Mark Steyn: How ‘None of the Above’ Won

The Spectator [UK] ^ | January 31 2004 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

I love New Hampshire!’ I forget which candidate opened his Tuesday night speech with that line. Oh, hang on, they all did. Except Joe Lieberman, the ever optimistic Yiddisher pixie, who beamed at the crowd and said: ‘Is New Hampshire a great state or what?’

Senator Lieberman, the only unabashedly pro-war Democrat on the ballot, had been claiming at every campaign stop for the last week to have something called ‘Joe-mentum’, which is like ‘momentum’, but apparently much smaller, if not entirely undetectable. Nonetheless, running into him in the final hours, I caught the Joe-mentum fever and rashly predicted he’d run his numbers up into double figures. The Connecticut Senator and former vice-presidential candidate was, after all, the only candidate in the field so eager to win New Hampshire that he rented an apartment in Manchester and moved here. John Kerry and Howard Dean were said to have the advantage of being from neighbouring states, but Lieberman had the advantage of being from a neighbouring neighbourhood. Frankly, the least we Granite Staters could do was bump him up to a lousy 10 per cent. Alas, this proved to be a gross Joe-verestimate. In the end, Senator Lieberman managed 9 per cent, but nevertheless turned in a remarkable impression of Sally Field. He’d confounded all the naysayers, who had him down at 7 per cent.

‘The national pundits didn’t expect this, did they?’ roared a gleeful Joe, claiming a great victory — or, as he put it, ‘We are in a three-way split decision for third place!’ He hadn’t come in the Top Three, but he’d come in the Top Three for third place. Just about. If I were General Wesley Clark and Senator John Edwards, who both got 12 per cent and were, in fact, in a two-way split decision for third place, I’d resent some single-digit loser like Lieberman trying to muscle in. He’s going Joe-where, he’s headed for Joe-blivion.

-snip-

[M. Thatcher]

Anyone who excerpts Steyn deserves banishment.

[Lurker]

"But her husband has 57 varieties of his position on Iraq, and Democratic voters seem to have figured that one or other of them is likely to be more politically viable than Dean’s."

Now that's funny.

L

[hattend]

Thanks

BTTT

[spodefly]

Steyn bump!

[quidnunc]

M. Thatcher wrote: Anyone who excerpts Steyn deserves banishment.

Anyone who doesn't excerpt copyrighted material risks bankrupcy.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Nonstatist]

If Kerry clobbers Edwards in South Carolina next week, there’s no way to annul.

Aint that the truth!! Steyn is great, he's got that guy down perfectly... More of a sleeping pill than the real thing!

[carton253]

Mark Steyn is a national treasure...

[buwaya]

You know, I don't think this complaint has much substance, funny as it is. An awful lot of exceptional, if somewhat sleazy, statesmen have risen doing things like this.

I'm thinking for instance of the Duke of Marlborough, who used the fact that his sister was the King's mistress to get his start. He was still great, and he was in fact principally responsible for making Britain a world power, regardless of his corruption.

[MeekOneGOP]

Great article. Thanks for posting the full text.

That leaves John Kerry, the tall, gaunt, dozy Massachusetts blueblood I’d written off ever since last summer when he came to the Barge Inn in Woodsville and, in the strangest political entrance I’ve ever seen, walked through the door to cheers and flags and popping cameras and worked his way through the crowd pressing the flesh until he got to the men’s room, whereupon he went in, leaving the clapping and waving to just sort of peter out as we waited for him to emerge.

LOL !

[Fester Chugabrew]

Theresa Heinz . . . representative of powerful condiment interests . . .

LOL!

[Gritty]

Listen, quidnunc, if you won't be gentlemanly enough to post the entire "Steyn column" than kindly leave the privilege to somebody who will!

[January24th]

No one's going to fault the D.of M. because his sister slept with the king. Heck, what a windfall! And, in contrast to Kerry's lap-dog existence, the Duke's familial relationship with his sister was none of his doing. A wife, however, is carefully sought out. (or should be!)

However, if the Duke manipulated his sister into a relationship with the king, with his own political future in mind, then he would be on par with Kerry...because then he would be pro-actively using the girl for his own gain.

[M. Thatcher]

What are you doing here, then, ace? You shouldn't lend your precious imprimatur to a site that deserves bankruptcy.

[quidnunc]

Kwitcherbellyakin.

If you don't like it you can just ignore my threads and find your own articles.

[M. Thatcher]

This unecessary excerpting is getting ridiculous.

see his post 25. Sheesh.

[COBOL2Java]

This unecessary excerpting is getting ridiculous.

Agreed. Whenever I see the "excerpted" link and it's not the Washington Compost or the LA Slimes (or one of its hoary minions) I scroll past the initial posts looking for the complete text.

[kingu]

Thank you for the post! I enjoyed clicking the link and ensuring that the Spectator knows that one more Stein fan came from FreeRepublic.com.

[kingu]

A Steyn fan who can't spell Steyn's name. *sigh*

[Gritty]

Anyone who doesn't excerpt copyrighted material risks bankrupcy.

All I can say is, you must be a little old lady who gets her kicks out of annoying everybody.

If you follow Jim's Rules, there should be no problem.