Another One Bites The Dust

Former New York Governor George Pataki has dropped out of the race, leaving 12 declared candidates. Pataki was one of those 'Who are you and why, exactly, are you running for President" candidates, although the Washington Post had some fun pointing out that for one brief moment last summer, the former governor was tied with The Donald at 3% in national polling. (Read it here.) 

I've updated my lists.   

Declared (and still in the race) GOP Candidates, in order of their official announcement

1. Ted Cruz (March 23) 
2. Rand Paul (April 7)
3. Marco Rubio (April 14)
4. Dr. Ben Carson (May 3) 
5. Carly Fiorina (May 4) 
6. Mike Huckabee (May 5) 
7. Rick Santorum (May 27)
8. Jeb Bush (June 15)
9. Donald Trump (June 16) 
10. Chris Christie (June 30)
11. John Kasich (July 21) 
12. Jim Gilmore (July 30) 

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)
Rick Snyder (May 7)
John Bolton (May 14) 

Mike Pence (May 20) 

Bob Ehrlich (August 4)

You're Fired!: Candidates Who Have Dropped Out
Rick Perry (June 4 - Sept. 11)
Scott Walker (July 13 - Sept. 21)
Bobby Jindal (June 24 - November 17)
Lindsey Graham (June 1 - December 21)
George Pataki (May 28 - December 29)

Days until Election Day: 313

Catching Up

Happy holidays to all! Let's catch up. First, the covers:

Issue dated December 28, 2015


Issue dated January 4, 2016


Nothing too exciting on either of these covers. Based on a promo I saw on Good Morning, America, the new cover this week should be the annual weight loss issue, almost certain to look very much like last year's issue:

Issue dated January 5, 2015


Will this issue also feature a sidebar story about 2016 Bachelor Ben Higgins? Almost certainly. Will there be a blurb about Bristol Palin's new baby? Possibly. She scored a sidebar story when her pregnancy was announced; now that she's given birth, and ex-fiancé Dakota Meyer ended the suspense and claimed paternity, People may figure it's time for an update. The story's getting some pretty wide coverage, including Gulf News ("Bristol Palin gives birth to daughter,") Arab News ("Bristol Palin gives birth to 2nd out-of-wedlock child") and the South China Morning Post ("Unmarried daughter of Sarah Palin gives birth to second child.")

We're also getting ever closer to the first actual votes in the presidential election. The Iowa caucuses are February 1, following by the New Hampshire primary on February 9, with a debate on January 28 to get everyone in the mood. The field has also shrunk a little, with Senator Lindsey Graham's withdrawal on December 21. That leaves us with 13 declared candidates, possibly as few as six of whom will be featured in the primetime debate on Jan. 28. (Selection will be based on a complicated mashup of polls.) Rand Paul is in a bit of a snit about that, saying that if he's not allowed in the main debate, he won't show his face in the so-called kiddie debate. Stay tuned, things are only going to get more interesting as we move into the actual election year of 2016!

Declared (and still in the race) GOP Candidates, in order of their official announcement

1. Ted Cruz (March 23) 
2. Rand Paul (April 7)
3. Marco Rubio (April 14)
4. Dr. Ben Carson (May 3) 
5. Carly Fiorina (May 4) 
6. Mike Huckabee (May 5) 
7. Rick Santorum (May 27)
8. George Pataki (May 28)
9. Jeb Bush (June 15)
10. Donald Trump (June 16) 
11. Chris Christie (June 30)
12. John Kasich (July 21) 
13. Jim Gilmore (July 30) 

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)
Rick Snyder (May 7)
John Bolton (May 14) 

Mike Pence (May 20) 

Bob Ehrlich (August 4)

You're Fired!: Candidates Who Have Dropped Out
Rick Perry (June 4 - Sept. 11)
Scott Walker (July 13 - Sept. 21)
Bobby Jindal (June 24-November 17)
Lindsey Graham (June 1-December 21)

Days until Election Day: 316

The View From Air Force One

Don't worry, this AF1 crew member isn't getting ready to jump, the plane is on the ground. He's just waiting for the airstairs so President Obama can disembark.

25 Most Intriguing

Issue dated December 21, 2015


It's People's annual year-end issue, with Amy Shumer on the cover. (Last year it was Angie, below.) The Kimye baby gets a tiny topline tease, apparently not yet intriguing enough for the montage of Intriguing People on the left.

Last year's 25 Most Intriguing

Sandra Bullock

Issue dated December 14, 2015


Not a whole lot to say about this one, except that it's pretty unusual that there are no sidebar stories or teases about anything. Will Saint West, aka the new Kimye baby, be on this week's cover? Probably.

Things Change

Jonathan Bernstein is a political scientist who blogs at Bloomberg News. Just over a year ago, on November 24, 2014, in a post titled "Here's the 2016 Republican Nominee," he said the next GOP nominee for president would probably come from this list of 12:

Jeb Bush
Chris Christie
Paul Ryan
Rick Perry
John Kasich
Mike Pence
Marco Rubio
Bobby Jindal
Scott Walker
Rob Portman
Mike Huckabee
Rick Santorum

A year later, what's the status of each of these candidates? Three stayed out of the race (Ryan, who's now the Speaker of the House, Pence and Portman,) three declared themselves in, didn't do well and have now declared themselves out (Perry, Jindal and Walker,) and six are still official candidates (Bush, Christie, Kasich, Rubio, Huckabee and Santorum.) 

In the article, Bernstein name-checks everyone from Rand Paul and Ted Cruz to John Thune to Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, with various reason why they're not "viable" nominees. 

Best sentence in the whole article: "Donald Trump won't be running either..." 

Things sure have changed in a year, haven't they? For reference, here's my list of who's currently in and out of the race: 

Declared (and still in the race) GOP Candidates, in order of their official announcement

1. Ted Cruz (March 23) 
2. Rand Paul (April 7)
3. Marco Rubio (April 14)
4. Dr. Ben Carson (May 3) 
5. Carly Fiorina (May 4) 
6. Mike Huckabee (May 5) 
7. Rick Santorum (May 27)
8. George Pataki (May 28)
9. Lindsey Graham (June 1) 
10. Jeb Bush (June 15)
11. Donald Trump (June 16) 
12. Chris Christie (June 30)
13. John Kasich (July 21) 
14. Jim Gilmore (July 30) 

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)
Rick Snyder (May 7)
John Bolton (May 14) 

Mike Pence (May 20) 

Bob Ehrlich (August 4)

You're Fired!: Candidates Who Have Dropped Out
Rick Perry (June 4 - Sept. 11)
Scott Walker (July 13 - Sept. 21)
Bobby Jindal (June 24-November 17)

Read the entire Bernstein post here, just remember it's from November of last year.  

A Strange Story Gets Stranger

Thursday morning update: Words geek that I am, as I wrote this post yesterday afternoon I considered the possibility that the identify of Bristol's baby daddy "has not been determined" wasn't really what reporter Wendy Griffith meant to say. Perhaps she really meant "hasn't been made public," and just got sloppy or doesn't have a good editor. I thought it was possible another correction might be coming, but I was wrong. As of this morning, nothing has changed. Apparently whoever pressured the website into changing the original language is fine with what's on there now. The father's identity has not been determined. Double yikes.  

Original post:
Who, exactly, is the father of Bristol Palin's baby? Does she even know? As background, here's what I wrote on June 28, shortly after she announced her pregnancy:

Who's the daddy? So far, Bristol hasn't said. Given that she was engaged to Meyer from mid-March to mid-May and was living with him in Kentucky during the weeks prior to the wedding, the obvious guess is that he is, but she didn't say so in her announcement. ("Although Dakota and I will not be getting married, we are committed to raising this child, blah, blah, blah...") Again, one might make the case that it's nobody's business but theirs, but once you've courted the spotlight and enjoyed the good parts of being famous, that spotlight can't be turned off at will. My guess is that all the tabloids are scrambling to get the full scoop and be the first to name the father, especially if it turns out it's not Meyer.

Speaking of Dakota Meyer, what's really going on here? I admit, I'm curious. A surprise engagement to be followed by a quickie wedding two months later seemed a little strange. Then in the week before the wedding it came out that Meyer had been married before and kept it secret, followed by news that the wedding was off. Bristol insisted at the time that she had known all about the first marriage but if so, why was the wedding cancelled? Then came the pregnancy announcement with its conspicuous lack of an identified father. The whole thing is just strange.

Yesterday, in an article previewing her upcoming interview with Sarah Palin, CBN News reporter Wendy Griffith wrote,  "...the tabloids went into overdrive when the long-awaited marriage of her [Sarah Palin's] 25-year-old daughter Bristol didn't happen, even though she's pregnant with her ex-fiancé's baby."

Her ex-fiancé's baby? Did Griffith just confirm what Sarah, Bristol and Meyer had all conspicuously declined to confirm? Not exactly. A close reading of the article makes clear that the reporter wasn't quoting Palin directly when she referred to the "ex-fiancé's baby;" most likely she had just assumed the most obvious possibility. As of this morning however, the article has been changed to read "the father's identity has not been determined." Yikes. 

The father's identity has not been determined? Really? Bristol really doesn't know who the father is? This story just keeps getting stranger and stranger. You can read the current version of the CBN story here; my original blog post about the pregnancy is here.