This week, President Barack Obama and GOP frontlagger Mitt Romney are both losers. That's what winning does in the crazy world of politics.
Romney loses because of his big wins on Super Tuesday, capped by a narrow, weak sister victory in Ohio. The Los Angeles Times headline: "Romney fails to deliver knock-out blow."
After the primary, a Romney campaign advisor indicated Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul aren't in this way, that only "an act of God" can stop Mitt now.
For the party and the public, Romney's slog to the nomination is as exciting at the card in Monopoly where you win second prize at a beauty contest. Or, as the National Review's Rich Lowry put it, Romney is the candidate of "eh."
And this was a good week for Mitt.
As for Obama, he's peaking too soon.
You cannot have your comeback in March. He gave a presidential press conference where he got to play the Commander-in-Chief card, his numbers are up, and the news cycle has been dominated by Rush Limbaugh's troubles. How bad was Limbaugh's week? Don Imus — yes, Don Imus — called him an "insincere pig" and a "pill-popping pinhead." Truth, of course, is a defense against libel.
Obama also appears to be surviving the posthumous Breitbart "scandal" video showing shockingly that the president was an articulate advocate of diversity and civil debate at Harvard in the '90s, and who didn't need a Teleprompter. What a snob.
Still, if Obama bounces back now, it leaves too much time for the media to gin-up the Comeback Kid meme for Romney later on. And it's generally better to have the last comeback so you go into election day with mo'. So, will Obama have time for a double comeback before election day? (A double comeback trumps double secret probation, by the way.)
A good week for Obama, but the timing is bad in terms of the looong game.
On the local front, losers everywhere.
Washington state citizens are losers because of the loss of Norm Dicks, who announced he is not running for re-election after 18 terms (not years, terms!). David Brewster had a great piece of analysis of what the loss means for the state, and it is huge. End of an era. You do not get old-growth politicians overnight, and we've lost the biggest Doug Fir in the woods.
We can start, though. Maybe Denny Heck in the new 10th District has Dicks potential.
The scramble is on among Democrats for Dicks' seat (here's the new 6th District), and happily we now know that Dennis Kucinich will not be in the mix for Dicks' seat or any other in the state, at least not until Yelm is its own district. The fact that Kucinich is not coming makes the state's media big losers because every single one of us wanted to cover that debacle.
More losers: Senate Democrats in Olympia who lost the budget initiative and were road-killed by three in their own party who sided with the Republicans on the ugly budget. A special session (ugh) is now in the offing. Worse for the Democrats, there are signs that at the state level, things are going the GOP's way. One of the Dem defectors was Eastside Sen. Rodney Tom, who used to be a Republican. In fact, a few years ago, Republicans were flipping over to the D's, and you have to wonder, is the tide turning? Are D's losing the fiscal case?
Eastside Rep. Deb Eddy, a moderate Dem, also announced she's just getting out of Oly. Should we be concerned about the center not holding?
There will be payback, of course. Another senate Democrat defector, Jim Kastama, was running for Secretary of State. He's now going to be Secretary of Squat.
Winner: The GOP coup brought Pam Roach back in from the cold, where she'd been banished from the caucus. It's kind of like letting General Zod out of the Phantom Zone!
Continuing bad news for Dem centrists: The drip, drip, drip of Aaron Reardon acid eating away at Snohomish County's once great hope for gubernatorial glory. The Herald of Everett reports on Reardon's history of stonewalling, dodging, and dare we say covering up? Forget the affair, did he really filch bike helmets meant for adopted kids?
In other bits:
Winner: Newt Gingrich seems to be leading for President of the Confederacy.
Palin voted for "the cheerful one."
Joe the Plumber won his primary and is running for Kucinich's old seat.
And Meat Loaf says his being tagged a Republican has hurt his career, stunning everyone. Meat Loaf has politics? A career?
Knute Berger discusses the news of the week on a KUOW Weekday roundtable led by KUOW's Steve Scher at 10 a.m. on Fridays. Hear it at KUOW 94.9 FM or online.
