G.O.P. Maybe Wins G.O.P. Debate!

Last night the Republican party barely snatched victory from defeat in their televised New Hampshire debate, despite the fact that they were only debating each other. Eeesh, it doesn't look good out there. In all the liveblogging The Monocle has perused this morning (so you don't have to! Cos you totally would otherwise!) everyone seems to have been drinking heavily. Here's a list. Everyone likes a list.

1)According to a buncha drunks sitting in the dim lights of their family basements, John McCain acquitted himself very nicely, considering that his campaign recently underwent financial armageddon and a slew of rats running up the gangplank. McCain can't be written off just yet - amongst the furious sniping of Don Giuliani and the Mormon he's starting to look like a real good guy.
2)Giuliani always looks surprisingly clever, though that may indicate quite how far his press team have to travel before January. Also, if they can, they should maybe try and tone down the ugly. Perhaps some different glasses, Jeez, perhaps even something to make him taller. Less...like a depressed rabbit. Just thinking out loud.

3)The second speaker is Mike Huckabee. You can ignore him.
4)RON PAUL 4 PRSIDENT SPEACKIN TRUTH 2 POWER!
5)Oh god. We can't really go on with this...so yeah. It's just...the idea of so many months till January...so...many...debates...This is just for New Hampshire. There are like a HUNDRED more states after this one. Pass the gin.

Fred Thompzzzzzzz...

Right. We'd better...zzzzoh! Sorry! We should talkzzzzzok! Yup! Fred Thompson. Time to talk about him again. Now I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats, wond'rin when old Fred is going to announce that he's running for President. Yes sir. Or perhaps you thought he already was, hmm? He's been playing the world's media (valiantly represented by one of the Washington Posts's least-busy interns) like salmon all summer. Golly! Will he? Won't he? OF COURSE HE WILL. And now he's said so. Oh wait, what? Ok no. No, sorry, he's said he'll say so. He HAS announced that he WILL announce that he'll run for the Republican nomination.

While the rest of the Republican field (dead-man-walking McCain, Don Giuliani, a mormon, three dogs and a small duck) are debating their hearts out on Fox news tonight, Fred Thompson, the living reincarnation of St Ronald of Reagan, will be a mere button's press away, announcing on ABC. Why has he waited so long? Why, if there's one thing his long career in television has taught him, it's how to make an entrance. Who here had heard of Fred Thompson before today? No? Well, tomorrow he'll be in every newspaper. Pundits have suggested that he's left it too late. The Monocle believes he's left it ju-u-st late enough.

Hear this: Fred Thompson doesn't look like a real candidate, but he is. No point in fighting the strong Democratic field with clever talk. No, better to fight it with drama; better to fight it with a deep, resonant speaking voice, and a little wink for the ladies. Part of us is happy to see him, part of us is a little scared. Here he is, acting:

Just acting. Honest.

Raise High John Edwards

John Edwards, the Little Mill Worker that Could, was endorsed yesterday by the Steel and Coal Mining Unions. Since Edwards has been pole-dancing frantically for organised labour for the last few months, this isn't going to come as a body-blow for Hill and Barry. Also, Chris Dodd, (you know HIM. You know, that guy with the silver hair. No, silly, the other one) just got the Firefighter's Union to come to his party, and while that's very lovely and all, it doesn't mean he's the NPOTUS. Ah, who are we kidding, we're only so mean about John Edwards cos we lurve him. Yes, dammit, we're in love with John Edwards, and we don't care who knows it. If people don't vote for him, they're f**king retarded. Dese unions have got the right idea.

Aaand they're off!

Last weekend was Labour day across the pond. To The Monocle, Labour day (or Labor Day if you will) is the moment in which New York City stops being a blissful, empty adventure playground and fills up once again with a**holes back from their Hamptons house shares. To the names on the 2008 sign-up sheet hung outside the Cafeteria of Destiny, Labor Day heralds the gunshot that starts the sprint to the primaries.

From here till what will seem like the end of time and is in fact next January, candidates will be careering along at warp speed, and political commentators will be frantically interpreting their every move. A new haircut, a new stump speech, a new voice-pitch, a particular tie...all will create first furious gossip, then serious analysis in the New York Times. Though surely no candidate would be s'darn foolhardy as to get a new haircut this late in the game. Which means it's probably all over for John Edwards:

Adieu, MC Rove.

And so. A Nation Mourns. A Life in Pictures. Stop all the clocks. Shut all the shops. Karl Rove is no more. August 31st was his last day at work. In the Roosevelt Room, at 7:30 a.m., the man we have come to know as MC Rove was presented with a slide show of his days in the White House. He was too choked up to speak. So are we. Or at least, we're overcome with...some feeling. A really big feeling.

This must be what great sadness feels like. A momentous, shivery, thunderous sort of thing, as though the earth has shifted suddenly; a mourning for the world, and what it has become. Grief for the political process, the loss of innocence. As Sartre says, all stories are told from death backwards. Only at the end can we see how far we have fallen:


Oh, and btw you guys, according to the Economist, Clinton's advisor Mark Penn is the New Karl Rove. Cha-cha-cha.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9687236

Romney Walks Iowa

Oh yeah, ages ago Mitt Romney won the Iowa Straw Poll, shocking literally nobody. Huckabee came second. None of this means anything, and nobody cares about it at all. Except for Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee's pretty stoked right now.

Oh, Larry!

You have to feel for Larry Craig, the Republican Senator for Idaho. There you are, in June, minding your own business, using a regular old bathroom stall/public park/badger reserve to solicit same-sex sexual encounters with strangers, and whaddya know! That blue-eyed charmer you're do-si-do-ing with whips out his police credentials! And, unfortunately, that is not a euphemism. This June, Senator Craig was arrested in Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport for allegedly engaging in alleged conduct not entirely fit for a U.S. Senator.

According to an admirably detailed arrest report, Craig peered at the plainclothes cop through the crack in the bathroom stalls, moved his foot to a particular position...uh, let me see...swiped his hand UNDER the partition in a particular way three times...knocked on the sink to the tune of 'Jolene'...double axel...alleged chachacha...When taken into custody, the good representative of Idaho allegedly informed the cop that he was a U.S. Senator, asking "What do you think about that?" CherchING, I should think. Craig has since insisted that the position of his feet was merely due to his particularly 'Wide Stance.' Insert your joke there.

So what does Ol' Wide Stance have to do with our date with 2008? WELL. It seems that ju-u-ust prior to the whole mixup, Craig was out stumping for Mitt Romney on the subject of Family Values. Hard. On video. Now, here at the Monocle we believe in double standards for everyone, but we can't just lie back and take the outing of a gay Senator if he has previously voted to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage, as Craig has done. That's a bit hard to swallow. Craig resigned yesterday. Mind you, chasing intern skirt around the desk in the Oval Office: fine if you're rich, mildly impeachable of you're from Arkansas, but all in all, okey dokey. Gay? Get out of my office. That's right, OUT.

As you can imagine, there's an awful lot on the internets about this, but we'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the people of RED STATE UPDATE, one of our very favourite li'l pundit outfits. Here's what they have to say about it all:

Think that 'bout sums it up.