What to Say on Primary Day
552176
Rhetoric Watch: Win, lose, or come close  -  the outcome will determine which of the three speeches the candidates resort to
373900
So many states, so little time. There are only so many hours in the day and so many miles in even the fastest airplane, so presidential candidates are scrambling to find ways to boost their profile in the many states they'll have to skip or brush lightly before next Tuesday's virtual national primary.
308836
With caucus and primary season right around the corner, right now is a perfect time to watch a time honored ritual among presidential hopefuls: Lowering expectations.  The idea is that in the current spin-crazy campaign season, if a candidate can lower expectations enough, than any result will be a positive for their campaign.  Lets take a look at some examples from this campaign and see who is doing the best job of it.
463705
On the busiest primary day of the season, voters picked candidates with a variety of political leanings, giving no clear hint of what November will bring. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trounced her Democratic primary opponent. Moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island defeated a conservative challenger. In Arizona, conservative Randy Graf won the GOP nomination for the House.
666584
Most presidential candidates are trying to get people to say "yes." Republican Sen. John McCain will be encouraging South Carolina students to say "no." The Arizona lawmaker is scheduled to speak Sunday night to about 1,500 middle and high school students about abstaining from premarital sex. Abstinence and abortion loom large as issues in this first-in-the-South primary state in the heart of the Bible Belt.
245189
Before:  Hey, we need to talk!  Don't you remember me?  From school?  Well I sure remember you!  Look, let me buy you a coffee.  Surely you have a few minutes to chat.  A lot has happened  since those days.
264446
Once Tuesdayâs voting is behind them, the candidates can look forward to a comparatively relaxed primary and caucus schedule ahead.
186690
Some of the top contests among Tuesday's primary elections:
765634
Clinton references rivals' "applause lines" on standing up to special interests ... Turning out voters is the priority in final three days before Iowa votes ... McCain makes last-week push into New Hampshire ... Romney focuses on his candidacy, not his rivals in new ad
220690
Clinton picks up emotional endorsements from black women in SC ... Obama looks to appeal to women ahead of SC primary ... Republican officials: Florida Sen. Mel Martinez to endorse McCain ... Edwards aims at Clinton-Obama fight on trail and in ads ... Huckabee focuses on widening Interstate 95 ... Kucinich quits presidential race ... Romney says his business background better qualifies him to fix the economy
73379
TIME photographers take an exclusive look at the campaigns on the biggest primary day of the year
381538
To hear John McCain talk, you'd think he already was the Republican nominee. "The first thing we've got to do after Tuesday is unite this party," he says repeatedly these days Â as if the 21 states holding caucuses and primaries this week are simply a formality.
502043
Lose the brainy Washington-speak. Expand the playing field to states President Bush captured. Baby-sit for moms who want to get involved in politics. Democratic activists, gathering for the first time after last month's election losses, offered plenty of ideas for how the party can get back to its winning ways.
625879
Here&#39;s a primer on which candidate would likely be better for voters concerned about jobs, energy costs, real estate, taxes... Still undecided about who to vote for on Nov. 2? One way to decide is to simply vote your pocketbook.
658541
They talk about them all the time on the news shows, every day the major Presidential candidates have conference calls with reporters. It seems much of the real action in the campaign happens here, but we (voters, taxpayers, citizens)  have no access. I listened to an MP3 of one of the calls, with the chief strategist and communications director of the Clinton campaign. It was fascinating, gave me a picture of how the press and the candidates relate that I had never seen before.  Now I want more -- I want it all!  I've been asking around, where can I get MP3s of all the conference calls, the day they happen, in full, not spun through the reporters, and so far have come up with nothing. So I'm bringing this issue to as many people as I can think of who might either know how I can get them, or apply pressure to one or more news organizations to make them public. I'd of course like to see them made available as an RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures, so it will be accessible to everyone with a podcast client. I would help create this, even host the feed if necessary. Anyone at a major media organization would have access to this content. I'm pretty sure it's all on the record. Any help would be much appreciated.
202126
Next stop: Florida primary on Tuesday, Jan. 29
89717
You can do a pretty good job of following the politics leading up to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary from television in rain-soaked California. CNN has an excellent program running all afternoon called The Ballot Bowl. The format is really simple. They have cameras following the candidates and they're broadcasting their town hall stump speeches. They're authentic, based on my experience in the campaign for the 2004 New Hampshire primary. The NY Times has an excellent resource (no RSS feed apparently) that lists the candidates' schedules. It's also possible to import the schedule into Google Calendar as an overlay. ABCNews is hosting two 90-minute debates, one for each party, tonight starting at 4PM Pacific. Tomorrow Fox News is hosting a controversial Republican debate, which the Republican Party has withdrawn from because they won't let Ron Paul participate. He's polling third among the Republican candidates in New Hampshire. For once the Republicans got it right.  In the very limited time betw Iowa and New Hampshire there's a lot of action and drama. Romney all of a sudden is shamlessly the candidate for change. There was an Ahmadinejad moment when I thought for sure he was doing parody, but he was serious. He's changed his attire, but his pitch is still the sleazy VP-Sales who got promoted to CEO. Change change change, I can change too, just watch. Please die now. I don't think anyone stands for Romney.  Giuliani and Thompson are still nowhere to be seen. Edwards is doing a good job of keeping the game on. McCain is earnest and honest, but he's old and small and tired.  Obama has the aura of a front-runner and Hillary seems to believe that if only Iraq were still the big issue she would be where Obama is. Even so, according to recent polls she's likely to win New Hampshire. A lot of my friends on Twitter dismiss Huckabee, and to be clear, I could not vote for a Republican this year, no matter who their candidate is, but he is a fantastic American personality. Elections are all about feelings, not policies or positions or even records as the pundits insist. Who you vote for is a function of how you feel about the country and the world in relation to yourself. The candidate who comes closest to validating your feelings is the person you vote for. I think we'll tire of Obama quickly, and we're already tired of HIllary. I think the rational choice for each party, although many disagree, is Edwards and Huckabee because each of them tap into the well of frustration Americans feel about everything. But my guess, which will probably certainly turn out wrong, is that the Dems will nominate Obama and the Reps will nominate Huckabee, and Huck will win.  PS: After writing this, I wonder if George Lakoff would agree. I think I've just used a very Lakoffish process, unwittingly.  PPS: I went to UW-Madison. Bucky Badger is the school mascot. Our favorite cheer and T-shirt said Fuck em Bucky! It occurred to me the same slogan would work for Huckabee. PPPS: Obama? Yo mama!