Daily Roundup, 3/14/08: Information New and Old

Yesterday we had some reiterations of things we'd already been told and gathered some new information about delegates, re-votes, admirals, and other items of interest.

Hillary Clinton picked up some delegates when the final tallies of some past primaries came out. This comes on the heels of both candidates having to handle some uproar over comments made by some members of their respective campaigns, and yesterday Curtis Rochelle briefly illustrated the different approaches each campaign in handling the blowouts.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi dabbled a bit in presidential politics herself when she re-iterated that she thinks the dream ticket won't happen, but what might be potentially more interesting is the strange case of Rush Limbaugh. You've all heard the (totally unquantifiable) reports that Rush Limbaugh is fixing some primary contests for Hillary Clinton by imploring his audience to vote for her. I'm still unconvinced that he's having much of an effect on the races, but that isn't the primary issue of interest here. Wired Magazine took it upon themselves to determine if, in some cases, Rush's hijinx might be breaking election law.

Another surprise from the campaign trail was the re-emergence of Senator Mike Gravel, who cropped up just long enough to endorse the Green Party's presidential candidate. That may diminish his chances for a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. Speaking of the convention: there may be a very busy schedule in Denver this year if the Democrats are still trying to hammer out a nominee. I still don't know how likely something like that is, but Florida and Michigan were going to get the party farther on down the road to picking a nominee with their proposed re-votes, and Florida's Democratic Party rejected the proposed vote-by-mail scheme yesterday. Perhaps a few more debates will lock it down for one of the remaining candidates.

In military news, we learned that a Defense Department report definitively stating that there were no pre-war ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda is being buried, but neither fact — the lack of ties or the obfuscation — is a surprise. What actually did come as something of a surprise was the revelation that Admiral William Fallon's career came to a screeching halt due to disagreements with the Bush administration over Iraq and the timing of troop drawdowns, rather than over policy on Iran.

Oh, and Governor Perry spent some time not making any sense about environmental regulation and taxes, but that's pretty much par for the course these days.

Lastly today, Grace Stevens treated us to an interview with Madison County Democratic Party Chair Pat Wakefield in a new edition of On The Record, and I pondered one of many, many reasons I can never be President of the United States.

Enjoy your Friday, and as always, thanks for reading.