Fried Squirrels?

Picking up another gem of a video on Yahoo!, Governor Mike Huckabee admitted to eating fried squirrels with martial arts bad ass Chuck Norris. The two would apparently fry the squirrels in a popcorn popper and take them on hike trails. Yum...

PC, Mac, or...wife?

So during my period of bed rest, I happen to stumble upon a video that was made by the Yahoo! news group about the 2008 election. This video was more on the "lighter" side of this year's campaign, with the reporter simply asking the four remaining republican candidates (Rudy's gone for those of you who don't know) a simple question: "PC or Mac?"

First up was governor Mike Huckabee, who is a dedicated PC user, and apparently so is Ron Paul. Mitt Romney (who still doesn't exist in our realm despite his recent success), said that he is a PC user, but his kids swear by Macs, so he may convert. The Most interesting response came from Senator John McCain, who admitted he was computer illiterate and relies completely upon his wife when it comes to computer stuff.

The Ups and Downs of Mucinex DM

While my sore throat has somewhat improved since yesterday, I find my cough getting worse and worse. I have spent all last night and all morning coughing up mucus, and it is truly an unpleasant feeling. However, after taking Mucinex DM, my coughing has subsided, but as a side effect, I now lack the energy to really get out of bed (thank goodness I still have a laptop as well). Therefore, I am writing this post not just as an update, but to wish my fellow Davis Enterprise employees (Julie, John and Jennifer) good luck today during the website viewing.

As a news update, it looks as if John McCain is coming on strong for the Republican nomination. Apparently, the republicans are predicting that if John McCain wins Florida, he is essentially unstoppable. If McCain fails to secure Florida, then it could become a two man race between John McCain and Mitt Romney. Either way, most people are predicting that the GOP will have their nomination wrapped up before the Dems get around to selecting their candidate.

Giuliani Seeks to Prove Experts Wrong

Here's an interesting little tid bit from our friends at the Associated Press:

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer

Mon Jan 28, 4:15 PM ET

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Rudy Giuliani loves to prove people wrong. He's trying to do it again in Florida.

Polls show the former New York mayor, last year's national front-runner, trailing badly in the state where he has bet almost everything in his pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination. If he wins on Tuesday, he will have earned the biggest, brashest "I told you so" of his political career.

Lose, and Giuliani may be uttering his final words of the campaign.

"Wednesday morning, we'll make a decision," he told reporters between campaign appearances.

"In the past, I've done the impossible — things that people thought were impossible," he told supporters at a rally Monday. He was talking about immigration policy, but he might as well have been discussing how to resuscitate his presidential campaign.

"This is a place where we have to test ourselves," Giuliani added later. "The winner of Florida will win the nomination; we're going to win Florida."

In an unconventional move, Giuliani largely bypassed the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, pinning his hopes on a fractured field and the prospect that his moderate GOP record would attract support in the delegate-rich states of Florida, New York, California and Illinois.

Florida has been less than hospitable. Surveys show rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain fighting for the lead, and the state's top two Republicans — Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist — endorsed McCain. The news back home is just as bad; the latest USA Today/Gallup poll showed McCain leading in New York and Giuliani dropping.

Inside an airport hangar, as a crowd of supporters dispersed, some grumbled about Crist's decision to endorse McCain — a major slight to the ex-mayor.

"That was a rotten trick. I'm disappointed," said John Fischer, a self-described "geezer from New Jersey" sporting bright red suspenders and a Giuliani sticker plastered to his cap.

Fischer said he thought Giuliani might still win, but if not, "I would hope one of the other guys could find a place on the ticket for him."

Giuliani made an appeal to those voters turned off by the recent mudslinging between McCain and Romney.

"I am sick and tired of all this negative campaigning. I am sick and tired of all this name-calling. This is no way to conduct a presidential election," Giuliani said.

Orlando property manager Donna Barron said she hopes the polls are wrong.

"Maybe this will be the year the polls die," said Barron. "I don't know if Rudy's going to win or not, but I know I'm voting for him regardless, and my husband is, too."

Giuliani was the early favorite among Republicans last year, due to his larger-than-life role leading New York City after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It earned the cover of national magazines and drove a multimillion-dollar consulting business. Even years after the attacks, complete strangers would sometimes burst into tears when they met him.

But as the last year's primary positioning grew more intense and the grunt work of ground campaigning wore on, Giuliani's lead evaporated, resulting in weak showings in early states. He finished sixth in Iowa, fourth in New Hampshire.

He has settled on an all-or-nothing Florida strategy, and if he cannot pull off the upset, he will have scant support or resources left to compete with McCain or Romney in next Tuesday's 20-plus primaries and caucuses. He has spent $1 million a week in advertising in Florida.

Despite the long odds, those at Monday's rally continued to rave about what he did in New York, and that he should be elected to make similar changes to the entire country. Many cited their own personal connections to New York in praising Giuliani.

Actor Jon Voight, a product of Yonkers, N.Y., warmed up crowds by reminding them of how, under Giuliani, New York City was transformed into a much safer, cleaner and more livable city.

"God sent an angel, his name was Rudy Giuliani," said Voight, adding: "He's kind of a genius."

And Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum insisted that genius will be proven again Tuesday.

"The press is going to be wrong, the polls are going to be wrong," McCollum told the crowd.

Absence

Sorry for my two day absence. I have been fighting off a cold for the past week that suddenly became fairly serious in the past two days. Anyways, time for some news:

As most people should know by now, Barack Obama took the win in Saturday's South Carolina primary. Some say it was extremely one sided as Senator Obama took the win in a 2 to 1 ratio. According to an Associated Press exit poll though, 6 out of 10 democrats felt that Bill Clintion's campaigning had a marginal effect on their voting. I guess it wasn't quite the effect that the Clinton duo were hoping for as Hilary was served a nice steaming pile of beat down on Saturday.

Happenings

I would first like to follow up on the apparent Fox News/NBCNN issue. Apparently, the issue that the two broadcast news organizations are bickering about is personnel. Since NBC and CNN's merger, their crew has grown to five while Fox News' team remains at the original four. Also, Fox News is concerned about their "extreme right" political stance.


Edit: After reading through the work of fellow print organizations, it seems as if the feud between Fox News and NBCNN is due primarily to NBCNN's failure to include Fox News anchor, Kristin Cook during last week's "Meet the Press." However, their political stance, as I mentioned above, also seems to be a source of bickering.


Also, print news organization The New York Times has voiced a concern about people's focus gravitating towards the broadcast news groups as they have a technological advantage with video footage. I too share this concern with my fellow print news organizations, especially considering the fact that the Davis Enterprise is a small newspaper. As this issue arose, I began to contemplate a "unionization" print organizations, cleverly called the "Union of Printed News Organizations." Of course, the problem of personnel came to mind again. I thought to myself, "if the print organizations unionize, so will the broadcast organizations. And if that were to happen, then moderator Halfmann would probably just issue all of the news organizations a big ol' honkin' F grade." I suppose that plan is down the drain.

Today was also our second press conference (first one if you don't count the announcements two weeks ago). To everyone's surprise, Obama and Clinton's feud was almost never brought up...except for John Edwards. Most responses were fairly standard to what I had expected. However, former Mayor Giuliani's response to my question about preventing another storm based disaster in Davis surprised me. He called our city "unprepared." And while I was not personally there during the storm, if the Mayor of Davis, Ruth Asmundson, heard his comment, I'm sure she would be quite offended. Though there was one question I was dying to ask, but never got the chance. "Governor Huckabee, inquiring minds are dying to know; what is your relationship with Mr. Chuck Norris?"

News Feud!

A very reliable source has leaked to the Davis Enterprise that news broadcast companies Fox News and NBC/CNN (NBCNN?) are feuding over some sort of situation. Of course, with such big news like this, I'll keep you updated on the developments.

Debate

So the democratic candidate debate occurred tonight. Apparently, the rivalry between Clinton and Obama has only grown larger and larger due to the debate. It makes one wonder though; what about poor John Edwards? Does no one really care about him?

Victories

The Nevada primaries ended today with Democratic hopeful Hilary Clinton taking Nevada and Republican hopeful Mitt Romney as well. Here's the odd thing though; despite Romney's latest set of victories, he has not shown his face at our more recent events in Davis. In fact, our moderator as even gone as far as saying he has dropped out of the race. Well that doesn't make sense...

Technical Difficulties

Faithful readers, REJOICE! Due to an issue with our internet service, the Davis Enterprise was unable to update yesterday. But after some swift work from the folks at Comcast, we're back online!

So yesterday, NBC's Meet The Press invited our own Julie Stauder to the show to analyze campaign ads submitted by the candidates. She did an excellent job on the show and hope to see more great work from her.

But something else interesting happened. This edition of Meet The Press was live and the rest of the Davis Enterprise crew was there, as were the candidates and various other news crews. What we saw was...interesting to say the least...















What's this? Bribes? But Governor Huckabee, you're a diabetic! How could you pass out candy to the rest of us even though you are trying to fight diabetes? And besides, I'm diabetic too! You didn't have any SUGAR FREE candy!




















And you tried to bribe the moderator too. How could you...

Bill Was Here?!

So there are two things on my mind tonight:

1. William Jefferson Clinton was at UC Davis!
2. I never knew celebrities were that important to a campaign.

So yes, former president Bill Clinton was at the UC Davis ARC Pavilion last night, trying to gain support for her wife's campaign. I personally did not attend due to my disliking for large crowds. Then again, had I gone, I probably would have been one of the 8000 plus students that were denied entry due to the lack of room in the ARC Pavilion. It was pretty cool that someone important like Bill Clinton set foot onto UC Davis' campus, but it's not like he's a celebrity. The only celebrity I know of that came out of UC Davis was famous TV Chef, Martin Yan, known for his show, "Yan Can Cook."

Speaking of celebrities, since when did presidential candidates feel it necessary to involve celebrities in their campaigns? Barack Obama has Oprah backing and advertising his campaign and Mike Huckabee has...you guessed it...Chuck Norris. Do the candidates really feel that the average American is gullible enough to vote for them just because they have a celebrity backing them? Wait...stupid question. We do have a celebrity for Governor after all.

A New Member and Recent Buzz

We have a new News Analyst, Julie. We have yet to find out her last name, but all that will be updated soon (we hope).

So during a discussion with the employees of other news organizations and candidate workers (otherwise known as lecture), it seems as if Barack Obama admitted to snorting coke, or "blow" in his autobiography, in his youth. Does that really surprise me? Not really. Most people during their college years "experiment" with various "substances," myself not included, of course. But it also seems as if the Clinton camp bring this point up over and over again when they have nothing else to assault Senator Obama with. Is it that really fair? Should what a candidate did in his youth really have an effect on his or her current campaign? Is Hilary Clinton as clean as she comes off to be?

And adding more fuel to the "racial" fire, it turns out the CEO of Black Entertainment Television (or better known as BET), supports Hilary Clinton, stating that she simply has more experience that Barack Obama. To some, this seems like an obvious decision. But to some, it seems racially motivated. If only we could interview the CEO of BET for more comments...

OH SNAP!

Apparently, Mike (a.k.a Erica in our realm) Huckabee is now "Chuck Norris Approved."

A quick update:

It seems as if Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama have both decided to stop playing the race card during their campaigns. According to the Associated Press, both candidates believe that continuing this racial controversy could very well harm the Democratic Party's bid for the White House.

I think it's about bloody time! The fact that race was even dragged into question in the first place was just silly. They're both on the same team for crying out loud!

The Tension Rises!

Democrats are now concerned that race will become a huge factor in the democratic primary. After Senator Obama's statement about Senator Clinton's "unfortunate" comment about Dr. Martin Luther King, Clinton responded that she think MLK is a hero and that Obama shouldn't consider himself a new MLK.

On the Republican side, Senator Joh McCain is now enjoying a push ahead as we prepare to enter the Michigan primary.

As most people should have figured out by now, the Davis Enterprise is a small publication that is more concerned with local issues. Here at the Enterprise, we want to find out what the candidates have to say about our local issues. The first two issues we and our readers want to hear a response to are:

1. What are the candidates prepared to do in the case of another major storm like the one that just blew through and left the city in shamble.

2. Yes, video games are important because it keeps the college kids in their dorms and apartments from partying and annoying the residents. What are the candidate's stances on video game censorship?

We'll bring these issues and more to the table when the Davis Enterprise goes on "Meet the Press" this Thursday!

What's happening now?

So what's been going on since our viewing of the Candidate's announcements? The candidates have moved onto Michigan. Admittedly, I'm interested in seeing how things turn out. But in other news, apparently Hilary Clinton's camp is pretty pissed off about comments made by Barack Obama about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., claiming that Senator Obama's comments are twisting Clinton's and attempting to divide the African American voters to lean towards Obama. I've always been told by my friends that they believe we would have an African American president before we had a female president. But it doesn't seem like any of these two are going to let up.

And what of John Edwards? We tend not to hear much about him from the Democratic party. It makes me wonder if he still exists...

And So It Begins...

The three Democratic candidates and the four Republican candidates made their announcements today. And...well...it was...interesting to say the least.

First up on the podium today was Senator Hilary Clinton:




















She certainly looks a lot younger than she did a few days ago, doesn't she? But when given a question about her stance on video game censorship, she stumbled. Wait a minute Hilary...weren't you the one who said violent video games were the cause of violence? So when asked why, why couldn't you respond. I certainly hope you have the answer next time.




















And then we had Barack Obama...whom in this picture looks somewhat...bored. Senator Obama touched upon the real hot button issues today as well: Iraq, health care, etc. The problem is Senator Obama didn't really give any concrete details. Presidency cloaked in secrecy? Who knows.
















Hey John, nice shoes. But what were you thinking about in this picture?

















The Republican candidates were a colorful bunch too. First up on the stand was former mayor of New York, Rudy Guiliani.





















Rudy, you look a bit disheveled there and you're biting your lip. Suspicious....















Governor Huckabee...admittedly, you had a good response to my question, and a laud you for that. And wow...110 pounds? Really? I can't imagine what you looked like before.





















Senator McCain, I do implore: You weren't elected to be the Republican candidate the first time, so what makes you think you'll do any better this time?
















And Senator Ron Paul. This man is just...well...Ron Paul. Really though, after your response to a fellow reporter's comment about the LA Riots makes me question whether you really are as qualified as the other candidates.

A short disclaimer:

The Davis Enterprise is a local newspaper that really doesn't include a real political section, nor does it really cover large elections like the California Primary. This blog was really intended to bring a little humor into a serious situation. As time progresses though, you can expect the Davis Enterprise to bring up local situations to the table for the presidential candidates to answer. Questions such as what the presidential candidates intend to do about the noise produced by those college rascals and their wild parties.

*Pictures provided by our lovely editor, Jennifer Chau.

Farewell

Today, the Davis Enterprise bids farewell to News Analyst, Andrew Bianchi, who, for some reason, decided to leave. We can't be sure why, but we tend to think that he left to go write at a larger publication. But hey, who needs the guy? We'll find some new, fresh meat!

Anyway, here's to you Andrew...the guy who only worked at the Davis Enterprise for a day and never turned in any work!

So it looks like Hilary Clinton won the primary in New Hampshire yesterday. I guess we'll just have to see what she has to say tomorrow.

Welcome to the Davis Enterprise Blog

Welcome all to the Davis Enterprise Blog, your source for the events leading up to the California Presidential Primaries.

Our staff will bring you the most up to date information about the happenings of the eight presidential candidates.

The Staff:















Vincent Shin
Blogger/Webmaster


















Jennifer Chau
Editor


















Andrew Bianchi
News Analyst and Opinion Editor


















John Pham
Reporter