Marc Comtois

GOP Primary: Where We Are, What’s Coming

By Marc Comtois | January 22, 2008 |

First things first, here is the current GOP delegate count according to RealClearPolitics: “Super Tuesday” is February 5, but there are two primaries before then: Florida and Maine. Florida is so important because it is a winner take all contest with 57 delegates up for grabs (it actually has more, but the GOP has penalized…

Sen. Reed Suffering from Fonzi Syndrome*

By Marc Comtois | January 19, 2008 |

Senator Jack Reed is in Iraq assessing the situation. While revising his earlier view of the surge strategy — too small and too gradual to work, he said when Mr. Bush proposed it last January — Reed said he stands by his prescription for the path ahead in Iraq: a U.S. declaration of policy that…

Surveying the Punditry on the GOP Prez Potentials

By Marc Comtois | January 18, 2008 |

According to various (fellow?) nattering nabobs….Fred Thompson is either callous or thoughtful…and he may be surging in South Carolina. However, SC will probably go to Scoop Jackson Democrat John McCain or the limited Mike Huckabee. Questions remain: can Romney catch on? Did Rudy miscalculate? One thing is for sure, we’ll probably have to wait until…

Is There More to this Providence Fruit Building Thing?

By Marc Comtois | January 17, 2008 |

As an admitted antiquarian, I’ve never met an old building I didn’t think should be preserved and re-used. But that’s just me and I recognize that–beauty being in the eye of beholder–not everyone thinks that the Providence Fruit and Produce Company Warehouse (more here) was worth preserving, restoring or reconfiguring. OK, fine. But what troubled…

Breaking Through the Media Meme on GOP “Disarray”

By Marc Comtois | January 16, 2008 |

Ian has linked to a typical MSM piece that purports to show that the GOP is in disarray because there have been 3 different winners in the caucus/primaries so far. It’s a common theme. My gut reaction is that–contra the Democrats–Republicans are fighting over ideas, not identity, and that takes some figuring out. But a…

Obama and Clinton Can’t Escape Identity Politics

By Marc Comtois | January 15, 2008 |

David Brooks says it better than I did: Both Clinton and Obama have eagerly donned the mantle of identity politics. A Clinton victory wouldn’t just be a victory for one woman, it would be a victory for little girls everywhere. An Obama victory would be about completing the dream, keeping the dream alive, and so…

Dems are Split on President

By Marc Comtois | January 14, 2008 |

Maybe it was inevitable? Somewhat surprisingly, as the campaign has tightened, racial tensions have bubbled to the surface with the two camps exchanging accusations. Those tensions are reflected in this week’s polling data. Overall, Clinton and Obama are close nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. But, among white voters, Clinton leads 41%…

Education Week Survey – RI Results

By Marc Comtois | January 10, 2008 |

Dan Yorke reminded me about this story in today’s ProJo: Rhode Island has received mixed grades on the quality of its public education system, scoring poorly in two critical areas: student achievement and efforts to improve teacher quality, according to a national education magazine. Education Week’s “Quality Counts 2008” report card gave Rhode Island D’s…

Alzheimer’s Research Breakthrough and the RI Economy

By Marc Comtois | January 10, 2008 |

Take this with a grain of salt–it’s early research after all–but there may have been a substantial breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research: A drug used for arthritis can reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s “in minutes”. It appears to tackle one of the main features of the disease – inflammation in the brain. The drug, called Enbrel,…

Chris Mathews Thinks New England Democrats are Racists

By Marc Comtois | January 10, 2008 |

We close-minded, xenophobic, mouth-breathing christianists are used to being called racists. I wonder how our fellow New Englanders of the “progressive” variety feel when the talking heads at MSNBC lump them in with us simply because they voted for Hillary over Obama in New Hampshire? (via Michael Graham) JOE SCARBOROUGH: What the hell happened in…