Citizen Brand

The nerve of those voters

All of us here at Citizen Brand - that would be me I guess - have to be willing to admit when we may have gotten ahead of ourselves.  But wait, I don't think we did.  Barack Obama still looks like the real thing from this vantage point.  So what exactly happened in New Hampshire the other night?

What happened was nothing more than what had been predicted to happen for a few weeks - Hillary Clinton would win New Hampshire and so likely would John McCain.  And that is exactly what happened when the voters spoke.  It is what happened between Iowa and New Hampshire among the media; the pollsters; the pundits; and the consultants that needs to be questioned. 

Think about it.  Two of the least ethnically diverse and not exactly wildly liberal states in the nation have said an African American or a woman should be President of the United States.  Forget the horse race the media foists on us every four years and focus on what has happened in the first two official contests of the 2008 Presidential election.  On the other side of the aisle, Republican voters have given the nod to a true evangelical and the straight talking, shoot from the hip, Vietnam POW.  Obama, Clinton, Huckabee and McCain are not the kind of candidates we are used to seeing in the race for the White House.

Lost in the shuffle right now are the two guys who we have been conditioned to seeing in the race - John Edwards and Mitt Romney.  Two white guys with good hair and good talking points.  Either one of these guys might make a good president.  But after seven years of the gang that can't shoot straight with us, the USA is ready for a big change.  And the differences on display for us with the Obama, Clinton, Huckabee and McCain variety hour have a little something for everyone.

Thus we have seen a different winner in every contest thus far.  (Wyoming GOP went for Romney by the way.)  Which brings us back to those pesky voters.  In 2008, I believe the more the media and the pollsters try to tell us what they think is going to happen, the less likely it is to happen.  If New Hampshire taught us anything, it may have taught us to wait for the votes to be counted and then see who the winners will be.

Voters are on to the exit pollsters.  After waiting 45 minutes to cast a secret ballot, the last thing any right thinking person should do is tell a complete stranger how they voted and why.  Let 2008 be the death of the exit polls.  Good riddance.

On to Nevada, South Carolina and 20 or so other states by February 5.  This is fun.  And it is important.

Whitlock on tour

Don Imus is off the air and Kansas City's Jason Whitlock seems to have taken his place.  He's everywhere but his message is a compelling one.

The Don Imus affair

Don Imus was wrong to say what he said.  The Rutger's womens basketball team is right to meet with him and start a conversation.  We need more of that around the issue of racism in America.  It still exists and we all know it.  We just don't want to talk about it.

As Michael Corleone said in "The Godfather" -- we are all part of the same hypocrisy.  Media pundit Jeff Greenfield hit the nail on the head when he appeared on The Don Imus Show on Tuesday morning.  Greenfield said he and everyone else who ever appeared on the Imus show never once stopped to say that perhaps the comedy on the program went over the edge.  Greenfield said his fellow pundits and the big time politicians love the Imus show because they have a chance to do long form interviews they can't do anywhere else.  Now, of course some of those same people are lashing out at Imus for what he said.

Regardless of our ethnicity, religion or any other label we can put on people, we all have been guilty of either making a bad comment about someone or sitting by quietly while others make comments.  That is the hypocrisy we all have to own up to.

There is another side to this whole incident.  And I will turn to Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock to discuss it.  Please read this column.  It is worth the time.