Stuff I've been thinking about and reading
I was glad to see that Michael Wilbon was the voice of reason on PTI yesterday. He seems to be the only one in the media showing patience before ranking the USC/Notre Dame game in the greatest ever pantheon. There are things that make a game great other than what happens during that sixty minutes. Do you think the 1992 Duke and Kentucky game would be held in such high regard if Duke didn't go on to win the national title? I'm not saying it wasn't a great game, and that it wasn't possibly the greatest regular season game ever, I just think that it can't be decided until at least the end of season. Other than the media loving USC and ND I don't see how it's that much better of a game than any of those FSU/Miami games we've be treated to over the last 10 years. Also, I think Bruce Feldman pretty much summed up my thoughts on USC this season:
"I'm not predicting an upset, but after watching the USC-ND game, I must say I no longer would use the word "shocked" to describe my feelings if the Trojans were to get upset in the regular season."
The offense might be the best one from this USC run, but the defense is horrid. That's what made USC different from recent PAC 10 teams. They could play defense as well as anyone in the nation. USC strolled into Jordan Hare in 2003 and shutdown Auburn 23-0, and schooled Michigan 28-14 in the Rose. Now they're more like those Rams offenses from a few years back.
Straight Bangin' has this post about Alan Houston's retirement. Which for him symbolizes the end of the Knicks as he grew up knowing them. I've seen the good and bad side of this. When the Hawks traded Nique it was the end of the Hawks of my early youth that were competitive and fun to watch. Then last year's trading of Jason Terry and Alan Houston were the end of the Hawks that almost killed any ounce of basketball enthusiasm in Atlanta. So I guess I'll experience the same thing again if Josh Smith and Marvin Williams get broken up in the 2010 off season after they've won their second title.
I've been a long time proponent of John Edwards being elected president, but his ability to beat Raymond Felton in HORSE pretty much seals the deal for me. I by no means want to turn this into a political blog, but I heard an interesting theory the other day. Some dude on O'Reilly (I accidentally switched to 680) stated that if Hillary was the Democratic nominee, that Condoleezza Rice was possibly the only Republican that could beat her. The reason being that she would be able to take a large portion of the black vote, the conservative male vote, and eliminate conservative women switching sides to vote a woman into office. I don't know how legitimate this is but it's an interesting thought. How would America react if the 2 presidential nominees were women?
Thanks to the College Football Resource for adding me to their list of SEC football blogs. Also I've posted some pictures from the Fayetteville trip on the Hank Jamaica site.
6 comments:
Since I was just talking about him, I feel the need to mention that Johnny boy should probably stay away from photos that make him look like he's trying to recreate a scene from Patton
Good call on calling out ND-USC and the media rush to place it in a historical context.
That comment about Rice was the dumbest thing I've heard on political commentary since I last watched Fox News. Whoever said it is loony.
One of the first things -- the first things -- you learn on voting behavior (even in high school) is that women don't vote for women. It's been proven, it's true. There's no doubt to that. Hence, I think you can pretty much predict a 55-45 split for white women and a 85-15 split for black women (or higher) in any given Dem-GOP presidential contest, even with Condi in the race. Besides, Rice comes across as a (forgive me) cold bitch, and while that may be OK in GOP inner circles, Middle America is not down with that. Hillary also has trouble acting less like her husband and more like Mr. Roboto, Al Gore.
You need to be personable, and that's where Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr. and our own John Edwards do much better.
For that matter, I think the conservatives are unduly scared by Hillary. It's just their wet dream to get another shot at destroying a Clinton on a national level.
I don't know that much about it but I guess your response raises a few questions for me:
- Is there a difference between the voting characteristics for presidential elections as opposed to local? For example I could see women voters not really caring about electing a female governor. However I would think that if a woman had a legitimate shot at winning the presidency, and it became a national issue, that it may affect female voters more than it has in the past.
- How static is voting behavior? Is it something that changes a little each election or every few decades?
Well, everything I was taught in my poli sci classes points to women not voting for women. I've seen liberal female special interest groups call this the "dirty little secret" of politics.
As far as the static thing goes, I think it depends. There have been massive shifts and realignments in the past (white Southerners going Republican in the '80s and '90s, blacks leaving the GOP for the Dems after the LBJ civil rights reforms), party wise, and unusual campaign-specific factors. Like South Carolina Republicans had so had it with Gov. David Beasley, 1/3 of them voted for the Democrat in '98.
But for the past seven years or so, I haven't seen a big change. Hence the 50/50 results in '00 and '04. I know that since '98, a Democrat in the South needs about 90 percent of the black vote and 40 percent of the white vote to win -- not easy. Usually the 90 percent comes through, but hitting that 40 mark takes some work. If a Republican gets 20 percent of the black vote, the Dem doesn't have a chance. And statewide black candidates have a steep challenge. For instance (and I called this one) in '01 when (white) Dems took governor and lt. governor in Virginia, the attorney general (the big three state offices) candidate was black and lost something like 60-40. A similar fate awaited Steve Benjamin in SC, who lost his race worse than other Dems in '02.
Nationally, this sort of regional bias gets mixed together with the rest of the country and things get harder to predict, as there are more white Dems and black Republicans outside the South. Issues with Hispanic voting also crops up in places like Florida, Texas and out west. But it gets sorted out and the stats I gave in my first post come to the fore.
I could be wrong but this article by Dick Morris seems pretty similar to what I heard on the radio. Plus the guy talked about a personal meeting between him and Clinton. Apparently Bill was scared to death that Colin Powell would run in 1994 and he was elated to find out that Dole would be his competition.
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