Democratic Presidential:
Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) trounced Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), sweeping through Super Tuesday and knocking his final real contender out of the race.
1) Kerry beat Edwards in all nine states, scoring a majority and a big margin of victory in eight of ten. In Georgia, Kerry's victory was smaller, but healthy. In Vermont, where Edwards was not on the ballot, lame-duck candidate former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean won.
2) Kerry hasn't quite mathematically clinched the nomination, but even with a serious shift in momentum, it would border on impossible for anyone to make a comeback.
3) Edwards dropped out, immediately fueling speculation on whether he will be Kerry's running mate. Kerry dedicated some of his victory speech to praising the "eloquent" Southerner. Edwards is on the short list of Vice President picks, but the decision is not made.
4) Kerry was playing on more comfortable turf than he has to date. Kerry is the perfect fit for Democrats in Massachusetts, California, New York and Maryland. Even without his momentum, he would have done well on Super Tuesday.
5) But the momentum was irresistible. Kerry's win in Iowa, together with Dean's self-destruction, made the race Kerry's to lose. Kerry was the most careful politician in the field, and so a running start for him was almost as good as the nomination. Since Iowa, the only question mark was whether some act of God would intervene to stop the frontrunner.
6) Being the presumptive nominee early on is a boon to Kerry, especially because it appears that he, unlike former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, had to work for the nomination. Expect yet another (temporary) Kerry spike in the polls. The relatively cordial tone of the primary battle is also helpful to Kerry.
7) Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) and Rev. Al Sharpton remain in the race in order to make a point.
California Senate:
Former Sec. Of State Bill Jones (R.) easily knocked off conservative former state Rep. Howard Kaloogian (R.), former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin and former Los Altos Hills Mayor Toni Casey (R.) in the Senate Primary.
Jones, the only Republican to have won a state-wide majority in a decade, goes toe-to-toe with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.) in November. Boxer starts as a strong favorite, but California politics is volatile these days.
The defeat of Kaloogian represents a loss for the state party's vocal conservative wing. But Jones, barring a vote for a tax hike once, is no liberal.
California-46:
Former Rep. Bob Dornan (R.) lost embarrassingly to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.) in his fourth political loss in the past 15 years. Rohrabacher had no kind words for Dornan, calling him a "self-indulgent, arrogant bigot."
Dornan tried to focus on Rohrabacher's accepting contributions from people suspected of laundering money for terrorist groups. Unlike the primary challenges to Democratic congressmen with similar stories last cycle, Dornan was unable to attract national Jewish money.
Trade:
President Bush continues to use trade to advance his realignment of American diplomacy. This entails strengthening Western Hemisphere relations while paying relatively little heed to traditional allies in Western Europe.
1) Congressional Republicans and Democrats are not exactly racing to eliminate a special tax break for exporters known as the Extraterritorial Income Exclusion (ETI), the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled ETI an illegal export subsidy, and granted the European Union (EU) the right to impose up to $4 billion per year in retaliatory tariffs.
2) The EU has made it clear it intends beginning March 1 to impose 5% levies on select U.S. products and will raise the tariffs by one percentage point every month until ETI is fixed.
3) The apparent lack of concern by Congress, and the industries that lobby it, is due to the weakness of the threatened tariffs. Europe has been threatening action for months without doing anything. The original list of goods targeted for tariffs was amended because they would drive up prices too much for European consumers. In short, Europe simply cannot afford to disrupt trade, and the U.S. knows that. Now, as always, the U.S. has the upper hand.
4) The weak dollar is a boon to exporters, making them not too worried about the imminent tariffs. Also, the poverty of Europe means exports to Europe have become a less important part of our economy.
5) Lawmakers want to make the ETI repeal the vehicle for this year's tax cut. The administration wants to cut corporate taxes, and it could structure the cuts to offset the tax hike that ETI repeal will represent to many exporters.
