As you’ve probably already noticed, this afternoon I replaced the “Tolkien nerdiness” link in the right-hand column of my homepage with a bit of Liebermania. The “Joe Lieberman for President” text and the “Joe 2004″ button both link to Lieberman’s official site; underneath that, there’s a link to my “Election 2004″ blog category (newly separated from my more general “Elections & Politics” category).

I figured, hey, Lieberman suddenly seems to have a tiny bit of a chance — five or six snowballs in Hell, at least :) — so now is the time to give him the coveted BrendanLoy.com endorsement and free advertising.

So, there you have it, Senator Joe. Now go out there and finish third!!!

The Opportunity has landed!

Joe Lieberman is suddenly in a battle for third place in New Hampshire, according to the latest polls. (Hat tip to my dad for alerting me to this story.)

It seems Senator Joe got a substantial boost from his fine performance in Tuesday’s debate. Looks like Ryan Lizza may have been right that “a late Lieberman surge is possible” and wrong to add, “Nah.”

What makes this really interesting is what happens when you couple it with this point by Josh Marshall:

The two candidates with the most wind at their back — Kerry and Edwards — are also the ones who have the fewest resources in place to contest the primaries which will come rapidly, week after week, after next Tuesday. …

The shorthand you hear from reporters is that Kerry has “nothing” on the ground in those states. And that can’t be quite true. But after Kerry’s town hall meeting in Manchester on Friday one of his top aides told us that he would probably not even compete in all seven of the states that vote on February 3rd. When asked which ones they’d contest, he told us they were “nowhere near figuring that out.”

Lieberman, on the other hand, has been focusing all along on the Feb. 3 primaries — South Carolina and Arizona, in particular — as his “must-win” states, and has been focusing a considerable amount of energy on them. (He’s been running a lot of TV ads here, for instance.) I don’t know how many “resources” he has, but it sounds like he may be in better shape than Kerry and Edwards in these next few states.

So let’s say the New Hampshire order of finish is:
1. Kerry
2. Dean
3. Lieberman
4. Edwards
5. Clark

Suddenly Clark — who, like Dean, has the resources to compete nationally — would look like a big loser, with no momentum. Kerry and, to a lesser extent, Edwards, would still be the front-running golden boys, but all politics is local, and they haven’t made the investment in the upcoming localities. (Well, except Edwards in South Carolina… but a second-place finish there would be a “victory” for anybody else…)

That leaves Dean (who, as I mentioned yesterday, might well be labeled a “comeback kid” if he can finish a strong second) and the suddenly resurgent Lieberman. Is it possible that Joe could emerge as Feb. 2’s “anti-Dean” after all?

Far vos nisht?

UPDATE: The Command Post has more details on the tightening New Hampshire race. And Lieberman is continuing to improve.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, over on the official Lieberman blog, they’re reporting that a Gallup poll (as opposed to the Zogby polls linked above) shows Senator Joe already in third place:

John Kerry � 38%
Howard Dean � 25%
Joe Lieberman � 12%
Wesley Clark � 10%
John Edwards � 9%

I question whether the numbers support the blog’s assurtion that Lieberman has climbed “firmly” into third :) … but still, good news.

David Bernstein is criticizing Joe Lieberman’s syntax over on the Volokh Conspiracy. Only problem is, Bernstein’s corrective syntax is equally problematic:

When Lieberman is asked how his faith would affect his politics, he paraphrases a now-famous Kennedy line, telling voters, “I am a presidential candidate who happens to be Jewish, not the other way around.”

So Lieberman is not “a Jewish who happens to be a presidential candidate?” The quote would work if Lieberman would say “a Jew” instead of “to be Jewish”…

Hmm… “a Jew” instead of saying “to be Jewish”… so Lieberman should have said, “I am a presidential candidate who happens a Jew, not the other way around”? Um, yeah, that makes more sense. :)

Obviously, what Bernstein should have said is, “The quote would work if Lieberman would say ‘a Jew’ instead of ‘Jewish.’” Or, alternatively, he could have said, “The quote would work if Lieberman would say ‘to be a Jew’ instead of ‘to be Jewish.’” Of course, this is an extremely nitpicky point. But so is Bernstein’s, so he asked for it.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Sasha Volokh’s Lieberman-related post is just funny: “my father asks whether, if Lieberman gets some pro-Jewish law passed that benefits his district, it’s correct to call it pork.” Heh heh.

I turned off last week’s New Hampshire debate (Becky was sick of it) too early to see Brit Hume ask Wesley Clark about the discrepancy between his present “anti-war” views and his distinctly pro-war op-ed in the London Times in April. But I read on some blog the other day that Hume had indeed asked such a question, and Clark had given a rather weak response. So this evening, I looked up the transcript. As advertised, Clark’s response is pathetic. Transcript below, with editor’s commentaries added…

HUME: General Clark, Governor Dean has said that you’re a good guy but he thinks you’re a Republican. Now, we’re told you did vote for several Republican presidents — President Nixon, President Reagan — said good things about the first President Bush and even about this President Bush.

You said, in an article published in The Times of London back in April as the war ended, quote, “Liberation is at hand. Liberation, the powerful balm that justifies painful sacrifice, erases lingering doubt and reinforces bold actions.”

As to the president, you wrote, quote, “President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt.”

Given those statements, given your votes, I think it is not unreasonable to ask you when you first noticed that you were a Democrat.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

CLARK: Well, actually, actually, Brit, actually, I did vote for Al Gore in 2000 and for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.

But when I was in the military, I was not a member of any party. I was an independent, and that’s the way it is done in the state of Arkansas. [Huh? Wait, Arkansas has its own military? –ed.]

And when I got out, I looked at both parties. And I’m a fair-minded person. And when the president of the United States does two things that I agree with — one of them attacking the Taliban in Iraq, and the other is not quitting in the use of military force in the middle of a dust storm — then I’m going to say so.

And when I’m president, I hope that Republicans will praise me when I do things right. But…

HUME: Well, that’s…

CLARK: Can I just finish my statement?

HUME: Please.

CLARK: I’m running for president because I don’t like the direction George Bush is taking the country in. I am a Democrat, and I want to turn this country around and set it going in the right direction.

I want to put a strong basis of values back into this Democratic Party and take George Bush head-on. Because family values is our issue in the Democratic Party; it is not the Republicans’ issue.

HUME: Could not a reader be justified in concluding, from this piece that you wrote for the Times of London in April, that you did indeed support this war and was pleased by its outcome and, as you said the first time when asked the question, probably would have voted to support it?

CLARK: No, that’s not true. In fact, if you look at the whole article, what you’ll see is that the article lays out a whole series of tasks that have to be done later on.

And it’s written in a foreign publication. I’m not going to take U.S. policy and my differences with the administration directly into a foreign publication. [And simply not writing an article at all wasn’t an option? You were forced to write an article in a foreign publication, so you figured you’d better be friendly to administration policy? Like I said… pathetic. –ed.]

But I made it clear in the article — and I think you’ve got it there. If you read it on down, you’ll see that I say this doesn’t mean — they’ve got to focus now on the peacekeeping, the occupation, the provision of order.

There’s a whole series of tasks that I laid out for them to do that, in fact, they were incapable of doing. [Right, so you supported the war, but you think they’ve done a bad job winning the peace. Fair enough; I myself am in a similar position. So maybe you could win my vote… except that’s not what you’re saying on the campaign trail. You’re claiming to have opposed the war from the start, which you clearly didn’t. –ed.]

I did not support this war. I would not have voted for the resolution. [Liar, liar, pants on fire! –ed.] But once American soldiers are on the battlefield, then I want them to be successful and I want them to come home safely. [Howard Dean, on the other hand, wants the soldiers to be unsuccessful and to come home in body bags, as evidenced by the fact that he never wrote a pro-Bush op-ed in the London Times. Vote for me, I’m Wesley Clark, the biggest hypocrite in the world! –ed.]

The Golden Globe Awards are tomorrow night at 8:30 PM Eastern. Return of the King is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Peter Jackson), Best Original Score (Howard Shore), and Best Original Song (”Into the West” by Annie Lennox).

It should win all of those, of course. :) The Oscar nominations are then to be announced roughly 36 hours later, at 8:30 Eastern time (or, to be precise, 8:38:30) Tuesday morning. Hopefully Return of the King will do well in the key early precinct of Dixville Notch, thus setting it up for success. What? Oh, nevermind…

While we’re on the topic of ROTK’s musical score (which we were, briefly, a second ago), I bought it the other day, and it is really good. The “Minas Tirith” track is especially awesome — that, and “The Black Gate Opens.” And the Annie Lennox song is the best of the three vocal songs that have been attached to the Lord of the Rings soundtracks (Enya had one in Fellowship of the Ring, and there was something called “Gollum’s Song” in The Two Towers).

I’ve just signed up for a free, four-week trial of The New Republic Online, so I can read their primary coverage. I don’t suppose it does any good to link to their articles, since it’s subscription-only fare… but I believe this one is available to the public. Anyway, it’s another commentary on the New Hampshire debate, and I particularly like the Joe Lieberman section:

Last night was the first time in a long, long time, that I even entertained the notion that Lieberman could catch on here. The trend-lines for Clark and Dean are suddenly very bad. Kerry and Edwards seem best positioned to take advantage of their decline, but everyone has been wrong about everything in this race. Who knows, maybe a late Lieberman surge is possible. … Nah.

Heh. Nah, indeed. It occurs to me that the deadliest statistic out of Iowa for Senator Joe is the fact that 75% of the voters there were anti-war. Anti-war Democrats may vote for Kerry, as Iowa’s did, but they’re never going to vote for Lieberman, not unless he is the only person in the field who seems remotely electable. Which, alas, he is not. Hence the best candidate in the field (Hi Sean) being pretty much doomed from the start.

Another thought: since these early primaries are all about perceptions and expectations (very few delegates are at stake, after all), I wonder what Howard Dean’s perceived decline does to the punditry’s expectations for his success — and thus his threshold for “victory” — in New Hampshire. If he finishes a respectable second behind Kerry, a week after his third-place finish and third-rate concession speech (and first-rate screech) in Iowa, does that qualify Dean for “comeback kid” status? Does beating Edwards and Clark make him seem strong again, heading into the next round? I think maybe it does. We’ll see on Tuesday.

Just one more link for y’all: Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo is providing some very good, on-the-scene reporting from New Hampshire. I guess his readers paid to send him there or something? That’s what Glenn Reynolds said, anyway. The blogosphere is evolving fast…

Last night’s Newington-Southington game featured just about everything you could want in a classic rivalry: a dramatic comeback, some scoreboard anomalies, an overtime… even a fight in the stands!!!

Alas, the one thing it did not feature was a Newington win. Final score: Southington 49, Newington 47, OT.

The Indians drop to 11-2 overall (not bad, considering 11 of their 13 games, including this one, have been on the road) and 5-2 in the CCC South conference.

On the bright side, Newington is still tied for first place in the conference — just with a few more teams than before. New Britain beat Bulkeley yesterday, so the formerly 5-1 Bulldogs also drop to 5-2. Meanwhile, with their wins, formerly 4-2 teams Southington and New Britain improve to 5-2. And Bristol Eastern, which beat Bristol Central on Thursday, is also 5-2.

All of which means that, at the halfway point of the conference season, five teams are tied for first place with 5-2 records!!!

Today’s brief lunch-break update: “Clark is toast,” says Andrew Sullivan (”I’m Sully!”) of last night’s New Hampshire debate. “His slow drift down in the polls might now accelerate. At least I hope so.” As for Kerry, Sully says he was “dull, almost as pompous as Peter Jennings (but not quite).” Heh. But “A Kerry-Edwards ticket still seems like a good bet to me.”

Wonkette, a D.C. & politics gossip blog, has a roundup of more blogger reactions to the debate.

Meanwhile, in Iraq news, David Kay has quit as the leader of the fruitless WMD search team. I wonder if he was as disgusted as I was by Bush’s distortion of his team’s findings in the State of the Union??? (No WMD, but hey, we found WMDPRA, which is, uh, exactly what we were looking for… uh-huh, yeah!) On the other hand, maybe he’s quitting for entirely non-political reasons. But it will be interesting to see if anything more comes of this.

On a totally unrelated note, the Mars rover Spirit has been raised from the dead, apparently. Meanwhile the other rover, Opportunity, is schedule to land on the other side of Mars tomorrow. And the European orbiter, Mars Express, has confirmed the presence of water on the Red Planet.

Most mornings, I listen to my MP3 collection on the bus — with headphones, of course — en route to work. Generally I use iTunes’s random-play mode, so I never know what song is going to come up next. Occasionally, a particular song will catch my attention or, for whatever reason, “speak to me” more profoundly than usual. That happened this morning with the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.”

I’ve had “Closer to Fine” in my collection for years, but have never paid much attention to it, especially as compared to various other Indigo Girls songs — “Galileo,” “Ghost,” and their cover of Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue,” to name a few. But this morning, it caught my attention. I played it several times in a row, and really enjoyed listening to it. I particularly like this section:

Now darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightnness has a call that’s hard to hear
I wrapped my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I’m crawling on your shores

I dunno what it is about it, exactly… it just appealed to me. Just thought I’d share. Complete lyrics here.

Kristy’s thoughts on the State of the Union are over on the SHA girl blog.

Elsewhere in the Brendansphere, Tim Stevens is complaining about donuts, my dad is predicting Howard Dean’s ironic downfall, and Jen posted a bunch of quotes.

In the Extended Brendansphere, Chris is upset that nothing alcohol-related rhymes with “primary”. :)

Howard Dean appared on the Late Show With David Letterman tonight to poke fun at himself, CNN reports. He delivered the Top Ten list:

TOP TEN WAYS I, HOWARD DEAN, CAN TURN THINGS AROUND

10. Switch to decaf.
9. Unveil new slogan, “Vote for Dean and get one dollar off your next purchase at Blimpie.”
8. Marry Rachel on the final episode of “Friends.”
7. Don’t change a thing, it’s going great.
6. Show a little more skin.
5. Go on “American Idol” and give them a taste of those pipes. [”YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” –Ed.]
4. Start working out and speaking with an Austrian accent.
3. I can’t give specifics yet, but it involves Ted Danson.
2. Fire the staffer who suggested I do this Lousy Top 10 List instead of actually campaigning.
1. Oh, I don’t know - maybe fewer red-faced rants.

Well, he’s a good sport.

He’s also going to lose.

Says Josh Marshall:

I think Dean is in very bad shape. The issue isn’t so much, or isn’t exclusively, the loss in Iowa or the whole business with his speech. Rather, I have the sense that he’s neutered himself in the final stretch. … [H]e came into New Hampshire presenting himself, sans red meat, as the successful governor of a small state with success in balancing budgets and expanding health care reform.

That’s not a bad message. But it’s also not a particularly exciting one, and not at all one that seems energizing enough to turn around the bad momentum he’s had all week. … To get away from being the exciting, offensive candidate, they’ve made him into the anodyne, boring candidate, just at the moment when he needs a real second wind.

Newington beat Hartford Public in a non-conference game yesterday, 61-47, to improve to 11-1 on the season. Now comes a huge conference game tomorrow: at archrival Southington.

The Hartford Courant has an article today about the tight race in the CCC South, with the Indians — who are tied for the conference lead — prominently featured, of course.

I just watched a little over an hour of the New Hampshire debate, hoping to educate myself a bit more in advance of eventually having to actually vote among these guys next month. (Well, technically my vote won’t be registered until March 2, but I’ll cast it — via absentee ballot — sometime in February.)

My strongest impression is that I wouldn’t vote for Wesley Clark. He seemed just what the bloggers say he is — weaselish, waffling, not presidential. Regardless of what kind of candidate he’d be, or whether he might be electable, I think he would be a bad president.

Otherwise my previous impressions were reinforced. Kerry is probably the best candidate. His biggest disadvantage is that he looks kinda old. Edwards is okay, but I don’t know how well he’d do in a debate against Bush — he tends to repeat himself and dodge questions a bit. He also didn’t know what the Defense of Marriage Act actually says, which was a little disturbing. Still, I could see myself possibly voting for either one of them. I’ll have to investigate them both further.

Lieberman is great; I’d definitely vote for him if he were a viable candidate by the time I cast my ballot, but I think we all know that’s not going to happen — he probably won’t even be in the race anymore.

Oh, and Dean? Dean is Dean. I’m not going to vote for him in the primary — duh. (Best line of the night, Sharpton to Dean, roughly paraphrased: “Don’t apologize for hollaring in Iowa. If I spent as much money as you did, and only got 18 percent, I’d be hollaring too.”)

UPDATE: Here is the exact quote, according to CNN: “Don’t be hard on yourself about hooting and hollering. If I had spent the money you did and got 18 percent, I’d still be in Iowa hooting and hollering.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Blogger Roger L. Simon basically agrees with me in his perceptions of the debate. Except he’s tougher on Edwards.

In an attempt to break up the ridiculous number of ties in my Top 3 photos election, and to put greater weight on receiving votes from multiple people, I have changed the rules slightly. (”That’s illegal! I know my rights!”) (Hi Dad. :)

Instead of being tabulated on a 3-2-1 basis, votes are now being tabulated on a 7-5-3 basis. In other words, first-place votes are worth 7 points each, second-place votes are worth 5, and third-place votes are worth 3. This change is retroactive, so if you already voted, don’t worry, your vote is not worth less than newer votes.

Regardless of the formula, the red-haired sailor kid has a commanding lead at the moment. :)

UPDATE: What this means…

(more…)