Edwards: The Kossacks' Choice

I'm interested in this straw poll of DailyKos readers:
Edwards has been the resounding leader among this group for more than a year now. I'm wondering why. Is it because he's running to the left of the other viable candidates? Because he seems polished enough to actually win office? More generally, are the Kossacks more or less sophisticated/aware/strategic than early primary voters or major party insiders?

Also interesting in this straw poll is its sensitivity. Dodd had a huge surge last month when he was the only candidate from the Senate to actually, you know, use his power as a senator to rein in Bush. The rest keep talking about what they'll do once they're president, ignoring the fact that senators actually have a fair amount of power already. So the Kossacks noticed this and gave Dodd some support. Nice.

But now Obama is surging with this crowd. Why? Because of his stupid stances on Social Security or health care? That can't be it. Because he's done pretty well in the debates lately? Maybe they think he could actually win?

Also of note: Clinton is tied with Kucinich.

Quiz Time

Can you identify the source of each quote? You have to choose from Friedrich Nietzsche, Bill Clinton, Yoda, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead.

I got an 83.

Was I dreaming?

Or was there really a movie made in which Mel Gibson was banished from a small Australian town run on pig manure and led by Tina Turner?

Waiting on O'Reilly

Forgot about this one:

Here's, here's the bottom line on this for every American and everybody in the world, nobody knows for sure, all right? We don't know what he has. We think he has 8,500 liters of anthrax. But let's see. But there's a doubt on both sides. And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right? But I'm giving my government the benefit of the doubt.
-Bill O'Reilly, 3/18/03

The Hunt for Red Ramadan

AP Headline: Iranian state TV claims Iran has launched new light submarine able to evade sonar detection

Color me skeptical. Yet I'm sure this story will be used to justify an American invasion of Iran, since we can't let rogue nations have super-lethal weapons. Sort of like those Iraqi aerial drones that could deliver anthrax to Western Europe and sarin to the United States, except that it turned out there was only one drone, and it was made by Air Hogs, and it wouldn't fly more than 30 feet away from the guy with the remote control. And then it turned out that it didn't even exist.

Republican CNN/YouTube Debate

Quick thoughts:

• Huckabee is absolutely on fire. His answers were great. He really, really nailed the WWJD/death penalty one. Viewers considered Huckabee the winner walking away, and a Rasmussen survey shows him actually in the lead in Iowa.
• Romney's answers were weak and off-putting. He had basically nailed the question as to whether the Bible was the word of God just fine, but then he seemed to feel that he hadn't said enough, and that made him mad, and he stammered something like, "Look, it's the fucking word of God, alright?" Most of his answers came out that way. And he looked like a putz on the gays in the military question. And McCain totally schooled him on torture.
• Giuliani was okay. No crowning successes, few notable missteps.
• McCain is so past tense in this contest. His willingness to condemn torture still distinguishes him among the crowd, which is far more a testament to how fucked up the crowd is than to how visionary McCain is. His little exchange with Paul, in which McCain said that the desire to withdraw from Iraq is the same sort of desire that lead to the rise of Hitler, was pathetic.
• Ron Paul is whatever his crazy supporters think he is, whether it's an anti-war activist or a small government crusader or V. We've seen this before.
• Tom Tancredo was given little opportunity to speak, but given how nuts everyone else sounded on immigration, he really didn't need to say much. I rather enjoyed (and agreed with) his Mission to Mars answer.
• Fred Thompson had a few moments but was mostly pretty weak.
• Duncan Hunter was... wait, how did he get in the room?

TPM has the highlight reel:

Get this on the ballot now

A proposed constitutional amendment for Colorado, courtesy of ColoradoPols:

Shall Hillary Clinton be impeached, should she become President of the United States, for her authorizing the U.S. military, based on her "explicit assurances from the highest levels of government" to them, to use a "Superman" camera called Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar or Millimeter Wavelength Radar that can take pictures through the roof of our bedrooms and bathrooms, against Colorado homes in April of 1997, as revenge for her husband cheating on her, through an amendment to the Colorado Constitution?