Florida's primary

Jan 28th 2008
From Economist.com

Rudy Giuliani's race to be president may be over before it has even begun

Reuters

THE final skirmish before the big battle that is Super Tuesday will be played out in Florida on Tuesday January 29th. The main story will almost certainly revolve around Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who has run what the history books will surely describe as one of the oddest primary campaigns in recent presidential history.

Mr Giuliani long ago took the odd decision to ignore the contests in Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina, and instead stake everything on a big win in Florida which would, he hoped spring-board him to crushing victory in the Super Tuesday states on February 5th. Those include large states like California, New York and New Jersey, where he expected to dominate. But it hasn't worked out quite like that. The early primaries have given vast amounts of free publicity to his rivals, John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, and have allowed Mr McCain to supplant him as front-runner in the national polls. Now Mr Giuliani finds himself a poor third in the Florida polls, and behind to Mr McCain even in his home state of New York. Some national polls show him coming fourth overall, a remarkable come-down after months of leading the pack.

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A miracle could, of course happen: the pollsters' record in these primaries has been pretty dismal, notably in New Hampshire where to a man they predicted a win for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. More likely, though, is that Florida will mark the death-knell for Mr Giuliani, prior to a black Tuesday that will in effect put him out of the race.

Who will win in Florida, and what effect will that have? The polls, for what they are worth, are tight, showing Mr McCain in a tie with Mr Romney. But Mr McCain has a couple of big things going for him: over the weekend he secured the endorsement of the state's governor, Charlie Crist (who boasts a remarkable approval rating of 60% or more) and of Mel Martinez, Florida's Republican senator. As a Cuban-American, Mr Martinez's endorsement could help swing a powerful block of Republican voters Mr McCain's way.

Mr McCain and Mr Romney are running campaigns that are mirror images of each other: Mr McCain stressing his impeccable（無缺點的，PECC,SIN, FROM LATIN） credentials（國書，憑據） on security issues, and Mr Romney relying on his command of economic issues. Voters generally now put the economy at the head of their list of concerns, which ought to favour Mr Romney—as, too, should the fact that Florida's is a closed primary. Mr McCain has so far won only in states (New Hampshire and South Carolina) where independents are allowed to chose which primary to compete in, allowing him to pick up a good number of centrists.

And what of the Democrats? Officially, the candidates have agreed not to campaign in Florida—although that did not stop Mrs Clinton appearing there on Sunday, ostensibly表面上 on a fund-raising trip during which she was conveniently photographed by some palm trees. The self-imposed(自我接受的，自愿的） ban comes because the state, by moving its primary up ahead of Super Tuesday, has fallen foul of the national party authorities, who have declared that Florida's delegates （代表）will not be seated at the party convention in August. In practice, though, the result will be keenly watched. Florida is too big and important a state for the result even of a straw poll there to be ignored.

And because winning Florida is so crucial to Democratic hopes for the presidential election in November, many observers reckon（推測，預料） that the party will find a way to avoid alienating（疏遠） Democratic-leaning Floridians by seating the delegates after all.

All the polls favour a win for Mrs Clinton, especially after she scored so highly among Hispanics in Nevada (Cuban-origin Hispanics tend to vote in the Republican primary, but there is a fast-growing number of other Hispanics in Florida who are quite likely to show up for the Democrats). That would enable her to claim an advantage in the early states as America heads into February 5th, when 22 states are to vote.

primary:美國總統每四年選一次，在十二月投票(十二月的第二個星期三以後的星期一。二零零四年是十二月十三日)。不過，總統選舉的假投票從年初就開始。大概是從二月初到三月初這段時間有一些州會舉辦所謂的初選。初選在英文裡是primary。

Primary一般多半當形容詞是'of the first order in time or temporal sequence; earliest, primitive, original'，「在時間上或是暫時的一連串事情裡的第一個；最早的、原始的、開頭的」意思。從一八六一年起，在美國這個字有了一個新的名詞的意思是'short for a primary meeting or assembly, a caucus'，「第一次會議或是大會的縮寫，政黨大會」的意思。不過，這五十年來，primary成了'a vote in a particular state that is taken by the local members of a political party to elect a candidate for a political office'，「一個州的黨員推選出任公職候選人的投票」。

所以，不只是總統選舉有primary，一般選舉也有。'He was defeated in the Republican primary, and he has only a few more weeks to serve in the Congress.'，「他在共和黨初選裡落敗，所以，在國會服務的時間只剩幾個星期了。」

另外，要注意的是不是每個州都辦初選，有些州是用政黨大會的方式選舉候選人，而有些州的初選則不限某個政黨人士投票。

spring:這歌詞詞義是相當的多，spring
来自古英语 springan <印欧语 sprengh- 速动，從這個根上，我們來推測它的多個詞義。彈簧，是不是就是迅速彈開的東西，泉水，是不是擠破泥土的摯肘，向上噴出的東西？然後我們得出它的比喻義，涌出，春天是不是百花盛開花海翻涌的季節？spring-board就是跳板，彈簧板的意思。

crushing：關鍵性的

supplant：從根部拔掉，排擠。

sub- [sub-]
sub- [前缀，表示“下面”]
planta [sole of the foot] * see  plat-
planta [脚底] *参见 plat-

plant現在解釋為植物種植的意思，大家能理解了嗎？種東西是不是先種根啊？

come-down ：倒塌，沒落

go for 擁護，支持

approval rating ：支持率

endorsement：注意，除了背書的意思，還有贊同的意思