean 57% to 31%. And this guy is the Dem front runner! Then add in the fact that Nader is looking to run for the Green party again and you can see why the Dems are worried.

[skywalker]

Of course, New Hampshire does not elect the President all by itself. There is a minor detail of 49 other states and DC to contend with.

It easy to see that I like Dean so it's also easy to tell that I am not very impressed with the "cute" poem.

Oh well, neither Dean nor Bush should count their chickens until they hatch. Dean has not been selected as the Democratic candidate face Bush and it is still too early to tell what will happen.

Mark

[Timber Loftis]

NH may not "elect" anybody, but it has an uncanny history of being accurate on the primary. If NH selects you as the primary winner, you can pretty well bank on it.

[skywalker]

I'm aware of New Hampshire and the significance the state has to picking a candidate for President, but that is not what I was challenging in my post.

The "uncanny history" IMHO has to do with momentum more than any kind of foresight. If a different state had a primary on that early date, I'm sure it would have a similar record as NH. I think it is the enormous publicity garnered by a New Hampshire win, that tends to cause many people elsewhere to take note and decide to back the "winner", which in turn keeps the snowball rolling to the end of the primaries. Who wants to vote for a "loser"? Now if it happens to be that one candidate in Iowa is chosen and a different one is picked in New Hampshire, there may be a different outcome.

In the last election, I recall that the better man was chosen in NH, Senator McCain and unfortunatelty he was not the Rebublican nominee. It makes me wonder if the RNC favored Bush over him and squashed McCain's chances. How could a War Hero loose to pampered rich boy? I do not know, I tend to not follow Republican politics too closely.

To reaffirm, what I posted, I do not agree with khazadman's assessment that because Bush would win against Dean in New Hampshire that it predicts the outcome of the election in '04 (though he has a right to say so and I respect that right). The ability to pick a Presidential Primary Candidate does not IMO translate into choosing the Commander in Chief. If it were so, we would be discussing a McCain vs, Dean, Clark, Gephardt, Edwards, Kerry, Moseley Braun, Sharpton, or Kucinich race.


Mark

[khazadman]

Well as if the Dems didn't have enough trouble trying to get one of their people in the White House, what with the economy doing so good, now comes the news of the capture of Saddam Hussein.

[Seraph]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: NH may not "elect" anybody, but it has an uncanny history of being accurate on the primary. If NH selects you as the primary winner, you can pretty well bank on it.

Why do people seem to think that NH has some sort of magical ability to figure out who the canidate for a party is going to be.

If you look at the last 3 elections, this has been less then true. McCain (R 2000), Buchanan (R 1996) and Tsongas (D 1992) all failed.

There is also the case of Estes Kefauver in 1952 who with 55.0% of the NH primary vote managed to lose the party nomination to Adlai Ewing Stevenson who had 40 votes (out of almost 36 thousand), and in 1956 with 86.4% lost to Stevenson again (who had about 1/7th the votes that Kefauver had).

Infact if you look at all the primaries after 1950 where no single canidate got 60% of the vote (meaning there were atleast two real choices):
52 D - Estes Kefauver 55.0% [Lost to Adlai Ewing Stevenson]
52 R - Dwight D. Eisenhower 50.4%
64 R - Henry Cabot Lodge 35.5% [Lost to Barry M. Goldwater]
68 D - Lyndon Baines Johnson 49.6% [Lost to Hubert H. Humphrey]
72 D - Edmund S. Muskie 46.4% [Lost to George McGovern]
76 D - Jimmy Carter 28.4%
76 R - Gerald R. Ford 49.4%
80 D - Jimmy Carter 47.1%
80 R - Ronald Reagan 49.6%
84 D - Gary Hart 37.3% [Lost to Walter F. Mondale]
88 D - Michael Dukakis 36.4%
88 R - George Bush 37.8%
92 D - Paul E. Tsongas 33.2% [Lost to William J. Clinton]
92 R - George Bush 52.2%
96 R - Patrick J. Buchanan (with 56K votes vs Doles 54K) [Lost to Bob Dole]
00 D - Gore (76K vs Bradley 70K)
00 R - McCain (115K vs Bush 72.3K) [Lost to George W Bush]

You see that in 17 close elections NH got 9 right, just over a 50% success rate. Not exactly what I would call "uncanny".


If anyone is interested
These were the elections that I ignored with my 60% cutoff:
56 D - Estes Kefauver 86.4% [Lost to Adlai Ewing Stevenson]
56 R - Dwight D. Eisenhower 99%
60 D - John F. Kennedy 85%
60 R - Richard M. Nixon 89%
64 D - Lyndon Baines Johnson 95%
68 R - Richard M. Nixon 77.6%
72 R - Richard M. Nixon 67.6%
84 R - Ronald Reagan 86.1%
96 D - "Bill" Clinton [large majority]

Which gives 17/26 ~65%, still less then two-thirds of the time. However, with the exception of Kefauver, these were cases where you didn't need the primary to see who would win.

[ 12-14-2003, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

[skywalker]

Originally posted by khazadman: Well as if the Dems didn't have enough trouble trying to get one of their people in the White House, what with the economy doing so good, now comes the news of the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Economy doing so good, huh? Thanks for telling me, I would not have noticed since I'm about to lose my job a second time within the last 3 years. And the prospects look a lot slimmer than they did in July of '01 when I was last laid-off.

Mark