Sick and Snowed In

Sick and Snowed In

Double whammy today, so for now settle for a little linkfest.

Campaign news managed to happen on Super Sunday (congrats to the Little Brother Who Could), despite all odds, with a tableau of Oprah, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver. Kos notes that this becomes a major two day story in Kah-lee-FORN-ia, mit der AHnold reactions today.

As for the game, I wish I had tuned in just for the fourth quarter when all the excitement happened. My little guys wandered off with their video games somewhere during that deadly dull stretch of nearly two clock hours between scores, since football is more fun to play than watch. Congrats to Eli and the Giants, whose string of four on the road, underdog wins will go down in history better than the Patriots' 18 in a row. Talk about getting hot at the right time.

Tom Petty's voice sounded rough, and he offered no surprises (unlike Prince last year who managed to be commercial yet creative at the same time). I was hoping against all reality that Petty would plunder the vaults for some true obscurity like "Heartbreakers Beach Party" (b-side of "Change of Heart") or "Girl On LSD" (b-side of "You Don't Know How It Feels").



No objectivity from me on the ads; you know I loved Audi's angle-for-angle parody of the horse's head scene in "The Godfather." That had to be the same mansion; it was just sold a few months ago. But couln't they get the rights for the original music?

A couple items on the Will Gore Or Won't He front in the Atlantic and American Spectator.

A couple Hillary bashers from Huffington Post, including one from my first-ever primary candidate, Gary Hart. (I always wonder: how much does Hart resent that Bill Clinton got away with the bimbo eruptions just one election cycle after it killed Hart's career?) Anyway, as for substance, Hart writes:

Like Senator Obama, even on the sidelines, even without access to classified briefings, even under the war drum beat of the right, and even with a compliant mainstream media, I knew both in my mind and deep in my soul that invasion of Iraq was wrong, that it would lead to semi-permanent occupation, that the war would only just begin when Baghdad fell, and that we were pouring blood and treasure into the sand.

"Triangulation" and "centrism" may have led to eight years of a Democratic presidency in the 1990s.. But it also blurred the principles of the Democratic party.

Also in HuffPo, John Pearce and Kathy Cramer of the Ralph Don't Run group look at a Clinton nomination through the lens of a Stassen-like Nader bid, and call the prospect of Hillary atop the ticket "slow-motion disaster." They may have a point, but it's not the Nader candidacy Dems need to worry about. Nader himself is discredited and vilified. It's Cynthia McKinney and the Greens they need to consider.

Patrick Ruffini argues that John McCain survived his long months in the wilderness ("Sun Setting On The Straight Talk Express," "McCain Not Dead But Neither Was Terry Schiavo," etc.) thanks to on-line, small donor fundraising, while other candidates doomed themselves by relying on fat cats (like the gray one currently sitting on my mouse) or, in one case, themselves:

All the money (Romney) pumped in probably dried up low-dollar fundraising. Why part with $50 or $100 or your hard earned money when the candidate is doing it all for you?

Who wants a do-over? This has big implications: "Voters in New Jersey who cast absentee ballots for a candidate who has dropped out of the presidential race can vote again, a state judge has ruled."