Wednesday, January 30, 2008

McCain, Clinton win Florida Primaries …

Today’s Buzz ...

from last night’s Anderson Cooper 360°:





Other than the additional ‘breaking news’ that occurred last night (and since), there really isn’t much else to say about last night’s coverage. John McCain won 57 delegates in the winner-take-all Republican Primary, and Hillary Clinton added zero delegates to her total. Or at least zero for now. The DNC sanctioned Florida for holding its primary ahead of Super Tuesday, without permission. Interesting that the Hill completely avoided answering Wolf Blitzer’s question about whether or not she’d be willing to go to court in order to get the Florida delegates seated at the convention. Also interesting that she even showed up on CNN – perhaps she snubbed Anderson Cooper (and others) last night because she didn’t want to answer questions about her SC loss or about the Ted Kennedy endorsement of Barack Obama. She was allowed to successfully avoid answering the question on those topics asked by Brian Williams, the one anchor she did grace with her presence on Monday evening. If you listened ever-so-closely, you were able to catch a momentary annoyance in Mr. Cooper’s voice as the broadcast went back to NY so Wolf could interview the good Senator. It was certainly justified – IMO.

It wasn’t all that surprising when the news came through later on in the evening that Rudy Giuliani would be quitting the race and endorsing John McCain. With a very disappointing third place finish, after two months of focused campaigning and millions of advertising dollars, I doubt that he really had much choice. He does have the long-term reputation of what at least was a successful business (prior to the campaign) to consider. And he does respect and admire McCain, so this appears to be an amiable solution for all involved.

The more surprising news – that has occurred this morning – is that John Edwards has “suspended” his campaign. That means – in brief terms – that his name will still appear on the primary ballots where it already is listed. And he may still amass a certain number of delegates. He has received pledges from both Obama and Clinton that they will also ‘carry on the fight’ to end poverty – which was the theme of the Edwards campaign. He made the announcement in New Orleans, where he made the original announcement for the start of his candidacy in December 2006. I have the feeling that this isn’t the last that we’ll be hearing from John Edwards. CNN.com has an article about the consequences surrounding the Edwards departure, and Time.com has an interesting story about why Edwards and his message never seemed to really catch on.



The AC 360° program was broadcast from the stage that will be used for tonight’s debate. It’s been custom-built, and is using the retired Boeing 707 airplane, , housed in the Reagan Library facility as its backdrop. This particular plane was once used by several Presidents in Air Force One capacity. Below are some interesting shots that show some visual perspective of what we’ll be seeing later this evening:






And to end on a silly note (for once, perhaps) – more antics from the Colbert Report last night – with Jon Stewart arriving to finally ‘settle’ the ongoing Conan-Colbert-Huckabee “feud” – here’s the video:



tonight on Anderson Cooper 360°:



Thanks for visiting - updates posted as needed - have a terrific Wednesday!

1 comment:

L3go.roz said...

Once again you've made my day by including this video of Jon Stewart settling the score with Conan on The Colbert Report!

On the story of John Edwards leaving the race, there's a poignant article in the Washington Post about what this means for John and Elizabeth...that they no longer have the campaign as a welcome "distraction" from her illness.