What to look for tonight

After six weeks of polling and in-depth analysis the likes of which a Pennsylvania primary has never seen, we can finally say with a high degree of certainty that tonight one of these five scenarios will go down:

Obama wins. After crying for the camera, Hillary pummels now secret adviser Mark Penn with a hard cover copy of "Microtrends" A red-faced Bill Clinton thrusts his pointed finger at a group of reporters. Somebody loses an eye.

Clinton wins by between zero and five. Obama "brushes" it off by telling supporters not to worry because it "ain't no thing." Television executives from Charlotte to Terre Haute to Portland wonder if such a margin will allow for the campaign to continue long enough to finance their new kitchens.

Clinton wins by between five and ten. Looking towards Indiana, Hillary gets lost in an analogy comparing herself to Notre Dame football underdog "Rudy" Ruettiger and claims she once played halfback for the Fighting Irish. She then takes a swig from a handle of Jack Daniels and shoots a 12-point buck.

Clinton wins by between ten and fifteen. Veteran right-wing TV pundit Pat Buchanan refers to Hillary Clinton as "one tough gal." College campuses everywhere erupt in angry blogging. From his well air-conditioned straight talk bus, John McCain rubs his hands together and thinks about White House drapes.

Clinton wins by more than fifteen. Howard Dean tries to scream, but no sound comes out. Obama dismisses elections as "the kind of old politics which have made our nation cynical." From his well air-conditioned Tennessee mansion, Al Gore rubs his hands together and thinks about White House drapes.

Clintons N Things

Being stalked is mostly downside

Having a stalker is a good news/bad news scenario. The good news being you are probably more important than the majority of people who don't have a stalker, and the bad news being that there exists a person who follows you around and harbors dark thoughts about killing you with a gun made from the Bantam Edition of "The Catcher in the Rye."

Ok, so it is mostly bad news. And to make matters worse stalkers are rarely otherwise well-balanced people who are just really into you because you are so irresistibly great.

Still, some stalkers are creepier than others. And making a strong play for the creepiest stalker about is a 48-year old named David Ajemian, who today pleaded guilty to stalking late night TV host Conan O'Brien. Here is short list of Ajemian's disturbing attributes:

* He is a Catholic priest from Boston -- a place were the legal records will show Catholic priests are at their most creepy.

* He was smart enough to graduate from Harvard. Smart people don't just excel at school, they are also better at a whole host of other things including stalking, being creepy and making a gun from the Bantam Edition of "The Catcher in the Rye."

* This picture. It was taken right after his arraignment, when he should have been trying to look his least creepy. Instead Ajemian creepily went in another direction:

Of course the title of creepiest stalker about is ephemeral. Meaning if Democratic strategist and current blogsphere whipping boy Mark Penn ever got himself involved in the stalking game he would immediately shoot to number one creepiest stalker based solely on this picture which I actually think is a publicity shot so you can only imagine what his facial expression and body language would be like as he made a mural out of your used tissues:

So yeah, Hillary should try to make the break quickly and permanently.

Hillary to take the steps

In a campaign stop in Philadelphia today Hillary Clinton declared that her candidacy for the democratic nomination resembled Rocky Bolboa's fictional fight career in that there is no quit in either. Of course Rocky ended up losing to the black guy, but if Hillary prevails in Rocky's home sate of Pennsylvania -- where she is expected to win -- she will live to fight another round.

So what state-appropriate never-say-die analogies will the former First Lady employ when campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina, the next two primary states?

Indiana's is easy enough. She can evoke the pride of South Bend, Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger. Unlike this year's famous Rudy, the original Rudy also has no quit in him, and battled long odds to play for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

But things get tricky when the former First Lady heads down south. Inhabitants of North Carolina are called "Tar Heals." One of the more popular explanations of how this nickname came to be is that during the Civil War North Carolinians impressed with their ability to stand their ground and never quit the fight under heavy gunfire.

Hillary seemed to be skillfully setting a Tar Heal-related analogy up when she spoke of braving sniper fire in Bosnia. But it all fell apart when Sinbad made an unlikely entry into the campaign and successfully dispelled this claim as fiction. And that was Sinbad the comedian, not the pirate. (Which doesn't make it any less ridiculous.)

If Hillary is really strapped for North Carolina analogies she can always conjure up the words of the Brooklyn-born North Carolinian Jim Valvano, who famously declared "don't give up, don't ever give up."

Soon after saying this Valvano died.

SNL doesn't want you to see what it did

Media darling Barack Obama is finally catching heat -- and displaying thin skin -- over two mini-scandals; one involving a shady real estate deal with a shady character, and another his surrogate's assurance to the Canadian government that Obama's anti-NAFTA rhetoric was nothing more than meaningless campaign posturing.

The press may have turned up the heat on Obama just in time to help save the campaign of his rival, Hillary Clinton, who has racked up a pretty impressive 11 primary losing streak, and needs a good showing in tonight's contests if she is going to be able to continue her run for the nomination she was once so heavily favored for.

While Obama's kid glove treatment wasn't going to last forever, could it be that Saturday Night Live's much discussed sketch portraying the press as fawning Obama sycophants shamed the boys on the bus into speeding up their inevitable transition towards more traditional scrutiny of the freshmen Illinois Senator?

That is what a lot of people are going to say if Hillary Clinton comes away with primary wins in Texas and Ohio in a few hours. (For what little it is worth, I think that she will.)

This would mark the most buzz SNL has garnered since Chevy Chase fell down/Eddie Murphy jumped in a hot tube/Dana Carvey did the first George Bush -- pick whichever moment as long it was at least 15 years ago.

So what is SNL doing to help seal this potential return to relevance? Surprisingly, not by making the clip in question -- the one Hillary Clinton went so far as to awkwardly bring up in the last debate -- available on Youtube.

So SNL may well help nudge Hillary Clinton along to a legendary comeback, but it is doing itself no favors concerning its own return to glory.

The candidates in pictures

Unless Hillary Clinton's brand new five-point attack against Barack Obama includes the Perry Mason-like discovery of the proverbial dead girl or live boy, it looks increasingly like the New York Senator will not be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Which is too bad, because that means all of us who deal with the selection of photographs for publication will be denied a campaign between a candidate who does this:

And candidate who does this:

Of course, the most famous photograph of this particular week has come from the third guy in the mix:

It's a good thing his father left him in America, because it's hard to believe anyone would be fainting at an Obama speach if Barack was wearing his ancestral garb.

More bad words

In the early seventies comic George Carlin would list in his act "seven words you can never say on television." The very riff led to a Supreme Court decision which helped establish indecency standards in American broadcasting.

35 years later some of Carlin's seven words look tame, but one -- "cunt" -- still jumps out as highly taboo. At least on this side of the Atlantic.

This morning Jane Fonda, ever the in-your-face revolutionary, shocked millions by dropping an uncensored and completely casual "cunt" on NBC's Today Show during a discussion of her rationale behind doing the play The Vagina Monologues.

Fonda hasn't been the only one getting salty with descriptions of female anatomy. Earlier this week Mark Halperin, a senior political analyst for Time Magazine and ABC News, used the word "pussy" (not one of Carlin's seven) when describing on a satellite radio show what John Edwards thinks of Barack Obama -- and why Edwards might buck current trends and throw his support behind Hillary Clinton.

Last night Halperin apologized for his language, while strongly implying it was his zest for reporting Edwards's words accurately which led him astray.

If this is true, wow. It's one thing to be pimped out by Hillary Clinton, but to be called a pussy by John "I can't go anywhere without my compact and hairbrush" Edwards?

I wonder what Edwards would have said if he knew the word "cunt" had become available?

They're just like regular people -- only smaller!

Whether they were wrangling Latinos in Texas for a crazy lady, or introducing themselves as the world's strongest dwarf, today will always be remembered as the day little people put on grown up clothes and were handled by big people.


Oh yeah, and yesterday miniature cultural artifact Gary Coleman announced his "secret" marriage to a young, full-sized actress. Where have you gone, Emmanuel Lewis?

"Pimp" not as mainstream as previously thought

As I've said many times, there is nothing more despicable than popular culture's glorification of the pimp. But I guess I have bought into it myself because I probably wouldn't have thought twice if I heard MSNBC reporter David Shuster say Hillary Clinton "pimped out" daughter Chelsea by having her call Democratic superdelegates.

Understandably, ears which have been less desensitized by MTV perk up when pimp is employed as a verb describing the relationship of a parent to a child.

Shuster has now been suspended for his remarks. I hate when anyone is harshly punished for an-on-air slip -- especially when they meant no malice -- but it's still a good lesson for pimp glorifiers everywhere.

Hillary crying? Really?

For the second time in the past month Hillary Clinton has found herself accused of crying. While it is suspicious her eyes only mist up when the polls take a turn against her, is the former First Lady really crying?

The traditional definition of the word "crying" is as follows: The process of shedding tears (usually accompanied by sobs or other inarticulate sounds.)

Here is a blown up photograph of yesterday's waterworks in New Haven, CT, which came after Hillary received a warm, emotional introduction from an old friend at a campaign event:

From the picture it is clear Hillary has shed at least one tear. One could also make argument that there are remnants of another tear below her eyelid on the right side of the photo -- which would then trigger the tears requirement for crying. But it is also possible the seemingly moist blotch is a result of the camera angle, lighting, or the process of enlarging the photo. Hillary haters would claim there is a third tear forming in the center of her eyelid, but, again, it could be an illusion. Either way there is no proof the moisture spilled over the eyelid. Until such evidence exists the potential third tear should be considered merely a part of Hillary's right eye's natural hydration process.

Even if there were tears yesterday in New Haven, no one is claiming Hillary's watery secretions were coupled with sobs or inarticulate sounds. While there is a school of thought suggesting Hillary's voice cracked for a moment last month in New Hampshire when her eyes briefly appeared heavy, I don't think it has been argued anywhere she was either sobbing or difficult to understand during the incident.

Granted the sobbing and inarticulate sounds aren't hard and fast rules of crying. But I view them as very important standards. I am of the belief that it has been many years since I've cried. Yet by employing the stripped down definition of crying Hillary's critics use, it turns out whenever I yawn or see a particularly well-produced commercial for the United Way I have exposed myself as a crybaby.

In the haste to demonize Hillary are we all being marked as helpless creatures too weak to keep everyday emotions properly contained inside our faces?

Anyway, call me old-fashioned, but when I like to think of a heavily made-up middle-aged woman crying I like to think of this:

Idle threat of the week

This week the panel of judges who choose Idle Threat of the Week were faced with a bit of a quandary. There is no question Bill Clinton's binge of red-faced, finger wagging barely coded race baiting constituted a threat of sorts. And there is no question the week ended with his wife Hillary -- still technically the one running for President -- receiving a rebuke from South Carolina voters far stronger than the polls and pundits had predicted.

Yet questions linger. Obviously Bill and Hillary have a more complicated relationship than the typical husband and wife. Raising the possibility that Bill is, subconsciously or otherwise, trying to torpedo his spouses run for the office he held to mixed reviews for eight years.

Some will say Bill's strategy of pushing Barack Obama into an electoral ghetto of black voters, suspiciously idealistic young and upperclass white voters, and the diminishing returns of the Kennedy clan is smart -- if brutal -- strategy. But Bill Clinton, who has been hailed as the political mind of his generation, should surely know this was going to probably happen regardless of anything he said or did. So why burn the Clinton name into such an ugly tactic?

Whatever the reason it is clear Bill Clinton's surprising and seemingly uncontrollable rage has led to the impression he might not know what noises his mouth makes, or who exactly is he trying to threaten. Which is why the race for Idle Threat of The Week for January 21st to 27th has been called for the 42nd President.

Mitt Romney who, stunningly, now has a puncher's chance to be the next President of the United States, scored points this week by joking that Americans would probably recoil at the thought of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do. This American is here to report having Bill on the campaign trail with nothing to do is nothing but entertaining and revealing.

Idle threat of the week

Barack Obama's caucus win in lily-white Iowa was hailed by some as a historic next step into America's post-racial future. There may be an element of truth to this conclusion, but both Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns have spent the past week making sure the American public knows that not only is race still very relevant, it's what to talk about when asking for votes.

While it's true the two candidates have tried hard to play down the racial rhetoric themselves, their surrogates and an eager press have managed to whip everything from LBJ's legislative history to Sidney Poitier's performance in "Look Who's Coming to Dinner" to fairy tales into a referendum on black and white in America. As a primary showdown in South Carolina looms, one can only imagine what else will be sucked into this vortex of racial bad feelings.

And then what happens when Clinton and Obama move on to California to court Hispanics, the pesky third race which could ultimately decide the Democratic primary?

The only reprieve to this barrage of racial baggage might be if the tone of the campaign shifted more towards gender grievances. It could be a Clinton spokesperson signaled a move in this direction when he expressed "shock" that Obama's campaign was using "99 Problems" as one of its theme songs. In the 2003 hit Jay-Z raps about having "99 problems, but a bitch (possibly a not-so sly reference to Hillary's womanly demenor) ain't one."

Only with practically no policy difference between the two candidates -- Hillary says 70 billion for economic stimulus, so Barack says 75 -- there is plenty of room for both racial and gender animosity in the debate. And the Democratic Parties attempt to transcend race in their primary is the Idle Threat of the Week for January 7th to 13th.

Fans of the racial theater can only lament that master actor Rudy Giuliani isn't somehow more involved.

He's no Chuck Norris

This morning, John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama may have sent a ripple or two through the political establishment. While Kerry always makes me think of windsurfing, and how different his skull would look from that of a normal skull, here is what the three remaining Democratic candidates for President are thinking about 2004's Democratic nominee right now:

John Edwards Bummer. It was only four years ago the other John and I were touring the country together. Not since the heyday of folk-pop stars Evan and Jaron had either America seen such a luminously haired duo. Where did we go wrong?

Barack Obama Wow, this whole Kerry endorsement thing is actually getting some media play. Should we distance ourselves from it? I guess we'll let it go. But if I hear a word about Bob Shrum . . .

Hillary Clinton (Turns to the camera and sniffles) The boys . . . they're ganging up on me again.

Pundits lose New Hampshire

In the world of punditry, January 8th 2008 will live in infamy. It was the day that cast upon the ancient art of expert opinion a perfect storm of incorrectness, in which every single person with a byline, a radio microphone, green room access, or their very own weblog was perfectly incorrect.

Myself, I haven't dipped my toes and non-existent credentials too deeply into punditry game this political season. This is because there has always been something that has unsettled me about the 2008 campaign.

In the current media paradigm, in which so many different entities compete for the same news consumer, candidates are dissected and new narratives sought at a rate and intensity never before seen. As the interest in finding the "perfect" candidate multiplies, the chances any candidate could stand up to the scrutiny decreases. I don't know how, in the end, this reconciles. Neither does anyone else.

That being said, if you had asked me 24 hours ago, I would have confidently told you Hillary Clinton has almost no chance of being the Democratic nominee. Likewise, today I will posit Barack Obama has absolutely no shot of advancing in the primaries -- meaning Hillary is a virtual lock for the nomination. The extreme nature of my shift in opinion is based solely on about 10,000 people in New Hampshire not voting the way I (and the polls) thought they would.

So, yeah, I get why a guy like Stephen Colbert can make a career out of mocking the pundits. But before you take too much pleasures in the failures of the so-called experts consider this: If last night is any indication, Chris Matthews is even more obnoxious when explaining why he was wrong than he is when bragging about how he was right.

Crying in baseball, politics

There was much talk and speculation yesterday about Hillary Clinton getting a tad teary-eyed when she provided a seemingly heartfelt answer to the question "how do you do it." ("It" being soldiering on amid brutal press and what could become one of the more spectacular electoral collapses of all-time.)

While I wouldn't quite call what Clinton did "crying," -- it was more like the kind of brief voice cracking emotion both the current President and Hillary's former-President husband display from time to time -- her paltry water-works probably do loom larger because she is a woman, and because crying during primary season has traditionally been a no-no for candidates of any gender.

Equally embattled Roger Clemens was also forced to defend himself yesterday. Instead of taking Hillary's earnest approach, the right-hander did so with the humility and subtly of a 98-mile-an-hour brush back pitch. So blind was his press-conference fury that he was forced to admit he hadn't heard a question because he thought it was directed at his lawyer -- who happened to be standing right next to him.

Clemens seethed as he offered indignant denials and made threats, some more veiled than others. Not only did Clemens do a poor job combating the charge he took steroids during his playing days, he ended up giving the impression he also shoots them before he does press conferences.

If Clemens had slowed down and got calm and misty-eyed when he talked about all the "kids" he mentors to stay away from from the very substance he stands accused of taking, it still wouldn't have immediately convinced anyone of a grand conspiracy against the would-be Hall of Famer. But it couldn't have gone any worse than the all-out heavy-handed approach he took instead.

And while Clemens should get a little sadder, it would serve Hillary's purpose if she got a little madder. Unfortunately her husband has beat her to the anger punch, offering up at a New Hampshire event today this seething screed on the Obama "fairy tale" and an unfair press.

Really, nobody knows what the rules are concerning crying in politics or baseball. But it's a safe bet that you aren't going to get very far having your spouse stand up for you, with either tears or rage.


* Speaking of Clemens, this fake confession video is top notch.

Hillary has a fan in Australia

You can learn a lot from search engine inquires. Did you know just using information gleamed from keyword activity to this blog I became the first person in the whole world to break the story that former Security State Henry Kissinger probably takes human growth hormones? A substance rightfully banned from most of your better major professional sports leagues.

OK, fine, that story never caught on like I thought it would. But I have a new one. It comes from Perth, Australia:
You probably can't read that as is, but, if you click on it, it will enlarge and reveal the Aussie was searching the term: Hillary can't hide her sexual activities in the camp David swimming pool.

I think we know what Hillary he speaks of. And I'm sure you are wondering if these sexual activities involve the Muslim lesbian who follows the former First Lady around. If not, maybe the late Vince Foster. A dolphin?

So far, none of my own search engine research has unearthed anything about Hillary and a forbidden aquatic romp. But, feeling like I've been deputized by the inquisitive Western Australian, I will make sure to get to the bottom of this important development.

And prove, once and for all, that all the answers in the world lie in the questions we ask.

Hillary Campaign Hostage Crisis: Hour Three

The crisis has been defused, and the hostages have been released. It turns out the hostage taker was neither an overly-exuberant supporter of Hillary's historic campaign nor a Hillary plant intended to garner the kind of sympathy that could nullify the former first lady's swoon in the Iowa polls. In fact he has been identified as a well-known local man with a history of mental illness. While it is unclear as to whether he had a real bomb, there seems to be consensus around him using duct tape to strap whatever it was to his chest.

So does anyone think Rudy would have let this happen. Just saying . . .

Hillary Campaign Hostage Crisis: Hour Two

Remember a couple weeks ago when there were reports of anti-Mormon "push poll" calls in New Hampshire? It's OK if you don't, but what happened was it was quickly discovered the firm that made the calls had ties to the Romney campaign. Raising the the possibility that, to garner sympathy, the Mormon had push polled himself. Just saying . . .

Hillary Campaign Hostage Crisis: Hour One

So Obama may have got that Oprah book lady to endorse him, but Hillary's supporters are so dedicated and rabid they are willing to strap an alleged explosive device to their chest, and hold hostage innocent souls, just for the opportunity to speak to their favored candidate. Just saying. . .

Obama gets all generational on us

Perhaps sensing -- after Hillary's shaky debate performance last week -- something blood-like in the water, Barack Obama has finally gone on the offensive against the Democratic front runner.

Today he charged that Hillary and the 60's era Baby Bombers are incapable, as a generation, of "bringing the country together and getting things done."

Putting aside whether this is either true or an effective line of attack, Obama's claim got me thinking: Who really wants a President that will bring the country together (and get things done.)

I know, being of the Internet, I'm a little skewed on this, but it seems to me there are an awful lot of people out there who are having a jolly old time being on team red or team blue. It's apparently fun to throw out invectives, screech about Republitards or Democraps and define yourself by what your politics aren't.

Even if these web-based crazies are a thin slice of the general population, I do think their feelings represent a hyper-condensed version of what a lot of people -- especially those who are going to vote in primaries or bring energy to the general election -- feel. And, quite frankly, a lot of those who are sitting on the sideline aren't doing so because they are waiting for some great transcendent candidate -- they are doing so because they are exercising their right not to care.

If we are a nation both divided and ambivalent politically, so what? Alabama isn't going to attack Delaware anytime soon. What does Obama think happens after we are united as a country? Would we all write a song together?

In fairness to Obama -- who tends to be light on the details -- I guess what he means is that the challenges we face in the future, like social security or whatever the looming crisis du jour happens to be, are best solved when we are united by someone like he thinks he is. But is that even true?

I don't see any evidence. I'm sure if something happened bad enough that nation wide cooperation was really required, the type of unity Obama speaks of would materialize no matter who resides in the White House. Now is the time for the rabid partisans to do their thing, and see who can be first to 51 percent.

Because Hillary's campaign has been so effective laying claim to vast amounts of left-to-center political real estate, it's been difficult for her primary opponents to find their niches.

But Obama's niche as the guy who is going to bring everyone together and then, vaguely, get things done . . . why that sounds like something Hillary Clinton and her 60's era cohorts would have dreamed up. Back when they were wide-eyed teenagers with flowers in their hair.