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Betsy Newmark notes that the idea of deferring the nomination may not site well with Bostonians: i BostonHerald.com - Election 2026 News: Voters tell senator: `Don’t put us on hold’

Many Bay State voters forced to put up with a week of gridlock because of the Democratic National Convention will consider themselves slapped in the face if Sen. John F. Kerry [related, bio] doesn’t accept the nomination here.

“I think (that would be) a cheap shot from the junior senator to all of his supporters in Massachusetts,'’ said Henry Santoro, who is preparing for the worst as he commutes daily from Brookline to Lynn. “It’s just one of those cases of `Get your ass here and get the job done.’ This is an anybody-but-Bush-state. Do not put us on hold.'’

James Murphy, who runs a painting and contracting company out of Swampscott, said he can’t believe Kerry would snub his homestaters.

“How does a senator of a state - when the DNC is here - not honor his state by declaring his nomination here?'’ said Murphy, 38. “I would wonder whether this, in the long run, is going to work against him. I very well think it could.’

It also occurs to me that this could set off Viet Nam-inspired deferment jokes.

Betsy also notes that the TV folks ain’t none too happy with the idea, either: Democrats’ delay tactic may turn into big TV turnoff

Stalling his presidential nomination might end up costing Sen. John F. Kerry [related, bio] the one thing he really wants at a convention - live prime-time television.

At least one major television network yesterday frowned on the idea of Kerry delaying.

“If this comes to pass, we don’t like hearing about one more piece of news that will not happen at a convention,'’ said Mark Lukasiewicz, executive producer of NBC News’ election coverage.

The more I think about this, the more unlikely it seems.

Out of curiousity, is anyone out there even using ExpressEngine?

I have fiddled with it some more this morning, this time just with a test blog without trying to import my MT stuff and it still isn’t pinging properly. I am wondering if anyone has had any luck whatsoever with the darn thing,

Apropos of the previous post Bill Quick is looking for bumper sticker slogans.

My favs to date:

Kerry May Defer Nomination.

And why might he do that, you ask? There are two distinct periods in the campaign finance system for presidential campaigns: pre and post convention. Pre-convention candidates raise and spend their own money, post-convention they get a grant and that is all they are allowed to spend–both campaigns will get $74.69 million this go ’round.

So, if Kerry accepts the nomination as scheduled on July 26th, he will have to make his federal check stretch longer than Bush’s, which won’t kick in until a little over a month later. Bush could be raising money during that period and spending it, hence the dilemma for Kerry’s campaign.

This has led the Kerry people to consider not actually accepting the nomination officially at the convention–which strikes me as a PR problem, but we shall see. Indeed, I suspect that they will end up rejecting that plan.

And the entire idea that the grants equalize the spending on both sides and therefore “takes the money out of politics” will be shown once again to be the sham that it is as the 527s and other groups find ways to raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars during this time period.

So, as usual, the campaign finance system is shown to be a joke and, in this case, a specific and monumental waste of federal dollars.

Well, I tried to migrate to ExpressEngine today but with unsatisfactory results. Not only did it take far, far more time than I wanted it to take, I had the following problems:

1) Pinging: it did not properly ping Blogrolling and other sites. Further, I tried to link to OTB earlier and that trackback failed as well.

2) The comments pages would take almost a full minute to load.

While I was overall quite impressed with the software (it have many more features than MT), I refuse to give up trackbacking and I while I have flirted with getting rid of comments, I am not ready to do so at this stage, if I ever will be.

I spent the better part of the day messing with the darn thing, and driving myself nuts in the process. I am not entirely ready to give up on it, but am close. Mostly I am frustrated with the loss of time given that I was unable to resolve the problems.

And, I appear not to be the only one.

Maybe I will try WordPress

Note: This is part of today’s Beltway Traffic Jam.

I saw this story yesteday, but didn’t have time to read it. Limbaugh made mention of the overall topic, so I went back gave it a look. Kerry Open to Anti-Abortion Judges.

First off, this strikes me as pure rhetoric. If the Democrats in Senate proved anything this term, it is that to the vast majority of them, the miniimum requirement to sit on the bench is that the nominee cannot even have the whiff of someone who might threatened abortion.

Second, there he goes again: He first notes that voting for Scalia was a mistake and then cites that vote as an example of how he could support pro-life nomineess.

Kerry, the presumptive nominee of a party that overwhelmingly favors a woman’s right to abortion, struck a moderate note as he lashed out at one of the high court’s most conservative justices, telling The Associated Press he regrets his 1986 vote to confirm Antonin Scalia.

“If you’re looking for me to admit that I made a mistake in my years in the Senate, there you go–there’s one,” said the four-term Massachusetts senator.

Yet in the same story he says:

Kerry said he has voted in favor of “any number of judges who are pro-life or pro-something else that I may not agree with,” some of whom were nominated by Republican presidents. “But I’m going to make sure we uphold what I believe are constitutional rights and I’m not going to pick somebody who’s going to undermine those rights.”

“Do they have to agree with me on everything? No,” Kerry said. Asked if they must agree with his abortion-rights views, he quickly added, “I will not appoint somebody with a 5-4 court who’s about to undo Roe v. Wade. I’ve said that before.”

“But that doesn’t mean that if that’s not the balance of the court I wouldn’t be prepared ultimately to appoint somebody to some court who has a different point of view. I’ve already voted for people like that. I voted for Judge Scalia.”

Later, aides said “some court” was not a reference to the Supreme Court, only lower federal benches. Kerry tried to clear up the matter with a written statement that said: “I will not appoint anyone to the Supreme Court who will undo that right” to an abortion.

“Yesterday, John Kerry and Ralph Nader met face to face, it was a historic meeting. Astronomers said their meeting actually created what is called ‘a charisma black hole."‘-Jay Leno (5/20/04)

Source: Yahoo!

Sen. Frist’s Son Charged with Drunk Driving

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s 21-year-old son was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated in Princeton, New Jersey, police said on Thursday.

William Harrison Frist, Jr., a Princeton University sophomore, was stopped early on Wednesday for passing a vehicle improperly and was found to be impaired after he failed a test for balance, Lt. Dennis McManimon of the Princeton borough police said.

He was taken to the station where a breath test showed his blood alcohol level was above 0.10, or above the legal limit. The charge is punishable by a seven-month suspension of Frist’s driver’s license plus fines, McManimon said.

Not smart for a whole host of reasons.

David Hasselhoff to turn into rapper Hassel The Hoff!

Sexy Baywatch star David Hasselhoff is to turn himself into a rapper.

[…]

Apparently rapper Tracy Morrow, popularly known as Ice, sees the makings of a great rapper in David.

Ice has reportedly agreed to produce Hasselhoff’s debut hip hop album.

“The man is a legend. We are going to show a whole new side of him,” The Sun quoted Ice as saying.

Ice and Hasselhoff are neighbors in Los Angeles and have instantly struck a great rapport with each other. Ice who has full faith in David says, “He’s gonna come out as Hassle The Hoff and will surprise people with his rap skills and humor.”

Ooookaaay.

Hat tip: The Colin Cowherd Show.

Get Out Your Boards: Extreme Ironing May Soon Be Hot

This little tale over at Wizbang reminded me of an incident earlier in the week that I meant to blog.

I am driving home earlier this week and I see that our van is parked in the driveway and then I notice, while still several house away, that on the TOP of our Dodge Grand Caravan is my two-year-old son. He’s just sitting there looking around. Before I could pull up and get out to get him down, my wife came flying out of the house to extricate the child from his perch. It seems he pulled his BigWheel in front of the van, climbed from there to the bumper, to the hood, up the windshield to the top of the automobile.

When asked why, he noted “because it was there".

Of course, the Clinton administration did more for giving interns a bad name than this story could ever do: Senator undecided on firing aide over sex blog. Of course, the whole Chandra Levy/Gary Condit story in 2026 didn’t help much either.

What I want to know (assuming that the info in the blog is true) is why this girl was so stupid as to blog in such a way as to be able to be so easily identified.

Kevin first noted this story earlier in the week at Wizbang (here and here orginally via Wonkette).

I got hit last night with just over 600 stinkin’ comment spams for some German-hosted site selling a viagra alternative.

I must admit, that hacks me off.

This story was out earlier in the week, but there had not been confirmation. Yahoo! News - Four Arrested in Iraq for Berg Killing

Iraqi police have arrested four people in the killing of American Nicholas Berg, an Iraqi security official said Friday.

The suspects were former members of Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen paramilitary organization, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They were arrested a week ago in a house in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad.

The group that was involved in the killing of Berg was led by Yasser al-Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam Hussein, the security official said. He said American intelligence had asked Iraqi authorities to hand over the suspects, but they were still in Iraqi hands.

Al-Sabawi was not among those arrested, the Iraqi official said.

American officials have said they believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted for allegedly organizing terrorists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq on behalf of al-Qaida, carried out Berg’s killing.

The DMN asked it readers for the best signs Welcoming back A-Rod back to the Ballpark. Click the link to see the winners.

My favorite: “You forgot to take Chan Ho with you".

The Moderate Voice has new TypePad digs.

Go check it out.