A History Lesson

C: Drunken Politics' hidden agenda is simply to encourage curiosity in the American Political System. Fortunately, a fine bunch of Americans, (un-associated with Drunken Politics in any way, shape or form), publishes one of the Interweb's great collections of American Political history. For aficionados such as ourselves and our loyal readers this is an absolute gold mine. Enjoy.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/

Perhaps one of the greatest sites ever created. Unfortunately, addiction counseling for this magic is not provisioned for under the new Healthcare law.

Texas Two-Step

J: So, it's Primary Day down here in the Great State of Texas. Along with the usual passel of local offices, we've got some interesting races on the ballot. First off, the judges. The judiciary in Texas is elected, and people can make campaign contributions to the candidates... even in the courtroom, while the judge is hearing your case. In some ways, this state is still the Wild West.

But the big race this year is for the Governor's office. Anyone who studies Texas politics will realize that the true political power lies with the Lieutenant Governor, but the Office of the Governor holds more national sway. (See: Bush, George W.) The race on the Democratic side this year is fairly one-sided, with former Houston Mayor Bill White holding a rather sizable lead in every poll over businessman Farouk Shami. Why someone named Farouk Shami thought he could get elected to statewide office in Texas- especially as a Democrat- is beyond me, but that's another story for another time.

The Republican race was the more interesting one, with Governor Rick Perry facing Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Tea Partier/9-11 Conspiracist Debra Medina.

One of the things Texas happens to do right is early voting. giving citizens the chance to cast the ballot when they're available, rather than a small window of time on a random Tuesday- I support this. Anything that provides a greater opportunity for enfranchisement is a good thing in my book. So, I took advantage once again.

Because Texas is an open primary state, you declare your party when you go inside to cast your ballot. Looking at all my options, I felt that my vote would be more valuable in a certain primary. So, when the old guy at the early-voting site asked me in which party's primary I wished to vote, I looked around, made sure no one could hear me, and half-whispered "Republican". As I was walking over to the voting machines, I stopped and looked at my voting registration card in horror.

They had stamped it. With the "R" word. I was marked. I felt a variety of emotions- shame, denial, anger... bargaining... depression... acceptance. I made my decision, I would live with it. Even though I will vote for a third-party candidate before I will vote for a Republican, even though I still have an "Obama 08" sticker on my Honda, I had made my decision, and I would live with it. I later found out there are two reasons they stamp your voter card, and one of these would loom large in my future.

Having cast my ballot early, I thought long and hard about the second part of the Texas primary. If you look at our archives, to this post, you'll see that I described Texas primaries in simple terms. "It's a vote, then a caucus. Two thirds of the delegates are apportioned by the vote, the other third are divided up via caucus results. And you can't caucus unless you voted in the primary." The two reasons they stamp your card? One is so you can vote in case of a runoff, and the other is so you can participate in the caucus.

I'd thought about it ever since I voted, and decided that I would indeed take advantage of this. I would go to the Republican Caucus in my area, and see what it was like. I imagined a number of interesting scenarios playing out, and thought I would first support Teabagger Medina, and then Senator Hutchinson.

I was set. I had a plan, I had ideas. Yes, this would be good. As I drove to the caucus location, I felt like Hunter S. Thompson heading to the 1972 Republican Convention. This would be it- my chance to see how the other half thinks, behind closed doors.

I got to the local middle school, and the parking lot was absolutely slammed. I finally found a spot behind the school. My sense of civic pride was through the roof. This many of my fellow Americans, coming out to participate in a direct (if somewhat archaic) form of Democracy. If a bald eagle had flown overhead and crapped an American flag, I wouldn't have been completely surprised. I saw a stream of people heading through a door, and I fell in line with them... straight to an auditorium, where the school was having a choir recital.

I got out of line and saw a uniformed police officer. I asked him where the voting area was, and he gave me directions. I went around the corner, into the gymnasium. Of course it was in the gym. I don't know what the statistics are on the percentage of American ballots that are cast in a school gymnasium, but I know it would be high. I walked towards the older woman who was sitting at the table. (You have seen this woman. She is the same old lady that serves as an election official at every vote, nationwide. I think they clone them.) She saw me walking up, voter card in hand, and immediately said "Sorry, honey. Polls are closed."

"No, ma'am. I'm here for the caucus."

"Oh, well then you're in the right place. Have a seat."

I looked at the assembled group. A lot of long hair, mainly worn in ponytails. The women's hair tended to be dyed in colors that don't occur in nature. I looked back at the election official and discreetly pointed to the REPUBLICAN stamped on my card.

"Oh, sorry, honey. You need to go down that hallway until you get to the other gym."

I went in, and saw two people seated on the bleachers. A man in khakis and a dress shirt, and a girl in all black. The guy was filling out papers. I said "is, um, is this the Republican caucus?"

The guy told me it was, and asked me what district I was from. I told him, and he said "Oh. I'm the chairman from another district. Stick around, there might be someone from your district who had instructions."

I waited until the prescribed start time of the caucus, and no one else had shown up. I asked the guy- who had mentioned he'd been through Precinct Chairman Training- what to do. He said "Well, you could call it a night. Or, if you're willing to fill out a couple of forms, you could get the paperwork from the Officials and volunteer."

"For what?"

"To be the Precinct Chairman."

I thought about it. I'd volunteered my time, and I'd be damned if a couple of forms were going to keep me from making my voice heard. After all, I hadn't had a drink all day, just so I could go to this caucus and be part of the process. I wasn't going to throw all that away, just because no one showed up to pick up some random packet.

And this is how a man with an Obama sticker on his rear window, a man whose 5 year old son has a Che Guevara t-shirt, a man who thinks Dennis Kucinich has a lot of sensible positions- this is how that man became a Republican Party Precinct Chairman in Texas.

Round 2 is on the 20th. It should be interesting.

C: The DrunkenPolitics North Desk is exceptionally jealous of the Southern Desk's opportunity to make Chorizo. Stupid, boring Oregon mail-in ballot bullshit. The opportunity to participate publicly is gloriously American. Secessionist Six-Gun Perry kicked someone right in the taco. Sheesh, Kay Bailout got killed. More important, scrubbing the moss off the Blimp, (we left it behind the garage over Winter). Propane. Hydro. Bio-gas. Flammables. The DP Blimp is coming to a town near you.

It took a few years for us to wring some crap from this stone. The Southern Desk has raised the fucking bar. Hunter S. Thompson would be proud. Dammit.

Shit.

2010 SOTU, DP-style

J: It's once again time for the President to do the Constitutionally-mandated thing, and inform Congress on the State of the Union.

If this was "Serious Politics", we would be predicting what Barack would be telling us, and what bombshell he was going to drop. If you want that sort of coverage, we'll probably do a postgame show.

Here's HuffPo's rules for the 2010 SOTU drinking game. I think they're fair, and pretty non-partisan. I expect Biden to do something hilariously embarrassing, and if he does, take an extra drink. Five if he's audibly flatulent during a somber pause.

C: A quote that seems to get magically attributed to anyone who may have repeated it, or has been wishfully attached to achieve extra juice, comes to mind. I'll run with the Yale Book of Quotations citation despite the fact that alumnus Dubya may have permanently spoiled the University's credibility for intellectual analysis. From YBQ: Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) from Lettres et Opuscules Inédits, vol. 1, no. 53 (1851) (Letter of 15 August, 1811):

"Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite." (Every country has the government it deserves.)

Children Left Behind

J: One of the many reasons my contribution had dropped off in recent months was that I had reentered the world of Academia. For a variety of reasons that I won't bore you with here, I just hadn't got around to finishing my degree, and I am now at a point in my life where it makes sense to hit the books again.

It has been a few years since I set foot in a classroom, but thankfully not much has changed. The professors are still occasionally long-winded, and the books are still quite a racket. What is different this time around is the people in the classroom with me. And I don't just mean in a "they're so young" sense.

I am witnessing the results of programs such as No Child Left Behind, and it is absolutely appalling. We as a Nation are raising a generation of automatons. These kids do not ask questions. Well, that's not entirely true- they ask questions, just not the right kind of questions. They don't question whether the professor is factually correct, they don't ask how certain bits of information fit in to the course content. The only question they have is "Will this be on the exam?"

Thanks to standardized testing starting early in Elementary school, and lasting all through High School, we now have teachers that simply "teach to the test", and the students have caught on. If information is On The Test, then it is vitally important, and must be retained at all costs. If it is not, then there is simply no reason to waste the brain space to retain it, no matter how enriching it may be. Critical thinking? Why bother? It won't be On The Test.

I was raised to think about things and ask questions. My first Critical Thinking class was in fifth grade, taught by Sister Mary Hope. I'm certain there's a cheap joke to be made there about a nun teaching that particular course, but I'm not going to make it. My point is, even in Elementary school, I was taught the quote by Plutarch- "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." For today's youth, the mind is a card to be punched. Education is apparently no longer about teaching our children, it is instead an industry. The students are no longer expected to be learning how to be productive adults, they are instead treated as a commodity, a cog in the machine, a statistic that has to pass The Test in order for the school district to get its share of Federal tax dollars.

We're not training the next generation of leaders, we're training sheep who will be more than happy to sit in their cubicles and do their menial tasks without complaining.

It's a goddamn embarrassment.

Aftermath

J: Well, it's been a few days since the election. I can finally try and give my initial thoughts on what we've witnessed. I've tried twice before, but got way too emotional.

First off, it still boggles my mind that we can have an orderly transition of power. The people speak, the winners celebrate, and the losers accept it and move on. That's mind-boggling if you think about it for more than a second- people willingly relinquish power. The President just says "I'm good. Your turn. Have fun with it" and moves on.

But that's Drunken Civics. Not our gig. I want to look at the three turning points in this campaign. These were all tipping points- where the election could have taken a radically different turn.

First and foremost was January 26th- the South Carolina primary. To narrow it down even more, the 17 minute victory speech that Barack made. That set the standard for what C. refers to as "Shock and Awe" speeches by the President-Elect. Prior to that moment, Obama could have been just another winner of the Iowa Caucus- like Tom Harkin, Dick Gephart, and "Uncommitted". After that speech, we really saw the blossoming of the Obama movement.

And, good lord, that was a good speech.

The second moment came in Denver, at the Democratic Convention. Senator Hillary Clinton could have engaged in a long and drawn-out fight for the nomination. She most likely would have lost, but instead, she chose to have Senator Obama nominated by acclamation. That seemingly simple move allowed her supporters the freedom to support Barack. If she would have fought tooth and nail, she could have possibly thrown a ton of voters into McCain's camp. I don't know if it would have mattered in the long run, but it could have been the difference between a landslide/mandate and a narrow victory.

The third moment wasn't an instant- it was a period of almost a month, and that was John McCain's bizarre September. The Palin selection excited a ton of people... for a few days. Then, we got to hear her speak. Even though we can be a bit reactionary as a Nation, we instinctively understand some things. One of these apparently is "If you get eviscerated in an interview with Katie Couric, you're not ready to play politics at the major-league level". By the 26th, when the McCain I'm-Going-to-Suspend-my-Campaign play had failed, and he stepped on the stage at Ole Miss... the writing was on the wall.

If this race was a prize fight, it would have been called.

LANDSLIDE?!?

C. It's in the wind. Landslide.

1. Check out all the polling data, the Electoral College map ain't pretty for McCranky and the Avon Lady from Mooseville. http://www.pollster.com/ or 538.com or MSNBC.

2. McCain isn't bothering to campaign on the weekend, puttering around the golf course while his party regulars smell an embarrassment? Publicly bailing on Michigan. Woops.

3. Governor Palin practically hanging (in a smug yet folksy way of course) Obama in effigy as a terrorist sympathizer this weekend at a Colorado event. Desperate and ugly snottiness that McCain supposedly swore off.

4. Massive new voter registration that skew Democrat demographic.

5. The Bailout fallout and Wall Street implosion are making 401K's into 201K's, voters are going to punish the GOP with extreme prejudice.

Enjoy the Saturday Night Live sketches America, the Landslide is brewing up a vicious beating.

J: Dammit, C, you always yell at me for breaking out the early predictions... and now I'm going to turn the tables. The election is still a long way off. A month is a hell of a long time in politics, and... hell, my heart's not in it. I agree with you.

But, for the sake of accuracy, I will say that it's fivethirtyeight.com, and they do a really good job of breaking down the numbers.

I also really don't see McCain's campaign managers getting much work after this race, at least not on a National level. David Plouffe will be the "must-have" Democratic strategist for the next decade. He was smart enough to steal the grass-roots internet organization of Dean in 2004, and the "Speed Kills" approach of Carville in '92. He has had the message out quickly, and his ability to keep everything running through the campaign has kept the Obama message on-topic.

Still, it is a month, and it should get more entertaining from here. Our next stop- tomorrow's drinking game... err... debate.

C. Now that I've opened my big, fat trap, expect Johnny Mac to stroll on stage with Bin Laden's head under his arm with a butter knife in his hand.

Friday Weirdness

C: Ron Paul has almost quit. The underground internet movement that pumped millions of dollars into his Revolution are shaking their collective melon in disbelief. His delegates are drinking heavily and smoking freedom vegetation not knowing which way to turn. Drunken Politics has the remedy for the Pain and Shock. John Carpenter's They Live, starring the greatest actor of our generation -Roddy Piper. This awesome, ultimate political conspiratorial thriller will help us all get through these troubled times. Dr. Ron Paul, long may you rock.

J: And let's talk about the title to that blimp.

Oh, and OBEY.

C: We need that blimp pink slip. "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." No need to sweet talk these cats.

Thursday Weirdness

J: And I'm back. The evildoers cannot control my computer for long. Thankfully, I'm back today, because we had a nice piece
of oddness on Capitol Hill.

In case you missed it, Republican Representatives walked out of Congress rather than voting on whether to hold Josh Bolton and Harriet Miers in contempt for their refusal to testify in 2006. Nothing too unusual there, just political grandstanding. As in, there's no way almost any Republican* wanted to have a vote recorded on this, so they walked out, and said it was because the Democrats would rather push this issue than vote on the FISA (wiretapping) law that expires tomorrow.

That's all fine and good, but the Republicans may have been a touch too smart for their own good. The walkout occured when a Republican called a procedure vote. Oh, and it was during a memorial service for Tom Lantos, a Democrat who succumbed to cancer.

So, let me get this straight- someone from one party called a vote during a memorial service, and then his own party walked out while decrying partisan politics? At first, it would seem a bit disingenious, but the alternative was either opposing the White House OR facing reelection while voting for basically unlimited wiretapping on any American. I think walking out might have been the best card they could have played. You don't get a recorded vote, FISA expires (and the intelligence community now has to get a warrant no more than 72 hours after starting a 'tap), and you get to decry "rabid, partisan politics". Is it slimy? Sure. It's also the smartest move to make.

*I say "almost" because three Republicans stuck around and voted "yea". One of these was Ron Paul. As much as I am amused by the man's supporters, it's hard to argue the courage of his convictions.

C: I think I actually burst out in laughter when I saw this 'outrage on the steps'. I'm sending John Boehner a thank-you pack of smokes.

We must protect the phone companies at all costs. How dare anyone impune the courage of the White House, Bolton and Miers are getting Medal of Freedoms. Dead fellow Congressmen don't count just because they escaped from concentration camps. And the Constitution is a terrorist document, Al Qaeda loves the Constitution.

Super Repurcussions

J: The Democratic Party's delegate selection rules trend towards the arcane, but it appears that Obama outgained Hillary last night, to the 
tune of about 845 to 833, plus or minus four on each side. Momentum matters, and Hillary knows it. She also can't match Obama's money, and from here on out, Clinton has no more clear-cut "victory" states. To use a boxing analogy, she just threw her knockout punch, and Obama absorbed it. Hillary's campaign plan had to call for her winning New York, California, and Massachusetts big, and Obama had to know that. So, he took the best approach available- he tried to keep it competitive in those states, but did not strictly focus his energies there. This is smart, both for the primary and the general. As long as the Dems have a decent candidate, none of those three are going to vote Republican. So, Barack took his message into states like Missouri and Georgia, which will be more competitive for their electoral votes.

I think Hillary's wave may have peaked. Clinton needed to be seen as the eventual nominee by this point. Instead, she's just a viable candidate. I could be wrong, but I expect Senator Obama to start to pull away soon. This has everything to do with geography. Look at the rest of February: Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, U.S. Virgin Islands, Maine, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, and Wisconsin all hold primaries or caucuses. I don't see a single state, district, or territory where Hillary can walk in and win easily. He has the momentum, he has the charisma, he has the money.

On the Republican side, apparently Willard had told his people that California was his "make or break" state. Getting beat by 8% in your "make or break" state will generally cause one to have one of those somber meetings with staff. Money may not be Mitt's problem, but even rich guys have to hate spending millions to get 34%. I think Romney and his well-groomed hair will be leaving us soon.

J: Late Breaking News:

Senator Clinton has loaned her campaign $5 million from her own bank account, and sources are reporting that some of her senior staff, including campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, are working this month without pay.

Rudy G may have set the precedent for poor campaigning, but Hillary is showing signs of following the same gameplan. Focus on the big states, ignore the small ones, go for the big delegates. If Clinton has a plan B, she must implement it soon- or this race will be out of her grasp quickly.

C: It may be a mistake to stick the fork in Clinton just yet. Delegate count is a wash after Fat Tuesday. Raw popular voter numbers are a wash. The Obama Kennedy/celebrity endorsement did not win either MA or CA, not even close. Super-delegates are establishment insiders which favors Hilary. If and when Florida and Michigan seat their delegates guess who gets them. The Clinton ground game in Big States is still alive. Caucuses-schmaucuses. If it goes down to Ohio, Texas, the Chesapeake cluster or Pennsylvania don't bet against the Senator from New York. And Obama has been put on the proverbial pedestal, expect the Media to start tearing him down as quickly as they built him up. And we haven't seen how she runs as a perceived underdog. This is too fluid for a momentum call said the counter-intuitive skeptic.

The HuckaSurge is going to HuckaSputter. He's running out of Evangelicans, it may be why Willard stays in the game. And side-splitting humor includes the Rabid Radio and TV/attack book/religion machines braying about McCain's liberalism.

Maybe it's just me but the pundits breaking down "exit polls" by race and gender is creeping me out.

South Carolina Saturday

C: http://tinyurl.com/3xgoqe

Senator Obama blew the barn doors off the hinges with his South Carolina victory acceptance speech. I teared up. And while the whole show may burn down into a mudbog, RFK would be proud. This is special.

J:That victory speech was one of the finest pieces of Political Oratory I've ever heard. It was... indescribable. A mix of JFK, RFK, and MLK. If I was with the Obama campaign, I'd have DVDs of that speech included with every mail-out for the Super Tuesday states.

Edwards is looking more and more like he's pushing for Attorney General.

J:



C: Sometimes, once in a while, a moment happen. This was one of those moments.

Friday Weirdness

J: Well, here we are. The day before the Dems get their SC thing going, and it's a bad-news-dumping Friday. There are the usual odd and/or rage-inducing stories, so I'll get past the wordy preamble and get to business. That, after all, is why you're here.

First off, we'll start with the Democrats. Now, a casual reader may notice that C and I both tend to lean a touch to the left. This is true. But we've been whacking the GOP because they've been making it easy on us. Caricatures are fun to poke at. The big-3 Democrats had been playing too nice with each other. Well, all that has changed, finally. Hillary came out this afternoon and said that she believes the delegates from Florida and Michigan should be seated at the convention.

Got it here.

Interesting idea. If it works, she runs the risk of pissing off all Barack's supporters, but she can afford to do that because a very substantial percentage of them would not vote for a Republican in the general election. And, as many fine minds have pointed out before me, you can get away with just about anything at a convention and not raise the general public's ire.

Next off, because this is Drunken Politics:

Virginia wants some decent Sangria. I hope this measure passes. I also hope those of you who haven't had good Sangria make the effort to find some. Delicious beverage.

But back to the politics and away from the booze, Bill Clinton is currently doing a hell of a job as his wife's attack dog. I just wish he'd stop. He's a Former President. He's also a spouse, which is why he'll never stop.

For the GOP weirdness,Ron Paul may have learned a lesson about not being beholden to corporations- you don't get to win.

On the other hand- political corruption? In Louisiana?

Call me shocked.

Finally, The New York Times has given their endorsement to John McCain. The rest of the Republican field thanks them. I predict you will hear every other GOP candidate use this endorsement to attack Johnny Mac.

C: Dammit. You've forced my hand, I suffered through the Florida debate last night and I was trying to use today as the cracker to cleanse my palate before South Carolina Saturday.

Debate highlights: Mitt "I'll invade Cuba and make the whole goshdarn island Gitmo" Romney had mucho air time. He has money and it will trickle to you. Rudy rolled over, only 911ing two or three times. My guess is he's seen his internal tracking polls and is trying to gracefully bale into a VP. McCain? MmmK, he was on stage. Hucklebee can smell his own marginalization, he sees his old fat self in the mirror. The God Constitution with guns and Chuck Norris shtick funny ha-ha-ha talk show guest President wannabe has worn thin. Dr. Ron "the Racist" Paul had a kind of James Stockdale aura floating around his head. Beating Rudy "TERROR EVERYWHERE" G. and raising interweb dollars from the Klingon-speaking crowd may be confounding him. And Mexicans have WMD. Or something.

Note to EVERYONE: Never never ever mess with William Jefferson Clinton. He's still the savviest, smartest guy in the room.

After South Carolina, retail politics is dead. A ghost, a shadow, a wisp of smoke. It's all about the money. I don't for a second buy this brokered convention, both Democrat and Republican, yackity-yack.

And because whacking the Hilary and Barack and the Son-of-a-Millworker pinatas are so easy, I've been storing up the bile where it belongs. My liver. I'll purge soon.

J: "Note to EVERYONE: Never never ever mess with William Jefferson Clinton. He's still the savviest, smartest guy in the room." Bears repeating. I don't really think Bill likes governing as much as he loves the Campaign Trail. He's the most charismatic, affable guy who will cut your legs out from under you and smile while he's doing it. And then lick the blood off his teeth.

C: I 'm trying to figure out how recently-crowned French President Nicolas Sarkozy's trip to India about nuclear power fits in here, but his girlfriend, Carla Bruni, is smoking hot. Oh, proliferation of nukes in India and Pakistan ups the stability of the region question. Bah. Let's go back to a potential flag burning Amendment or some such shit.

And I think our newest acquistion, the RP blimp (obviously we need to rename it), should do a flyover of Dubai. Check out Dick Cheney's new pad. We need to drop by for cocktails.

Friday Weirdness

J: Ah, Friday afternoon. A political aficionado's favorite news time. Some nice strange stories are floating around out there.

First, Fox News' latest poll shows McCain with a 7 point lead on Huckabee in South Carolina- 25/18. Personally, I think it's similar to the polls showing Obama leading Hillary right before NH. McCain's getting a little bump right now from his win, but long-term polls tend to be better to gauge public opinion. I'll say this, though- if McCain wins SC, or is within, say, 1 or 2 percent, then McCain will be competitive nationally. The Huckster ought to be the ideal guy for an SC Republican to support, and if Johnny Mac beats him in the Palmetto State, expect to see massive upheavals in Huckabee's strategy. Remember, the best position to be is the expected nominee come Super Tuesday. It gets your supporters to the polls, keeps the demoralized supporters of your opponents at home, and puts a lot of the undecideds in your column.

Then, we get into the good stuff- The (U.K.) Guardian is reporting that around a dozen members of Rudy Giuliani's senior staff are foregoing their January salaries. Now, there are several reasons why this may be the case, from "we want to report higher cash on-hand to the FEC in this quarter's report" to "We're running really low on cash", but the reasons don't matter. When staff starts going without pay, it's generally a good sign of a candidate being dead in the water. I'd expect to see "America's Mayor" out of the GOP race by the final bell on Super Tuesday. Somehow, his message of relating everything to 9/11/2001 never seemed to catch on with the general public. At this point, I think he's running for a cabinet position, with a very outside shot at the VP nomination.

C: The South Carolina foray is your area of expertise. Gaming the roles of veterans, African-American women, evangelicans, NRA'ers, relocated Nor'Easterns and legacy Southerners is over my head. And pollsters have collectively shit in their hat. Will the Rove-monkeys burn down the McCantankerous again? Chucklebee on Leno, Letterman, et. al. cracking funny. I'm fairly certain American doesn't want a 'funny' President. Well, trying to be 'funny' on purpose. Mittster pulled his SC ad money, what a crapshoot. Nevertheless, I would like a low-country boil.

Rudolpho is screwed, Florida strategy my ass. Katherine Harris is nowhere to be found. The Cuban Mafia cannot twist enough arm to make this pollo fly. And the Driving-with-my-turn-signal-on crowd ex-NY snowbird doesn't know what day it is. Jeb hasn't said nothing. Hang my chad. And now Rudy can't pay his staff? That's gotdam hysterical.

Good call on the Friday afternoon news cycle. Only perverts like us pay attention to Friday news. Wall Street, the Feds, a boss who's going to can one's ass...Friday is the under radar 'bad' super slimy news day. The month of August follows similar guidelines.

J: Your description of South Carolinians is fairly dead-on. The odd thing is that the state has a substantial Democrat population. You want to make real inroads in Carolina? Just show up wearing either a garnet-and-black Gamecocks ensemble, or a purple-and-orange Clemson outfit. Sure, you'll alienate half the state, but the other half will strongly embrace you. Yes, college football is that important there.

C: Okay. That's frightening and amusing. The Gamecocks would be my obvious choice. I nearly applied to grad school at UC Santa Cruz just so I could be a Banana Slug.

The Fred Factor

C: I cannot game Thompson's chances. Is South Carolina where he makes a dent? Granted he worked with Mariska Hargitay, who is uber-hotness, Mariska not Fred, but his juice doesn't seem to have any traction. His wife is cute so that's a plus from a piggish political photo op view. Maybe he has a certain Southern appeal that will bump him past his moment of will he/won't he. He also talks slow and funny so I can't always understand him. Regardless, I have a deep deep love for the U.S. Senate, the slow machinations of process have inhibited rash stupidity on many occasions, and Fred's a Senator. Does TV star Lurch in Armani bail or play on?

J: Fred! He was supposed to be the conservative knight riding in on his white horse to sweep the nomination. Instead, he's riding a Shetland pony and doesn't seem to be that concerned with the race.

His Southern charm would normally get him a touch of support, most of the GOP in the south also falls into the evangelical camp. Also, he was in the Senate during the Watergate trials. Not too hard to mistake him for the next Nixon rather than the next Reagan.

"He also talks slow and funny so I can't always understand him."- careful, prep school boy. Some of us enjoy our drawl.

C: Alright, granted that dialect jab was a cheap shot. A dude from Hope fattened my bank account, and I've got the silk ties in the closet to prove it, back when getting a blowjob was an impeachable offense. I'm all about building bridges, and you know I'm doing my best to support the Kentucky economy by drinking Bourbon like a whale having breakfast krill.

Thompson's foreign policy blither is more Scorched Earth than Nixon. Hell, Nixon looks like Kucinich compared to Rudy. Maybe Fred can rent RP's blimp after Dr. Ron bails on Wednesday.

C: I have to rewatch the NH debates this evening as I was, ummm challenged last night.