Josh Benson

Andrew Rice sends in this email about what the primaries might look like in 2008:

You know, I realize it's way early to even be thinking about this, but it occurred to me yesterday morning when I was reading about California moving its primary up that one possible outcome of all this frontloading could be the return of another one of those mothballed political traditions, the brokered political convention. In years past, the way it played out is that the eventual nominee builds some momentum in early contests, wins big on Super Tuesday, and then runs the table as the rest of his contenders drop out (or are hounded out by calls for party unity).

But if big delegate states like California and New York move ahead in the calendar, there might not be time for this shaking-out process to occur. It'd effectively be a national primary, taking place over the course of a couple weeks, and you could certainly imagine a scenario where Edwards takes the south, Hillary wins New York and the northeast, and Obama wins Illinois and California --in other words, a return to the kind of fractured regional politics that made the smoke-filled rooms of the old conventions such interesting places to be.

It'd be cool for journalists, but maybe a nightmare for the parties. Imagine the prior scenario -- no one has a majority of regional delegates, so let's say two candidates-- Obama-Edwards? Edwards-Obama? -- get together in an anyone-but-Hillary coalition. But the math is not so simple because way back in the 1970s the Democratic Party instituted a "superdelegate" system, as a check on insurgency campaigns. As you know, most of the superdelegates are party elders--the very sort of people who might be beholden in some way or another to the Clinton machine. So all of a sudden, you have candidates spending the spring courting the likes of Tony Coelho. Journalists everywhere have to start familiarizing themselves with the arcana of delegate selection. The Huffington Post starts a "Draft Gore" campaign. It's chaos--and everyone realizes that the nomination process, though it pretends to be democratic, is really a relic of the party boss era.

So there you have it, my off-the-wall prediction for 2008: The new primary process is going to replace the electoral college as everyone's least favorite anachronism.

On to Denver!

-- Josh Benson

Greetings Politicker readers!

So as Josh Benson wrote, he and the rest of the usual gang are taking the next week off. They've left me with the keys to this mean machine. At present, I'm still figuring out how to work the clutch. Please bear with me if I grind the gears a bit.

Luckily, it's the week before Christmas, so it's bound to be a nice, easy, indictment-free week. Oh... rats. Oh... RATS!

Who am I? I am a former reporter for the Observer, where I covered real estate development and politics and wrote many prescient articles, such as the August 20, 2001 cover story: "Who's Hot in the Mayor's Race? Lonely Peter Vallone!" What have I been doing lately? I am writing a book about a place where politics is a form of warfare, fought between shifting coalitions of religions and tribes, and laden with intrigue and corruption--that is, Uganda. How did I end up doing this job over Christmas? The same way I lost my dad's Oldsmobile: I bet on the Phillies.

So, let's have a fun the Yuletide week. If you have anything to tell me, anonymously or otherwise, please just stuff it in my stocking at andrewrice75@yahoo.com, or post a comment below. I'll be waiting with nervous anticipation.

--Andrew Rice

This must be a first.

RNN interviewed their own news director about "new media" things like blogs and YouTube and, to complete the incestuous circle, and posted the clip on YouTube.

Tomorrow, I'll interview my editor, Josh Benson, about what he thinks me writing about this. --Azi Paybarah

Suggestive banter! Partial nudity! And, um, a narrated subway ride!

All on Mark Green's new video blog.

-- Josh Benson

Jason Horowitz reports on John McCain's big week in New York.

Observer Classics features Josh Benson on Al Gore.

Joe Conason doesn't think anyone is laughing at Al Gore anymore.

Julia Gorin doesn't believe the right should embrace Hillary.

Anna Schneider-Mayerson reports on Scooter Libby's difficult defense.

Jason Moring rounds up political self-help books for Democrats.

Michael Calderone and Tom McGeveran write about the Tower of Mike.  read more »

In the editorials: the Pataki legacy.

It's been fun and exhausting quarterbacking the Politicker, and, well, the results are for you to judge.

But the good news for us and for you is that we now have sealed the deal on our new political editor: Josh Benson of The New York Times, formerly of The New York Observer.

You may know him from The New York Times' New Jersey desk, where his first week had him criss-crossing the state in the wake of Jim McGreevey's resignation; he also helped to launch the Times blog Newark '06. Those of you over 25 will also remember him as the Observer's political reporter--along with Greg Sargent--from 1998 to 2004. (How to characterize those years? Late Giuliani? Late Clinton and early Bush? Post-D'Amato? Mid-Nadler?) Among other things, Josh covered a couple of political conventions for us and Hillary R. Clinton's 2000 Senate election.

We won't have him till after Cory Booker's coronation as the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, which he plans to see through at The New York Times.

On that happy day, I'll hang up my Politicker log-on. Expect to see Josh writing here, as well as occasionally in the print newspaper, as well as more from Jason Horowitz and Nicole Brydson; there will be other new names contributing as well, TBA.

- Tom McGeveran

The Times launched a Newark Mayor’s race blog last week, which should be interesting for a handful of reasons. First on the merits, because the people writing it, including ex-Observerite Josh Benson, are good reporters; and what’s shaping up as a James-Booker rematch could be fascinating.

But it also raises a couple of interesting questions. First, does the cachet of the New York Times bring an automatic audience to a blog? My guess is no, but we’ll see. (At least it isn’t walled off behind TimesSelect, like Chris Suellentrop’s clever but inaccessible Opinionator.)

Second, is blend of arch blogging and on-one-hand-on-the-other-hand reporting that most newspaper reporters (including this one) are used to suitable for the Newark contest? I struggle to separate sensibility from opinion on this site, and occasionally fail. But this is in the relatively calm, well-scrutinized waters of New York politics. James, in the last race, behaved like an incredible thug, throwing around flat lies and racial slurs and employing his police department to political ends. That’s the foreground to this year’s election. Can you say that on a New York Times blog? Can you not?

The following is an actual announcement made over the loudspeakers of Plainview–Old Bethpage High  read more »