Oh please yes

Bush pushes Romney as McCain veep choice. At least they wouldn't run out of money, but this seems like an unusually dumb idea, even for Bush. Besides, don't all the candidates hate the guy?

What I'm listening to today

From Crackle: sex over the phone

Maybe this WAS a bad idea

New pics from the new Watchmen movie out. I'd feel a lot better about the prospect of adapting the most widely esteemed comic book ever written if it didn't look a lot like this monstrosity.

Bubbling up

It seemed an unbelievably minor story at the time, but the making-Obama-blacker in the ad thing really seems to have legs. How long before it shows up in Leno and Letterman's monologues? Unlike a lot of shady stuff the Clintons have done, this is a really accessible shady thing. You needn't know anything about politics to realize it's shady to darken a black candidate's skin. You can never predict how these negative sorts of stories develop, but this one seems to be bubbling up.

I'm a 7k person

One thing I won't make fun of Mike for is the ladders commercials. Apparently if you make six figures you're an asshole when your website has the tagline:

The premium job site created exclusively for $100k+ people looking for $100k+ jobs.

I've never been less in favor of a flat tax.

With all this silly talk of ladders though, lets have a few laughs

I don't have to grow a moustache!!!

Can't help but notice that Mike's uncharacteristically quiet today on the blog front after his man Obama won only Vermont last night. Don't worry, Obama will only lose something like 10 delegates in Texas.

The main disappointment for me after last night is that we have another month of campaigning. I have this haunting suspicion that the Democrats are going to butcher one another to the point where McCain will have a significantly easier job attacking either of them. You can only hear that Obama is inexperienced and that Clinton is well, a Clinton without picking up on it.

That said, Gravel 08.

Back to making fun of Mike though. Given his undying love for Obama, it's surprising that his entire post contained numerous consonants. Because if 'Fight Club' taught me anything (which it didn't) is that one can only talk in vowels when you have a cylindrical object in your mouth.

How about giving the balls some love?

The Ladders

One of the ads you see the most during the election coverage is for this job site called "The Ladders," which, according to the ad, only posts listings for jobs that pay over $100k a year. This would indicate that the market research shows that the people who watch MSNBC/CNN are pretty rich. But most of the other ads seem along the "Invest in gold!" "Veterans cannot be turned down!" "I've fallen and I can't get up!" variety. Hardly the highbrow crowd.

Someone's guessing wrong.

Ohio

Looks like Clinton is building a pretty substantial margin. But then you'd forget that Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Hamilton (Cincinnati) and Lucas (Toledo) counties have basically reported zero votes so far, and should tip things substantially towards Obama. There's a reason the networks won't call it yet (even if the pundits are talking like its a done deal).

UPDATE: Literally moments after first posting this, MSNBC's Chuck Todd (whose delegate analysis has become the must-see TV of the primary cycle) echoes my caution in calling Ohio using the exact same evidence. Maybe he's one of my few readers!

Listening to...

Digitalism - Zdarlight

More on Texas

Obama's ahead, despite no returns yet from Austin, San Antonio, Houston or Dallas. My guess is that the margin (7% right now) continues to grow.

As for Ohio, the 20 point gap might be too tough for him to overcome, despite the fact his most favorable districts aren't in yet. I expect this one to get called for Hillary in short order.

Roethlisberger's Big Contract

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger just signed an 8-year $102 million contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, I know that the numbers attached to NFL contracts are essentially meaningless, but wow, $102 million for Roethlisberger? Would any other team in the NFL have offered him half of that?

I'm a strong believer that you can't put a price on having a reliable quarterback, but Roethlisberger is hardly a star (despite having won a Superbowl). This mega-contract has the highest boondoggle potential since Mike Vick's $100 million contract.

Huckabee drops out

Huckabee finally concedes to the inevitable.

No surprise here, but we may never know why Huckabee spent so long staying in the race after it had been decided. Oddly though, Huckabee seems to have come out of it much stronger, and will be a contender in 2012.

Contrary to what many think, I think Huckabee could be a strong veep choice for McCain. Despite his extreme views, he's the most likable guy in either party, and that's worth a lot.

Obama locks up Japanese fisherman vote

The small Japanese fishing town of Obama has gone wild for Barack Obama, even moreso after receiving a letter from the campaign thanking them for their support.

I remember reading somewhere that there were more towns in the US named Clinton than any other name. Where's their support?

Texas Results - Good News for Barack

Most read the exit polls as a narrow win for Clinton.

They made the same mistake that those on Super Tuesday made. The same way absentee ballots, which don't show up in exit polls, tipped California for Clinton, early Texas voting (which looks to have gone about 60/40 Obama) will tip things for Obama, assuming she narrowly won among those who voted today.

Obama will win Texas, probably by 4 or 5 points at least.

Leaked Exit Polls

Drudge reports exit polls show a deadlock in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island. That Rhode Island is even in play at this stage has to be good news for Obama.

Science Confirms It

Hillary's appearance at the end of the "3 A.M." ad really DOES scare undecided voters. Science confirms it! The scores for undecideds in Slate's focus group plummet when the image of Hillary appears on the screen.

Hillary on the Daily Show

She looks tired and unfocused. All this campaigning seems to be getting to her. I won't savage her comedy timing (some have said she bombed) except to say it's like watching your mom out there (not my mom, who I actually think can be pretty witty. Your mom) which makes a lot of sense, considering she's a 60-year-old woman and all.

Anyway, here's the video:

Predictions for tonight

Hillary +8 in Ohio
and I'm going out on a limb here and say Hillary +3 in Texas

A Jon Stewart bump? ha, unlikely. It'll be hard to shave off too many white college votes. Still, I have this underlying suspicion that Clinton has a few tricks up her sleeve. I say Mike and I make a bet, whoever's closer to the totals wins respect and adoration, and the loser has to grow a moustache. I'm blonde, so I have extra incentive to win. Blonde moustache's are incredibly creepy.

oh, and who cares about RI and VT

The Last Word on a Tiresome Subject

I've avoided giving too much thought to Jonah Goldberg's much discussed bestseller, Liberal Fascism, because I think the entire enterprise is so obviously stupid as to merit almost no consideration. In fact, the strenuous denunciations from various liberal intellectuals only gave the idiotic tome more legitimacy than it deserves.

So, I'm hoping that Michael Tomasky's masterful takedown of the book in the New Republic will close the chapter on having to comment on it. There's no better sort of book review to read than one written by a very intelligent person (Tomasky certainly qualifies) about a book they intend to completely destroy (see also Ross Douthat's review of Christopher Hitchen's god is not great for another example of the genre).

I doubt it will make any dent in the runaway sales success of the book, however.

Marc Andreessen on Obama

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen blogs on his 90 minute-long meeting with Barack Obama in 2007. I really advise reading the entire thing, as it's a really good analysis of Obama's character, but one passage really leapt out at me:

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven't had meaningful experience as an executive -- as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign -- you'll see my leadership skills in action.

As I've said before, if you want to see who is the stronger leader, you need only compare how the campaigns have been run so far. McCain and Clinton have both squandered huge amounts of cash, had high amounts of staff turnover and infighting and blew once-inevitable-looking leads early in the campaign. Obama's campaign, on the other hand, has been nearly flawless. What does that say about the comparative leadership styles?

Surefire (and not so surefire) Ohio/Texas Predictions

Surefire predictions:

• Regardless of the results tomorrow, Hillary Clinton will not announce her withdrawal from the race tomorrow night.
• Regardless of the results tomorrow, Bill Richardson will endorse Barack Obama, most likely soon after the election.
• Hillary Clinton's camp will be accused of more caucus shenanigans in Texas.
• Obama will win Vermont.
• Hillary will win Rhode Island.
• The words "change" and "experience" will be uttered another thousand times during the news coverage.

Less than surefire predictions:

• Obama will win Texas's primary by 7% as well winning the subsequent caucus by a larger margin.
  
• Hillary will win Ohio's primary by 5%.
• If Hillary wins either state, she will stay in the race for at least a week.
  
• If Hillary wins either state, and if she drops out before Pennsylvania, it will be because her money is gone, rather than because of calls from the media that she should drop out.
• If/when Hillary drops out of the race, her campaign's financial situation through February will be revealed to be worse than her campaign was claiming.

Regardless of the results, it'll be a very interesting night.

Last weekend

Some of you may be wondering why posting was so light over the weekend. To those that thought I may have lost interest in this blogging project - well, I haven't. I was working 14 hour days and too tired to pick up the keyboard. I look forward to resuming my previously rapid pace.

Joe Wilson

Shameless Clinton surrogate Joe Wilson pens an Obama hit piece on his foreign policy record. To anyone who still labored under the delusion that this empty-suit had an ounce of credibility, this shallow piece, full of out-of-context quotations and logical fallacies, should prove once and for all why Wilson has earned his reputation in Washington as a complete hack.

It's understandable that the progressive blogosphere rallied behind him when it looked like they could score points on Bush, but too many lionized him just because Bush wronged him, without looking at his views or record.

Along with getting rid of Mark Penn, getting rid of Joe Wilson is another great reason to root for an Obama win tomorrow.

Oh, and speaking of Penn, Ezra Klein speaks for me regarding Penn's recent behavior:

In general, I'm very, very hard on Mark Penn. I think his politics are odious, his business dealings reprehensible, and his professional work shoddy beyond measure. And now, watching him desperately try and squirm away from the Clinton campaign while it's still going on, I wonder if I've been too easy on the guy. From The LA Times: "Penn said in an e-mail over the weekend that he had 'no direct authority in the campaign,' describing himself as merely 'an outside message advisor with no campaign staff reporting to me.'" Of course, he wasn't complaining, or writing furious e-mails to correct the record, last April, when the Washington Post reported, "Penn, 53, is [Clinton's] chief strategist. While not her campaign manager in name, Penn controls the main elements of her campaign." Now he's not only abandoning her, but by talking to reporters about campaign dissension mere days before Ohio, he's stepping all over her message. If the e-mail was accidental, that makes him incompetent. If not, it makes him cravenly opportunistic.

It really shocks me how many of Clinton's closest advisers and surrogates I harbor an intense dislike for (Penn, Wilson and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, to name three), and how few of Obama's people generate similar feelings (in fact, only one, his chief Maryland surrogate, Attorney General Doug Gansler) What is it about Obama's campaign that has kept the extremely large left-wing-hackocracy away?

Charlie Crist

I think we can cross Florida governor Charlie Crist off the McCain veep list if the rumors about his personal life have any truth to them.

Listening to...

Aphex Twin - Fingerbib

The Hippest Baseball Simulator Ever

Video game developer 2K sports have asked indie rock-tastemaker Pitchfork to pick songs for the soundtrack to their upcoming Major League Baseball Sim MLB2K8. Cause if there's one things jocks love, it's indie rock, right?

I'm not knowledgeable enough about this to know whether its just a policy of good taste from 2K sports (whose NBA series has also had surprisingly good music featured) or if getting a soundtrack full of small-label bands is done for economic reasons.

Why Clinton Stays in the Race

Mark Halperin writes a list of reasons that Clinton would stay in the Presidential race after Tuesday. What he seems to be missing is what the rationale would be if she has almost no chance of actually winning the thing, which, barring a blowout on Tuesday, is the likeliest outcome.

Matt Yglesias I think is a lot closer to the real reason:

Now under the circumstances, I see no real way for Clinton to make up the lost delegate lead, but at this point it does seem to me that she and her campaign staff are probably egomaniacal enough that if they pull out a narrow "win" they'll keep running anyway hoping for lightning to strike and seeing the damage it'll do to the party as a feature, rather than a bug, since a crippled Obama who loses to John McCain could set them up for another run in 2012.

In hindsight, Bill Clinton's relatively lukewarm support of John Kerry in 2004 makes a lot of sense. For these two, anything that doesn't result in the greater glory of the Clintons, regardless of harm to their party, isn't worth their consideration.

Like a rock in the ocean

Don't let Mike's Obama facade fool you, he's Gravel all the way.

In fact I think he's going to Gravel's Award Ceremony today at Columbia University from their College of General Studies....


sorry, I couldn't think of anything to post and got web-lonely. All I really wanted to do was mention that Gravel was getting an award from a College of General Studies. What can a College of General studies award you for you may ask??? Why, it's the "Amelia Earhart Award."

Wait what? So Columbia wants Gravel to fly a plane into the ocean?

Ivy league assholes I tell you

This makes me sooo mad, I wonder what Mike's been doing in the mean time to get his message out.



No. I take it back. Gravel's campaign couldn't even afford imovie. At least his staring at the camera and throwing a rock would have gotten him a B- as an undergrad film student (a bit derivative of Herzog, no?).

Columbia got it right, drown the crazy bastard.