( *°( *? +( +(( 5?(??(??ubt he thinks he can win. He'll have some excuse like "helping the Senate protect the country from the evil Republicans," vote according to the prevailing political winds, and the media will give him a pass.

First he would have to make his to mind to do it. I don't think he can do it before November.

Its worse than I thought. I quit reading MoDo a couple of years ago after Bush Derangement Syndrome crippled her. But (Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan) today's column contains a gem of a quote:

It's not often that you get a presidential candidate to recite poetry to you, especially in a year when W. and J.F.K. are going macho a macho.

But there was Mr. Kerry flying from Boston to New Orleans on Friday, sipping tea for his hoarse throat and reeling off T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

"There are so many great lines in it," he said. " `Do I dare to eat a peach?' `Should I wear my trousers rolled?' `Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets/The muttering retreats/Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells."

Then he started on "Gunga Din" and " 'talk o' gin and beer.'"

Love Song is the poem everyone quotes when they want to sound erudite. It's like some sort of password into a secret society. Unfortunately, that society isn't very good at winning elections.

If memory serves, Kennedy didn't resign, and he's going to do everything possible to cast himself as the real JFK Jr., with Bush playing the role of Nixon. So even though I put in a date, I don't believe it.

Maybe Dole was gracious in his resignation speech, but he was the worst possible candidate and I still think he was a double agent working for the DNC.

Some wiseacre said that all the Republicans had to do to beat Clinton in '96 was put up someone who didn't drool.

'Nuff said.

Had Clinton been caught with his pants down in '95 rather than '98, he might have lost in 1996, but as it was, he would have beaten almost any conceivable Republican challenger.

The only one I know of who could have backed him into a corner is Bill Bennett - but he has neverf been elected to anything and his constituency within the party is pretty narrow. Plus, any Republican would have faced the twin furies of Carville and Begala (with Ann Lewis shrieking offstage). And, like it or not, Dole had to run with the specter of Gingrich in the background. Newt was great as a critic and a challenger, but he simply could not run the House and fight the Democrats at the same time.

This man wants to lead the West and fight terrorism and he spends his quiet moments wondering whether he dares eat a peach? Elliot is wonderful, but I think even he would blanch at the thought that he was guiding Commanders-in-Chief. We argue a lot about theocracy here, but this is the epitome of modern despairing secular theocracy. What's next, Gunther Grass? Speeches to the Marines on the futility of war?

Peter:

Funny, we all hope his campaign eats the peach.

Incumbent presidents don't lose if the economy is good, especially if the nation's at peace. Bill Clinton would have beaten Ronald Reagan (1980 version).

I still think the real question isn't when Kerry's going to resign his Senate seat, or how much he'll lose by in November. It's when are the Democrats going to pull a Lautenberg, and replace him as a presidential candidate with Edwards, or someone else.

Ed, I was thinking the same thing, just Hillary rather than Edwards. I predict October, just after the first debate.

I put in a guess but I'm also skeptical he will quit. If he does quit then the Dems will want to keep the seat in Dem hands so a harbinger will be the MA state Dems trying, through a law or other means, to prevent MA GOP governor Romney from naming an interim succesor.

AWW:

They already started that process.

I have over $500 of wagers already from Kerry supporters who think he is going to win the election. It's going to be a great election night party....

Now, if I were selecting Elliot for the occasion, I would have gone with:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion

P.J.

No debates please.

OJ - there was an article or two a few weeks ago about the Dems thinking about saving Kerry's seat for another Dem but nothing since then. I would think any legislation would be made public. I was referring to when actual legislation is passed as the signal Kerry might relinquish his seat.

If the polls continue to show a tight race (or even Kerry leading) it may lead Kerry to conclude that holding the Senate isn't a liability. In that case the Nov 3 prediction may be correct.

And yes, we all know that Bush is so "firm" in his positions. The cult of personality that politicians always engender from the sheeple never ceases to amaze me.

Kerry Motto:

"In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

i would never underestimate his ability to stay on both sides of the fence even in the face of absurdity.

Go Jackets!!!!!

I predict he will be disposed of prior to the Democrat convention so Hillary can step up and save the day. If he's out too far ahead, others may jump back into the race and upset her plans.
So I'll say he'll toast on or about July 16th.

I predict that none of your predictions will be correct.

There is shadow under this red rock, Mike,
(Come in under the shadow under this red rock,)
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

"The law spoke too softly to be heard amidst the din of arms." - Plutarch

Can we not vote for when we think the DNC will make him resign from the election?

I don't think you can set a date for this. JFKerry (who by the way Served In Vietnam) wants the White House so BAD he will NOT resign voluntarily; if he's dumped as the candidate, it will be against his will, with him kicking and screaming "MINE! MINE! MINE! NO FAIR! I SERVED IN VIETNAM! MINE! MINE! MINE!" as he's dragged out the door.

Please Help!!!

Vote Against Hillary today!!

Online Political Survivor Game

http://www.politics1.com/poll.htm

Please cast a vote against Hillary Rodham Clinton

Do not let the liberals vote off Vice President Cheney

Please spread the word!!!!!!!

October 30, 2004?

A little Progressive, are we?

Wont happen. He will never resign.

I'm sure there's now a joke here to be made comparing Kerry and Dole, and Kerry's inevitable future as a Viagra spokesman, but I'll let someone else come up with it.

Won't happen. What do I win if that's the case?

Big Jawn will wait until the week of the Republican Convention to provide a "September Surprise."

Did a post (Chicagoboyz) on re. John Winthrop & Bush's speeches on defining a community & purpose. Begins with allusion to Eliot - yes, we hear that in Kerry - there is time and time enough. But Eliot is contrasting that withdrawal from life with, well, life (purposeful contrast to carpe diem poems). It seems to me that the commentators here are right - while we might find someone who appreciates Prufrock to be a powerful leader, we certainly don't want someone who identifies with that fragmented, purposeless, rootless, sad example of modern alienation, disaffection.

Did a post (Chicagoboyz) on re. John Winthrop & Bush's speeches on defining a community & purpose. Begins with allusion to Eliot - yes, we hear that in Kerry - there is time and time enough. But Eliot is contrasting that withdrawal from life with, well, life (purposeful contrast to carpe diem poems). ..........

Huh? You are clearly using words from the English language, but I'm not sure you're writing in English. Any chance you could translate this post?

Okay, this is pretty ditzy. Still, what I was arguing was that Prufrock is the choice of those who do not stride through life, living it to the fullest but of those who believe there will always be more time, time for revisions as T. S. Eliot puts it. Such sense of endless time we saw in the anti-Bush positions leading up to the invasion of Iraq. His opponenents argued for more time: negotations at the UN while Iraqis are being buried in mass graves, while the Taliban smothers the life out of the people of Afghanistan.

Prufrock is generally seen as the defining poem of high modernism, of fragmentation and alienation. I can't possibly imagine why we want a president who loves that poem too much - unless he sees it as a counterexample to leadership. The J. Alfred spends however many lines trying to get up his nerve and then doesn't propose. He makes Hamlet look like a man of decision. But Kerry seems to either be really stupid and enjoy the lines for the sake of their music (which is okay for an undergraduate English major but we expect more seriousness or sense of proportion in someone aspiring to be leader of the free world) or to identify with one of the most irritating, feckless, fragmented characters in American lit. In my post, which I'm sure could have been better written, I compared the vision of T. S. Eliot with that of Bush's speech to the Palestinians (where he suggests that they choose life, choose building a model Arab/Muslim community out of the rocky soil of their land. Bush (like Winthrop 370 years before)concludes with the Biblical injunction to "choose life". Bush and Kerry are pretty far apart on any continuum, as are the character Prufrock and the message of Bush's speech; I do not think that the discrepancy between the two is in Kerry's favor.
(You may find my arguments weak, but does this at least present them with more clarity?)

The T.S. Eliot poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, can be found here.

What if he drops out of the presidential race, instead?

In the room the muffins come and go
talking of Michelangelo

The yellow fog that rubbed its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that pressed its cheeks on the window-panes
Licking its tongue and rolling its eyes
was probably a kurd IN the yellow fog..

. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
To watch the feet lowered into shredders

Of screaming men in manacles, leaving lots of widows? . . .

I should have been a pair of tiger claws
tiger claws beat paper.

Saddam Hussein Poetry at Command Post.

I guess that would be the "love song of a guy who crawled out from under a rock."

Orrin:

By this point isn't it nearly certain that Kerry won't resign unless and until he wins his Presidential campaign? I mean what does he think he'd gain at this point by resigning? Tactically, a Senate resignation is just one more opportunity for the GOP to roll the dice for continued control of the Senate.

Kerry's resignation doesn't add to the gravitas that he'd need to summon to win the campaign. And, it isn't as though Kerry has ever demonstrated appropriate deference to institutional protocol. More importantly, he needs the paycheck.

Furthermore, his Senate resignation would probably lead him to being Teresa's full time cabana boy post 11/3. And we know that left Al Gored beared and itinerent.

What is the deadline to submit picks?

11/01/04

OJ: I do not have patiece or the knowledge for a state picking contest. I think Ohio will go for Bush. And that is about aa far as I want to venture.

Bush will win. The CW has been that its a 50/50 nation and it will be close. We both think that is wrong. It will not be close. If the Over is over 52%, I pick over. How much over depends on events that cannot be forseen right now.

Today, Bush is suffering more from the effects of hurricanes on Oil prices than of the wretched debates. By 11/2 things could change.

Did you really mean to say this:

"..Six times -- six times I've run for Republican leader of the United States Senate and six times my colleagues, giving me their trust, have elected me, and I'm proud of that..."

You mean Democrat leadership, right?

You mean Democrat leadership, right?

Uh, no, he's quoting Bob Dole.

Note that when you first posted this contest, I commented that it didn't include the possibility of a split vote from Maine (or Nebraska). Now I'm seeing some people who are including that one Maine vote in their final totals (Kate O'Beirne at NRO, for example). I feel cheated that I wasn't able to take that into account. So if it does matter, and I lose because of it, I intend to take the lead from Kerry and Gore and sue. (And the tiebreaker should have been from which state will there be a "faithless elector.")