Pie in the Sky?

In the Jan 28 issue of the Nation magazine, Columbia Law Professor Patricia Williams writes an excellent analysis/indictment of our image-obsessed national political psyche, daring us to rise above the incessant, reductive, and ultimately degrading spin this election season. The title of her piece, "American Pie", however, betrays the persistently challenging, perhaps even impossible, nature of that goal:

"I hope that we Americans can resist the vicious vacuity of politics at the level of whether Tara Reid has hit 'scarily skinny.' We will have enough to deal with as the right's Rovian spinmeisters kick into action, wrapping both Obama and Clinton in sticky webs of hybridized stereotypes. She will be too 'mannish,' he too 'boyish.' She'll be too familiar, he too foreign. He'll be a wimp, she'll be a pimp. Yet this is an extraordinary moment in American history--we have our first serious black and female presidential candidates. It is my audacious little hope that the two of them, in whatever order, will become running mates by November. They must not fall prey to those who would love to see them wound each other before then, in the scramble to be top dog."

Poll Finds G.O.P. Field Isn’t Touching Voters

A little over three weeks before the primaries begin, the GOP nom is still very much up for grabs and opportunities seem to abound for the Dems:

From the New York Times - U.S. / Politics

Poll Finds G.O.P. Field Isn’t Touching Voters
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE
Published: December 11, 2007

Mike Huckabee is now locked in a tight three-way contest nationally, but most Republican voters say they haven’t made a final choice, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.