Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Tuesday

Alex Massie

If Hillary had skipped Iowa?

The Los Angeles Times' Don Frederick claims Barack Obama has "disrespected" Kentucky by declining to campaign in the Bluegrass State. Does this mean he disrespected Guam too? More interestingly - if no more usefully - Frederick asks what might have happened if Clinton had, as her then deputy campaign manager Mike Henry urged, simply skipped the Iowa caucuses entirely? Well, yes, there's something to that. At the risk of stating the obvious, Iowa was by some clear distance the most important state in the race. That seems clear now. But that importance is qualified: Iowa would not have been as significant if John Edwards had won. True, Edwards would presumably have done better than he did in New Hampshire and, equally plausibly, South Carolina might have been different too.

Alex Massie

Line of the Day

Jim Henley looks forward to the Libertarian Party convention this weekend. After a (very) brief trawl through the candidates he writes: That leaves Bob Barr, who could become the first candidate ever to make the leap from my blogroll to the presidential nomination of an established political party. I suspected my blogroll needed work, now I know it does...

Monday

Alex Massie

Big Apple Cricket

Looks as though I'm going to have to get Joseph O'Neill's new novel Netherland. The NYT explains: The idea of publishing a novel in the United States about cricket gave him commercial qualms but not artistic ones, Mr. O’Neill said in an e-mail message. “You want a novel to tap as directly as possible into your most unspeakable preoccupations,” he added. “And in America, in particular, cricket is pretty unspeakable.” New York cricket is “bush cricket,” one of the characters in the book complains, played on wickets of cocoa mat instead of grass and on weedy, substandard pitches, where to score a run you need to bat the ball in the air instead of elegantly along the fast ground of a proper pitch.

Alex Massie

Newspaper Days

As I always say, Scoop isn't really fiction. From John Gaskell's obituary in the Telegraph today: Plagued by ill-health, Gaskell reduced his commitments to working half a week   so that he could write a novel about obituaries. Unfortunately, he mentioned   this to a man he was interviewing, and the man then sold the idea to a   publisher as his own. The shorter hours, however, saved Gaskell’s bacon when   there was a cull of staff. Some weeks later he went to have his contract   renewed, and was told that the management had forgotten him: “We meant to   sack you.” Sadly, I suspect that these days there'd be no escaping the axe.

Alex Massie

Are You Watching Mr McCain?

Blimey. Barack Obama addresses a crowd of 75,000 people in Oregon yesterday. Caveat: Remember all those stories about Howard Dean and the enthusiastic crowds he drew in the summer of 2003? How did that work out? Still, 75,000 ain't exactly chopped liver is it? The point being, of course, how does John McCain compete against this sort of enthusiasm - an enthusiasm that will result in acres of gushing press coverage too? Add in Obama's financial advantage and the general economic climate and...

Alex Massie

Country Polling

More polling! This time it's Setting the Woods on Fire who wants you to list your ten favourite country music artists. My off-the-top-of-my-head list, then, is: 1. Gram Parsons2. Waylon Jennings3. Townes van Zandt4. Johnny Cash5. Emmylou Harris 6. Hank Williams Sr 7. Dwight Yoakam8. Gillian Welch9. Lyle Lovett10. Merle Haggard Make your vote count here.

Alex Massie

What Brown Hath Wrought

That's the latest Guardian/ICM poll. This is Labour's lowest level of support since the poll began in 1984. There's no obvious way out for Labour. Sure, they could ditch Gordon but any successor would, I suspect, be compelled to call an election since I think it unlikely the public will stomach consecutive unelected Prime Ministers and it's equally unlikely that a new leader could actually win an election anyway. The party's over - as it deserves to be since no party should be in office for more than a decade anyway.

Friday

Alex Massie

Adam Smith’s Hoose

So, Panmure House, Adam Smith's former Edinburgh home, has been sold. The ASI reports: Councillors in Edinburgh have approved the sale... to Heriot-Watt University. They chose the £800,000 bid over a higher offer, on the grounds that the University would make the building more accessible to the public. The University plans to restore the house to promote the study of economics. Hmmm. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to sell to the highest bidder?

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Mr Pooter Goes to Washington

Say what you like about this United States Senate resolution, but it probably did less damage than most bills that make their way through Washington. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATESDecember 6, 2007 Mr. KOHL (for himself, Mr. PRYOR, Mr. SCHUMER, Mr. JOHNSON, Mr. BROWN, and Mr. CHAMBLISS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary March 11, 2008 RESOLUTIONDesignating March 11, 2008, as National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day.

Alex Massie

Obama’s Hillbilly Problem

Via Ross, this map demonstrates the extent to which Obama has been crushed in Appalachia. The Redneck Arc shows the counties in which Hillary Clinton won more than 65% of the vote. When the final tallies from West Virginia and Kentucky are included, the areas currently white will be coloured pink too. As Ross says, this would seem to support the idea of a Vice-Presidential pick such as, say, Senator Jim Webb. I refer you to this post for more on why this might be a good idea. In summary: "Webb's appeal as a running-mate is greater than that and greater too than the prospect of his being able to compensate, to some extent anyway, for John McCain's appeal to working-class white men.

Alex Massie

A Bluegrass Lament for Obama?

Matt Zeitlin says the idea that Obama "needs" to win Appalachia is "just wrong". And, of course, he has a point when he writes that "It’s just true that Obama doesn’t need the states that the media keeps on telling the Democrats they need to focus on. If Obama can win the Kerry states and flip Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado, he has the election." Nonetheless, that's a hefty "if". Theoretically, Ohio should be a can't lose proposition for Democrats this year. Pennsylvania may be too. But... The issue, however, is not one of "must win states" but of how wide a front Obama is going to fight on.

Alex Massie

Picture of the Day

Skipper Neil Darling and his Selkirk team-mates celebrate after Monday night's Border League final victory over Jed-Forest, bringing the title back to Philiphaugh for the first time in 55 years. This caps the most successful season for the rugby club since 1952-53 when Selkirk were both Border League and Scottish champions (for the only time ever). Add this bauble to retaining the Kings of the Sevens title and winning promotion to Division 1 next season and it's been a cracking year. Hurrah! Watch it and weep, Gala... Photo © club photographer Grant Kinghorn.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Where’s Blair?

Of course he's off saving the world or, as Robert Harris puts it today, "He is already on to the next big thing in his career, with the premiership (in Alan Bennett's wonderful phrase) merely a stage in his spiritual journey." Time to give this a fresh airing then: Harris makes a serious point: the absence of any kind of Blair legacy is itself a problem for Gordon Brown. And it's also the case that despite Brown's hapless performance and his seemingly doomed ministry I've yet to hear a single person express the wish that if only that nice Mr Blair could return...

Monday

Alex Massie

The Brown Chronicles: The Laughing Stock Years

Memo to Gordon Brown. This sot of caper explains why people are beginning to think you are in fact a fool: div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited { color:#06c; } Gordon Brown will not receive the Dalai Lama in Downing Street in an effort to avoid confrontation with China over Tibet, The Times has learnt. The Prime Minister will, instead, see the Tibetan spiritual leader in Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, enabling him to claim to the Chinese that he is receiving the Dalai Lama in a spiritual rather than political capacity. What is the point of this nonsense? It's like the decision to sign the Lisbon Treaty but not in public with the rest of the european leaders or, as Mr Eugenides reminds one, of the Olympic Torch fiasco.

Alex Massie

When the ASBO generation go to chokey, do they get to keep their hooded robes?

Elsewhere in Britain, it's good to see a much-hounded, misunderstood minority finally getting their due: Hundreds of Pagan worshippers locked up in British jails have been given the right to take twigs into their cells to use as magic wands. The ruling, which also allows hoodless robes and rune stones, was made to ensure the 300 or so Pagans currently serving sentences have the same rights as other religions. The permission to use the “religious artefacts” was agreed after consultation with the Pagan Federation which advised the prison service on what equipment its members needed. This, via Political Umpire whose choice of prison reading is, as you might expect, impeccable.

Alex Massie

Hillary: Situation excellent, I shall attack

The question itching le tout Washington is simple: why won't Hillary Clinton do the decent thing and quit? Well, my friend Mike Crowley has a grand piece in the latest edition of the New Republic that may explain why. The Clintons have been here before and, against the city's expectations, prevailed. Mike suggests that we should view Hillary's campaign in the light of her husband's impeachment. It's a persuasive thesis and, frankly, one that leaves you kicking yourself for not thinking of it before. The parallels cannot be exact, but they're sufficiently compelling to be useful. As Mike lays out the scene: The Clintons find themselves victimized and under siege. The presidency is being stolen from them. The press is out to get them. They deride elites and champion the masses.

Alex Massie

The Most Over-Rated US Presidents

Here's the core finding of our quest to discover the Most Over-Rated and Most Under-Rated Presidents in US history: history has pegged Herbert Hoover absolutely right. Hoover was the only 20th century president who did not receive a single vote in either category. Uniquely amongst modern presidents, Hoover draws no controversy. He is the rock* upon which our survey can be built, the constant, universal dividing line between those who are over-rated and those whom history has foolishly frowned upon. There was, I'm pleased to say, a healthy response. Equally happily the voting sample was reasonably evenly divided between conservatives and liberals with a fair sprinkling of libertarians and non-Americans to keep matters honest and diverse.

Alex Massie

The Most Under-Rated US Presidents

If the race to be considered the Most Over-Rated President in American history was won at a canter by Ronald Wilson Reagan, there was a much keener contest to earn the title Most Under-Rated president. No fewer than 36 of the 42 men to have held the post received votes in this ballot. As before, ballots were scored on a 3,2,1 points system (three for most under-rated etc). If no order of preference was specified, each nominee was awarded 2 points. The results are given thus: total number of points collected, followed, in brackets, by each man's ranking in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 survey of historians. THE MOST UNDER-RATED PRESIDENTS 1. 49 (8) Dwight Eisenhower2. 44 (34) Jimmy Carter3. 42 (9) James Polk4. 39 (18) Lyndon B Johnson5. 37 (23) Calvin Coolidge6.

Sunday

Alex Massie

The Most Preposterous Thing I’ve Read All Week…

And amazingly, it has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. No, it's Rangers' Christian Dailly who, having seen the referee keep the Ibrox club's SPL title ambitions alive yesterday had the effrontery, the gall, the unmitigated audacity to claim: that since arriving at Ibrox in January he has formed the impression that Rangers are more often on the wrong end of decisions. "There have been lots of decisions not given that should have been given in our favour," he said. "It looks like a couple went our way today, but that is not the norm." Words fail me. American readers may consider that this is akin to Michael Jordan complaining that the refereeing authorities never gave him the benefit of the doubt.