I don’t suppose it’s everyone’s idea of heaven, but it works for me: I had breakfast today with Lawrence O’Donnell, he of MSNBC–The West Wing—Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan fame, and for nearly two hours, he regaled me with tales of politics and punditry. Some of his views (at, some of the ones I can share): Sarah Palin did a fine job managing the file cards her handlers gave her during the debate; Hillary Clinton never had a chance of winning because her negative rating (at 45%) was prohibitively high (Hugh Carey abandoned hopes for reelection in 1982 because his negatives got to 35%); that he predicted that Obama would win the nomination because Hillary’s numbers were so high and that McCain would win the GOP nomination because they didn’t have anybody else; that Obama went a long way towards winning the nomination by spending a quiet, patient year not being Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; that nobody can any longer afford a trial run at the presidency because we’ve become a people that hates losers; that most political statements have about eight words of content, and that people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama succeed because they do a good job of spinning 300 words of material around those eight words of content and we think they’re brilliant, and that George W. Bush does a losuy job so we think he’s no good, but the amount of content is the same; that few politicians and pundits actually know anything; that Hillary actually packed in about 33 words of content; that by 1004, the House Democrats had so disdainfully treated the House Republicans that when Newt Gingrich “surprised himself” and led the Republicans to victory in the House, they had no idea how to govern the House and its committees; and that there are some years when one party or another just cannot win no matter what they do, and this year, the Republicans just cannot win. Thanks, Lawrence–it was a pleasure.
