FUN TIMES IN US POLITICS

The last few days -- and today -- are great times for political junkies and US political watchers. Lots of fun stuff happening -- makes me wish I was back in the game myself. And I mean directly back in the game, not this "objective-reporter" nonsense I had been doing.

Anyway, yesterday was George W. Bush's last State of the Union address.

Also, yesterday, on the heels of Barack Obama's victory in South Carolina's primary, he has picked up a big endorsement from both Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy. The Kennedys!! Word is that the Kennedys were kind of turned off by the Clintons and their anti-Obama rhetoric, particularly spewed by Bill. Anyhow, there you go.

Today is the Florida Republican primary and it looks like it could be all over quickly for Rudy Giuliani. The former New York mayor was betting his hat on Florida and counting on a victory there to propel him to the nomination, figuring he would be a hard sell in Iowa (correct) and that Mitt Romney would probably clean up in New Hampshire (as it turned out, dead wrong). What they did not count on was the resurrection of John McCain, whose campaign seemed to be going nowhere for the longest time. But it took off right at the right time, when it counted.

And the Romney campaign has had its share of successes so far, though they probably ought to be doing better. It is shaping up to be a Romney-McCain fight in Florida right now and it all spells doom for Giuliani, who is likely to exit the presidential race on Wednesday. What a debacle that campaign has turned out to be, folks.

For election results tune in all the usual places, http://www.cnn.com/, http://www.msnbc.com/, and http://www.foxnews.com/. Also there's Miami stations like http://www.wsvn.com/ which I expect will have plenty of coverage. Same for http://www.cbs4.com/.

SOUTH CAROLINA DEMOCRATIC RESULTS IN

Big landslide for Barack Obama.And now it's on to Super Tuesday for the Democrats.

Next big event is the Florida GOP primary, last gasp for Rudy Giuliani.

MORE PRIMARIES TODAY

Political junkies unite! South Carolina once again has a critical role to play in a presidential race with its Republican primary today. Results tonight. Also, the Nevada caucus is today as well.

It's wide open on the GOP side between John McCain and Mike Huckabee in Carolina.

ROMNEY PICKS UP WIN

Noticed Mitt Romney won in Michigan, so his campaign is back on track.

Also noticed that Rudy Giuliani is putting all his eggs in the Florida basket and he better hope it works, because it is high risk.

NICOLAS SARKOZY HAS GOOD TASTE IN WOMEN

Can you believe this nonsense out of France where French president Nicolas Sarkozy is in a steamy, serious relationship with gorgeous model/singer Carla Bruni. In fact, they are probably going to get married.

Wow. This is the French equivalent of Prime Minister Stephen Harper leaving his wife to run off with Tricia Helfer.

Now everyone is trashing the French president and saying he should stick to politics, and quit running around with beautiful women. All the boring people in France say they disapprove and his poll numbers have gone in the tank.

Typical jealousy, I think. To quote Donald Trump from his Celebrity Apprentice show: most people are losers.

It brings up the whole question again about whether politicians are even allowed to have a personal life these days. Politics can be hard enough, with all that time spent away from your family and so on, and it's easy to see why a lot of people shy away from public office. Personally, I don't think it's the public's business to dictate to politicians who they should be seeing, or whether or not they should have a love life or not. If you're not allowed to have a decent love life, why would people even bother seeking the job?! That's a sure-fire way to discourage a lot of talent from running for office. No wonder so many uptight, boring people get elected, then, if that's the attitude from voters.

I don't have a problem with Sarkozy seeing Carla Bruni, just as I didn't have a problem with Argentina president Carlos Menem (right) having a hot-looking wife in Cecilia Bolocco, former Miss Universe. (There I go again, with my Miss Universe obsession.) As long as these guys still do their jobs, I think it's fun for politicians to have beautiful, hot-looking wives. It livens things up.

(Although I heard Menem and Bolocco recently split. Well, that's life.)

By the way, I read somewhere that presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's wife is young and quite hot. I guess even the Americans are getting into the act.

BAD WEEK FOR PUNDITS

Well, it's been a few days since the New Hampshire primary made fools out of all these political "experts" who thought the supposed surge for Barack Obama would carry him to victory over Hillary Clinton.

Well, Clinton won and everyone has egg on their faces. You know, I think this serves these idiots in the media right for putting too much faith in these polls. I remember there were polls out in these races here in Canada that predicted certain people to lose, and of course they ended up winning. And inevitably the reason why they won came down to organization and getting out the vote. I think maybe Clinton had the superior organization in New Hampshire from day one and that alone can trump these polls. Plus, I am sure there were a lot of late deciders. Plus there were people who claimed to be Obama supporters but who weren't going to vote anyway.

I know Obama had some big crowds as well, and people were saying that he was going to win based on that. Just because people get big crowds doesn't necessarily mean much, unless one candidate is getting really huge crowds while the other is unable to get even close friends and relatives to show up.

Anyway, let that be a lesson to the media. Never make a prediction based on momentum. And I don't believe for a moment that any of these reports that these idiots in the media got about chaos in the Clinton campaign were true. I think those stories were probably all made up by some non-credible people and these media monkeys ran with it. Hey, I've seen it happen myself in journalism. And frankly I think it's best to just shut up about any rumors and let the real story play itself out.

By the way, speaking of Obama, that's quite the boost he got this week with John Kerry endorsing him. And what a blow for John Edwards this news is, folks. Having the guy who put you on the ticket say that Obama is better than you is a tough pill for Edwards to swallow. I think Edwards is going to get clobbered in South Carolina by Obama. He's finished!

That's it!

NEW HAMPSHIRE RESULTS

I'm preoccupied on other journalistic stuff so this brief blurb will have to suffice as far as my own coverage of the NH primary results is concerned.

Here's the results. John McCain won on the Republican side for the second time. And Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are too close to call but Clinton is currently ahead by a nose.

Links:
www.cnn.com
www.foxnews.com
www.msnbc.com
www.cspan.org

More later.

FIRST CASUALTIES

Reports out there that Chris Dodd and Joe Biden are quitting the presidential race.

Dennis Kucinich probably should, but I think he'll hang in there.

IOWA RESULTS

Winner for the Republicans is MIKE HUCKABEE. I say the Mitt Romney campaign is pretty badly wounded.

And the shock winner in Iowa is BARACK OBAMA. This has got to be the end for John Edwards.

News and Results:
http://www.cnn.com/
http://www.foxnews.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/
http://www.c-span.org/