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A full house: Campaign Poker
The metaphors of horse races and sporting to describe the run for the White House are so tired as to make one want to puke. A far more useful analogy of the current campaign is poker. The best campaign cardgame is Texas No Limit Hold-em. It takes 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master....
The players are the candidates, the chips are the dollars available. The cards are the voters.
There are two tables. George's and the Democrats. The finest example of this point is the current administration, who bluffed their way into the White House. In Campaign poker the cards are important, but the size of your stack, how well you can bet and bluff is a far more important factor in determining if you can go the distance and win all the chips at the last table. One of the things that you can do is raise the other players past the chips they have causing them to fold and loosing the game. This is the current Bush Strategy. George Bush has the most chips on his table and is waiting for the winner of the Democrat's table.
Right now, the first hand is over. Kerry won this hand, Dean came in third, Gephart had the loosing hand and is out of the game. Among the Democrats Dean has the big stack. He has the most money, but the people behind him do not understand how to use this power. Having the most chips is no guarantee of winning the game. To be able to win one must have good cards and play them well.
Remember I said that the cards were the voters. The Deaniacs carpeted Iowa, but like a lot of other things they missed the the voters. Running around with www.deanforamerica.com T-Shirts and telling folks without an internet connection about all the wonderful stuff on the website is as useful as explaining Fucsia to the Blind.
· Read the whole thing: we’re even saddened to learn of the deaths of old enemies
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