Go Markie!

Amen to Markie on the Hillary and NY GOP bashing! We had missed his insightful ranting for too many months. I have my own rant against Hillary (including incredulity at the mainstream press for pooh-poohing her connections to the nefarious Marc Rich and wife Diane) in the oven, though have to bake the upcoming Gold Sheet and Euro Soccer editions first.

Not sure that Cali GOP is much better than in NY these days, indeed politics in this state must have Ronald Reagan rolling in his grave. How else can a state that elects Barbara Boxer as a US Senator be described?

In retrospect, one of George H.W. Bush's last acts of consequence in office was inadvertently helping Boxer get elected in '92. Bush basically wrote off California in '92, and with it the two Senate races that took place that year (remember, Diane Feinstein ran in a race against Tom Campbell to fill the end of Pete Wilson's term after the latter won for Governor in '90). Of those two, Boxer's was the one most up for grabs, against conservative Bruce Hershenson, and by kissing off the Golden State during the latter stages of the campaign, Bush-41 helped hand her a close verdict, the consequences of which we have lived with for the past 13 years and must endure for at least another 5 more. Maddening, and I have yet to forgive Bush-41 for that final bit of poor judgement...

Lastly, the topic of Florida and the 2000 election occasionally comes up at my work. Given the local territory, you can guess the rhetoric. The last time it came up, however, I had to remind them that Al Gore could have rendered the Florida result meaningless in '00 had he either won his home state of Tennessee (his home state, for gosh sakes!) or the small state of West Virginia. It's all retrospect, of course, and a lot of states were too close to call in '00 (New Mexico ended up in Gore's column almost as close as Florida went for W Bush), but Gore's defeat can be laid as much as the hands of his strategists as anything else.

Jumping ahead to an upcoming blog, the Dems had their shot in '04, too, if they could have managed to swing only about 59000 votes out of the over 5,6000,00 cast in Ohio. Poor "strategery" again proved their undoing almost as much as their cartoon-faced candidate, but I am a genuinely worried about the prospects of the Madame in '08, as the Clinton machine would be unlikely to make the same mistakes. Underestimate these people politically at your own risk. I fear her candidacy, not as much for what Pirro or the GOP could have done to her in '06, but what her own opponents within the Democratic party WON'T do in the '08 primaries. They could go after her, too, but I don't think they will.

Yes, it's not too soon to worry about Hillary, and dealing her some serious body blows in NY next year would have been be a great place to start. More to come soon...