Just Politics

[janice shell]

I like Al. But I think by April it'd be way too late. All the other top candidates will have tons of votes (and so delegates) by then, and there're filing deadlines. We don't have brokered conventions anymore, and everyone's complaints about the DNCC suggest we don't want them to return.

Yes, it was a more orderly system in a way, but it meant the most of the time, real outsiders didn't stand a chance. Yes, Gene McCarthy was a successful dark horse in 1968, but he didn't win the nomination. Jimmy Carter was a surprise winner, but that was when the system was changing. And both were in their ways Establishment figures. McCarthy had been a senator for quite awhile, and Carter had been a successful governor.

We still don't seem to have figured out what works best. I agree with you that the whole thing just goes on for too long, and that much of the time it seems more like an endurance contest than a campaign.

Elizabeth Warren just leapt onto the stage in Iowa. As some have said, she has the energy of a 30-year-old. Just watching her makes me tired.