Charles Gibson: Palin vs. Obama

Via Dad29.

Linking to Hot Air who quotes from The Anchoress, we see a comparison of questions, Mr. Gibson asked Obama, who’s at the top of the ticket, who will be president, if elected, with the questions asked Palin (links are from the post), who, last time I looked, is the vice-presidential candidate.

Hot Air also links to Newsbusters, who has Gibson’s interview with John Edwards in 2004.

Yeah, not much bias here. Softball questions for Democrats, tough ones for Republicans.

Look, tough questions are great. Just make sure everyone gets the same kind of questioning.

(Cross posted at Fairly Conservative).

John Edwards

First off, I am back, finally. Wireless was not as easy to get nor did I have the time I thought I would have to blog all summer. But regular scheduling should resume.

Now to the topic at hand. No doubt my conservative friends will beat up John Edwards over his affair. He deserves it. As he himself says,

If you want to beat me up – feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare it can’t be any worse than he beat up himself.

Is he a hypocrite? Yes. But I believe we all are in some way. The magnitude comes from the public visibility of the hypocrite. I believe John Edwards is still dedicated to what he has professed, just as I believe those conservatives the Left has delighted in beating up are still dedicated to what they believe.

As most politicians (you would think they would learn after a while), he tried to stonewall and deny. It’s natural, but most folks don’t like it a public figure does so.

John Edwards will probably never run for president again. He won’t be Attorney General, nor head a special commission. That’s the penalty for, from all appearances, a slip-up. It’s not the first time it’s happened; it won’t be the last.

Questions still remain about the father of the lady’s baby and money paid to her. I would hope that Edwards finally came clean in his ABC interview. Time will tell.

Finally, I would hope my left leaning friends will show the same compassion toward a right leaning figure who has an affair revealed, as they have rightly shown to John Edwards and his family.

Mankind doesn’t always get it right. May we be more understanding of those who try to make a change (even if we don’t agree with them), especially when they fall.

Quote of the day 02/24/08

From Cooler Near the Lake,

In the end, John Edwards, I think is out. He will either be an attorney general or a supreme court justice to replace John Paul Stevens.

And that is my best reason so far for voting Republican in the fall.

Edwards/Giuliani call it quits

And all those delicious visions of a brokered convention vanish.

UPDATE: So does Giuliani, who endorses John McCain

Now what?

McCain edged Mike Huckabee to win the South Carolina primary. Mitt Romney handily won the Nevada caucus and Hillary Clinton won the Democratic side.

So, what do we make of this?

McCain, Huckabee and Romney go to Florida where Giuliani is waiting. Huckabee is getting to the place where he needs to win. Giuliani definitely needs to win, but I don’t think he will. And he will probably be gone soon after.

Huckabee won’t win either, although if Fred and Hunter both drop out, he’s probably seen as more conservative than McCain or Romney.

Hunter’s campaign indicates he’s dropping out. Fred can’t last much longer. He needed better than third. It will be interesting to see them spin this.  Romney can’t afford too many more head-to-head losses against McCain. One of those two will win Florida.

On the Democratic side, Edwards needs to win in SC, or else he’s done. Clinton and Obama may fight it out till the convention the way it’s going. Although a big win by either on Super-Duper Tuesday may end it.

Hillary’s surprise win

I don’t usually cheer Hillary Clinton victories, but in this case. There are a couple of reasons for joy.

First, anytime polls are shown to be wrong and pundits are made to look foolish by panting over each one, it just warms my heart. There is entirely too much reliance and horse race (car race in FoxNews’ case) aspects to this race. Tuesday was spent with analyzing Hillary Clinton’s tears.

Who cares? What does she believe? What does she want to do when she gets in office?

How much of that did you hear Tuesday?

Wednesday, the talk was how did the polls go wrong? Even trends and averages got it wrong. Professor Franklin does the best job I’ve seen (with illustrations) of explaining the problems. He shows how Obama’s percentage was right, it was Clinton’s they got wrong. He also shows the Republicans side was a much better result for the polls. He asks a couple of pointed questions,

If the polls were systematically flawed methodologically, then we’d expect similar errors with both parties. … So if the turnout model was bad for the Democrats, why wasn’t it also bad for the Republicans?

Of course, this gets ignored by the media, because they have 30 seconds to two or three minutes tops to explain what’s going on, or viewers eyes will begin to glaze over.

But I still don’t trust polls. My nature, I guess.

In more news among presidential candidates, dad29 links to another interesting piece on the divide between Big Biz Republicans and Mike Huckabee. Bill Richardson, a good man with a lot of experience, but unfortunately still a Democrat, will be withdrawing from the race. Depending on who wins the nomination, Richardson would make a good VP, if he wants it.

Mitt Romney is pulling his ads in SC and FL. Interesting was this opening paragraph,

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has decided to pull his advertising from South Carolina and Florida, in a sign of trouble for a campaign that badly needs a win.

Hold on here. Romney needs a win? Does that imply he has not won yet? Because I seem to remember that he won a small state in the west, lessee, Wyoming, wasn’t it?

Fred Thompson has disappeared. Oh wait, he’s in SC, making his stand. Sen. Thompson should remember that there’s this guy called Mike Huckabee who’s a Southern Baptist pastor, and there’s more Southern Baptists in SC than people. I think it’s do or die for Thompson and Edwards in SC. If they don’t do well (=win), they’re done.