More Candidates

The list of official GOP presidential candidates is set to expand in the next few days, with Carly Fiorina and Dr. Ben Carson scheduled to announce on May 4 followed by Mike Huckabee on May 5. In addition, another name has bubbled back up in the last few days, that of Michigan governor Rick Snyder. Snyder's name was on some early lists last year and I had him on my potential candidates list until a couple of weeks ago, but during the "invisible primary" he had pretty much disappeared until last week and I had deleted him. Then on Saturday, former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman told reporters that Snyder was running. Snyder himself has walked that back a bit, saying on Monday that "It's something I'm watching," but since he's back in the news I'm adding him back on to my "possible" list.

Declared GOP Candidates
Ted Cruz (March 23) 
Rand Paul (April 7)
Marco Rubio (April 14)

Possible Republican Candidates
Jeb Bush
Dr. Ben Carson (announcing May 4) 
Chris Christie
Mike Huckabee (announcing May 5) 
Bobby Jindall
John Kasich
Mike Pence
Rick Perry
Rick Santorum
Rick Snyder (back to the list) 
Scott Walker

Late Adds on December 22
Carly Fiorina (announcing May 4) 
Lindsey Graham
George Pataki

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)

All of the above list-keeping is strictly concerned with the Republican race, simply because there's almost no suspense on the Democratic side, but it's looking like Hill might have some competition after all. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is an Independent, will announce tomorrow that he's running for the Democratic nomination. And Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland, rushed back from a trip to London in the wake of the Baltimore riots, a clue that he's planning to run as well. As an ex-gov, he has no official role in managing the crisis but as a potential presidential candidate he apparently believes that the optics of collecting money for paid speeches while Baltimore burns are not in his favor and he's right.   

Days to Election Day: 558  

Bruce Jenner, The Interview

Friday afternoon update
Daniel D'Addario, writing at time.com, isn't certain that Bruce is actually coming out this evening:

Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist and Keeping Up With the Kardashians TV personality, has been the subject of intense media scrutiny lately, thanks to a rumored gender transition. Jenner’s body, and the manner in which he styles it, were long the province of Internet comment sections before mainstream outlets picked up the story. On Friday night, ABC will provide a welcome conclusive answer, one way or the other, on the question of Jenner’s story, and the network has done an admirable job of presenting the news with good taste.

If ABC does indeed have the story of Jenner announcing a gender transition, it’s completely understandable that it wouldn’t want to scoop itself with an errant commercial that says too much. And so it is that the promotions for Diane Sawyer’s interview with Jenner have operated with an abundance of caution. In one recent ad for the Jenner/Sawyer special, we see Jenner saying fairly simple statements that could mean anything. On family: “Those are the only ones I’m concerned with.”

But that caution in avoiding giving away the revelation (or lack of it) that would make viewers tune in is also tasteful, and better yet, fair. A person’s coming-out may not be ideally framed on a two-hour news special, but it would certainly be decontextualized and ill-used in a 30-second promo. If, indeed, Jenner is coming out as transgender on ABC’s air, the outlet he chose has done him a service by allowing him to tell his story, in full, to the audience, without preceding “spoilers.”

Original Post:
Every now and then my blogger juices go dry and I'm off the blog for a while. That's been the case recently, for no specific reason, but the big Bruce Jenner interview is tonight and that's enough to get me back to Writing The World.

Based on everything that's been written in the last few months, I'm assuming that at some point during the two-hour show, Jenner will indeed confirm that he's transgender and transitioning to be a woman. (And, side note, what the heck are they going to talk about for two freakin' hours?) Still, I can't shake a tiny little morsel of doubt. Leading up to tonight's show, as far as I've seen, no one with authentic first-hand knowledge of Bruce's situation has definitively stated that he is transgender, or transitioning to being a woman. We've heard about Bruce's journey, how he's been waiting for this his whole life and how he doesn't want to hurt his family, all of which points to a transition without actually confirming that he's transitioning.

Even in a Washington Post article that uses "she" and "her" to refer to Bruce, writer Zoey Tur apparently feels the need to hedge, not stating definitively that Bruce is transgender, rather saying that "tabloid coverage has led us to believe that Jenner, a gold-medal Olympian turned reality-TV celebrity, will come out as a transgender woman in her interview with Diane Sawyer."  (Full article here.)

And Bruce probably will. The fuzzy language is probably nothing more than saving the big reveal for the actual show. I just wanted to get my slight doubts on record. 

Sandra Bullock

Issue dated May 4, 2015


It's the annual Most Beautiful issue, with Sandra Bullock as the cover girl. I read somewhere that at 50, Bullock is the oldest woman to be featured and if so, good for her. (Am I being insensitive if I point out that her face looks seriously photoshopped in this picture?) I'm also wondering if there's any significance to the fact that last year's cover choice, Lupito Nyong'o was one of the "50 Most Beautiful," whereas Bullock is identified as the "World's Most Beautiful Woman," at least for 2015.

Garth Brooks

Issue dated April 20, 2015


I just realized I never published last week's cover. Hi Garth!

Make. It. Stop

Issue dated April 27, 2015


Duggars again. Ick.

Two More

Two more candidates officially jumped into the presidential race in the last couple of days: Senator Marco Rubio on the Republican side, and no surprise, Hillary Clinton for the Democrats. (Hill is such a prohibitive favorite on the D side that there hasn't been much of interest to blog about, at least so far.)  

One of the most interesting things about Senator Rubio is that he's from Florida and prior to his official announcement conventional wisdom appeared to be that he wouldn't run against Jeb Bush, who is sometimes described as Rubio's "mentor" and is also from Florida. Apparently the two men aren't as close as once assumed and it will be fascinating to see them run against each other. I've seen a couple of articles suggesting that it's not yet Rubio's "turn" and that he's stronger as a potential VP candidate, although that can't happen if Jeb is the nominee. Why? Because of a bit of poli-geek trivia: an arcane law that restricts electors (members of the electoral college) from voting for two candidates from the same state. Huh? Here's how Snopes explains it: 

[C]onfusion arises when people misunderstand [the law] to govern the actions of candidates rather than electors. Nothing in the constitution bars presidential and vice-presidential candidates from the same state from running, being elected, or holding office together; it only bars the electors from their home state from voting for both of them. 

For example, suppose the Republican party nominated for their national ticket a pair of candidates who both hailed from the state of Nevada. If the Republican ticket received the most popular votes in that state in the general election, Nevada's electors could not cast ballots for both candidates — for at least one of the two offices (presumably vice-president), each of Nevada's electors would have to vote for someone off the ticket who was not a resident of Nevada. Republican electors in every state other than Nevada, however, would be free to vote for both candidates. Read the entire article here. 

So who's left to officially join the race? Dr. Ben Carson is announcing on May 4, presumably Jeb and probably Chris Christie, will do so within the next few weeks as well.  

What about the rest of the potential candidates? Jonathan Bernstein still has Bush, Rubio and Scott Walker as his top three, followed by seven "long shots:"

So who besides the top three has a long but realistic shot? I'm going to put Ted Cruz and Rand Paul aside, because no one similar to them has ever come close to a nomination in the modern era. 

But seven other candidates could take real advantage of a surge of positive publicity -- something that could happen to any candidate at any time (just ask Herman Cain). Here’s a rundown in more or less the order of their chances: 

1. John Kasich
2. Mike Huckabee
3. Mike Pence
4. Bobby Jindal
5. Rick Perry
6. Rick Santorum
7. Chris Christie

Why is Christie at the bottom? Bernstein again: 

Chris Christie is the last and least likely long shot. Republicans don’t like him now, but if that changed rapidly – and no one is better at creating political drama than the New Jersey governor -- the same party actors who were interested in him in 2013 would take a second look.

I've updated my list. 

Declared Candidates
Ted Cruz (March 23) 
Rand Paul (April 7)
Marco Rubio (April 14)

Possible Republican Candidates
Jeb Bush
Dr. Ben Carson
Chris Christie
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindall
John Kasich
Mike Pence
Rick Perry
Rick Santorum
Scott Walker

Late Adds on December 22
Carly Fiorina
Lindsey Graham
George Pataki

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)

Days until Election Day: 573

Rand Is Running

Today Kentucky Senator Rand Paul officially declared himself a candidate for president, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio is expeced to announce next week. What about you, Jeb? Scott? Chris? Dr. Ben? Who else is ready to take the official plunge?

I've updated my list.

Declared Candidates
Ted Cruz (March 23) 
Rand Paul (April 7)

Possible Republican Candidates
Jeb Bush
Dr. Ben Carson
Chris Christie
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindall
John Kasich
Mike Pence
Rick Perry
Marco Rubio
Rick Santorum
Scott Walker

Late Adds on December 22
Carly Fiorina
Lindsey Graham
George Pataki

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)

Days until Election Day: 580

Avril Lavigne

Issue dated April 13, 2015


Another surprise cover story. Angelina, the German co-pilot and the guy who left One Direction were my best guesses for the cover this week. It's beginning to look like Attractive Blonde Woman is a new cover category: In addition to Avril, Britney Spears, Bachelor winner Whitney Bischoff, Kelly Clarkson, almost blonde Jessa Duggar and Christina Aguilera have all been featured on the cover in recent weeks. Does anyone want to bet on when we might see a cover story about someone who's over 50?