The Iowa Caucuses are over, and the Wyoming Primary too, and the New Hampshire Primary is almost here. This is the very beginning of the primary season, and way too early to be counting people out, but that hasn't stopped some really stupid comments I've heard from the talking head shows on TV.

OK, granted if you spend several million dollars in Iowa and yet don't win there's something to be said for that. (Sorry Mitt.) Still, come on -- the demographic of Iowa was tailor made for a Republican somebody like Huckabee or Thompson, and not so great for Romney or Guiliani. In fact, this is why Rudy didn't even bother to campaign there. That didn't stop talking heads from suggesting that Rudy is finished if he doesn't place well in New Hampshire either (even though he is atop polls in a dozen other states).

On the Democratic side, tell me how it is that a 3rd place finish in Iowa means that Hillary is doomed? She has better name recognition than any of the other Democrats (including former VP nominee Edwards and the latest flavor of the month Obama). She has one of THE most popular US politicians since Reagan (and the most popular Democrat since President Kennedy) on her side, and a powerful political machine that won't think twice about doing what's needed to get the nomination.

There are so many primaries ahead of us. We need to research where the candidates stand on issues important to us, and vote for our candidate when our turn comes up.

Back in December, blogger Steven Bradley had an interesting post about a writing course he took that used critiquing to improve your writing. Quoting from his blog:

"The critiques followed a specific format. If you liked something you underlined it. It might be a word or an entire passage. If you liked it you drew a line underneath.

Consequently if you didn’t like something you drew a squiggly underneath. Anything you didn’t understand received a question mark. None of the above came with any explanation. Just the underline, squiggly, or question mark.

In addition to the above each critique asked you to do two things
1. Write 3 things you likes about the submission
2. Offer 3 suggestions for improvement

During the week after you handed out your work you would sit quietly while everyone else discussed it."

Steven's writing improved as much from the process of critiquing others as he did from the criticisms themselves, and volunteered to critique my blog as an illustration of this process.

We selected two short posts -- Steroids, HGH, and the Mitchell Report and The Other Side of the Steroids Scandal. The blogs are written, and I'm awaiting Steven's feedback.

It's early in the semester, but writing is one subject that you can never get too good at. (Oh wait, I ended that sentence with a preposition... damn.)

All week I've been reading the same sentiment from multiple news sources, including CNN and Andy Tanenbaum's electoral-vote website:

If McCain wins Florida he cements his status as GOP front runner. If Romney wins, then it's anybody's game.

Last time I checked, Romney had more delegates than McCain -- 73 to 38. With Florida's 27 electoral votes up for grabs, a McCain win would still put him behind Romney in the delegate count.

(That's assuming all 27 get counted, but at this point the Republican National Committee is punishing Florida for staging their primary too early by penalizing them half of their delegate count. That may change come convention-time though...)

If Romney wins, he'd have at least double McCain's count.

So how does that translate to McCain being a clear front runner if he wins? This doesn't make sense, but that's probably because the media is involved and they seem to prefer McCain...

Don't be stampeded into your vote. As the Knight Templar said in the third Indiana Jones movie, "Choose wisely."