To call Dean’s second place finish in New Hampshire “close” is to approach a cliff face, jump off, and attempt to land on the ground without so much as a bruise. But apparently it’s worse than that. Howard Dean is now down to $5 million. Barring a Missouri win next Tuesday, it looks like we may stuck with Kerry. Unless Dean musters up Robert Kennedy-like support in California and many of the big states, and reenergizes his campaign. Kennedy, however, was more of an idealist than Dean is. And it ain’t exactly 1968.
However, while I woefully miscalculated the percentage points, I was dead-on in my place predictions.
[UPDATE: Dan Spencer has compiled all blog NH predictions with success and failure rates.]
[1/21/06 UPDATE: Apologies for the introspective aside, but I'm truly astonished by the idealism here. Not entirely surprised, mind you, because wildly optimistic notions enter fresh upon my noggin on a daily basis, with several acted upon during any given week. Indeed, I can safely confess that, since I turned thirty, life has been a process of trying to hold onto any and all scraps of hope, bonhomie and idealism, as the wise and sober forces of adulthood demand me to be serious and responsible (I am to a great degree, but I maintain that one can be both!). Granted, there's still plenty of helium in the Zeppelin, with the only real Hindenburg being my inevitable death, I suppose. But this is what it means to be a committed "optimistic realist" at 31. On one hand, and tying this into Howard Dean, it would be foolish to discount the role of the Internet in disseminating Howard Dean's Muskie moment. The conservatives guffawed and remixed that twenty second holler and played it over and over and effectively obliterated Dean's momentum. But let us also consider how refreshingly genuine Dean's yell was from the stiffs. Here was a man who was ultimately punished for expressing a genuine moment of excitement during the 2004 presidential election. And how much of a telling statment is that of what the United States political process has become? Little wonder that we have no real candidates to choose from anymore. American media, and those who react to it, is particularly unforgiving when it comes to genuine enthusiasm.]
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Yes, I’m afraid you may be right. Unless he can convince someone like Clark to sign onto his campaign. I’m pretty sure Kerry win win MO – the Dems there tend to be on the conservative and establishment side. I think the only mini Tuesday race Dean has a chance of winning would be NM. Too bad that probably won’t hold him until he gets to places where he has a bigger base of support like MI, CA, and NY.
The fascinating question is why anybody who knows anything about presidential politics would believe that Howard Dean has ever had a chance to get elected is difficult for me to understand. Arguing that he has balanced a budget which, truth be told is smaller than most large cities, makes him capable of running the U.S. Treasury? Jimmy Carter (probably the most decent man we’ve ever elected) got to Washington and found out that the people he needed to run the government were people who had expierience running the government. Dean has played on Americans inherent distrust of Government, and admirably the doomed to fail militarism of this administration, expecting they would never get aroungd to looking at him and his qualifications to be president. It is not just the rant, it is the underlying question that has been there from the begining – is this man qualified to be president? Once people get beyond using their votes as protests I think the overwhelming answer is going to be no.