Brought to You By the Golden Arches?

John Wayne McCain has announced his theme heading into Tuesday's make or break primary.

This Mick Agrees with The Other Two

At the end of MTP this morning, Russert waterboarded Republican Mike Murhpy and Democrat Steve McMahon into picking the party nominees.

Barring bombshells (an admittedly dubious assumption), I agree with them that it's easiest to spin a McCain/Obama story right now as opposed to any other current candidate.

Democrats and "Making Change"

Like others, I'm sick of the "making change" mantra coming out of the Democratic candidates. They should get the Gyuto Monks to record a chant of it!

The only redeeming use of the word was John McCain's snarky bestowal of the label on Mitt last night.

Anyway, after I heard it for the gajillionth time this morning, I recalled the classic SNL bit on First Citiwide Change Bank.

Bob Dylan Covers Brown Sugar

I've had bootleg tapes of this for a few years, but had not come across an embeddable video of it...

As usual, Dylan adds and subtracts from the song in his own way and this particular one is probably more interesting for its novelty rather than its inventiveness.

I've also started to take advantage of subscribing to Youtube posters. I've seen it around, but never really cared to until I found that I like the continuity of some of the folks who put things up there. It's a great way to quickly find certain bands or political items, for instance.

Interesting stuff

BillO Gets in a Scuffle With Secret Service

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times says that Bill was causing a little bit of a ruckus at an Obama event in Nashua today and ended up drawing a bit too much attention to himself.

Rather amusing.

BigHead calls the kettle black.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

Lyndon Baines Johnson's famous Daisy ad in 1964, which I learned about in high school as a classic political ad thats sole purpose was to exploit the fears we were feeling at the time. Looking back at it 20 years later, it seemed laughable that shit like that moved votes.


Rudy Giuliani's ad, released yesterday after his 4% finish in Iowa.

Frank Zappa on the 2008 Elections

While his person has left us, Zappa and the Mothers of Invention pretty much nailed this election (and in fairness, many since then and yet to come) down when they released I'm the Slime.

Morning Tidbits

Just got up for a few minutes to check on an overnight work job and scanned the papers (boy, there's a term your kids won't quite get, huh? They can read the paper while listening to a record album.)

Anyway...

• Hillary's allegedly going to change her advertising strategy in NH, but is not yet saying how. She did, however, talk to the press yesterday claiming to have already been tested and it's high time that others in the race (especially black men from her home state) be held to some similar standard. Rest assured, she's the "most innocent" one on the trail. We shall wait to see what the hell that means.
• Fred Thompson has decided, now, to skip New Hampshire and head on down to hopefully-greener pastures in South Carolina. This seems like a Giuiliani-Lite strategy, perhaps. I have to hand it to both of these candidates for trying to buck conventional wisdom in the way they've been spending their resources, but to date it's not seeming to be working. Then again, I don't make the big bucks so I'll just wait and see.
• Both parties have debates to be aired, back-to-back, on ABC this evening starting around 8PM ET. Tomorrow night, the GOP, sans Libertarian Ron Paul, will have another showdown on Fox News Channel.
• All is well...back to bed.
  

Keith and Willie Perform "Dead Flowers"

This is a really cool clip...from some special on the USA Network, I guess.

Vince Vaughan introduces Keith Richards, Willie Nelson and others.

"If I Win New Hampshire, I Win the Presidency"

Chris Jansing of MSNBC just attributed this line to Barack in a New Hampshire airport hangar.

Will Barack Obama Be Like the Guy in the PG-13 Movie or the Rated R Movie?

One has to wonder if David Axelrod and the fellas got together and gave this speech to Barack Obama last night, as they head up to New Hampshire where they will continue to tame the shrew!

I, myself, was tickled imagining it, but I might be a bit weird.

Not That I'm In a Hurry to Write Her Obit or Anything...

But I think Peggy Noonan hits the nail on the head, if we're to point to the time, in Iowa, where Hillary started doing a Britney-class breakdown.

I think we were there when it happened, in the debate in which he was questioned on why so many of Bill Clinton's aides were advising him. She laughed, and he said he was looking forward to her advising him, too. He took mama to school.

It Only FEELS Like Fifth Place, Hil. You Actually Finished Third!

I Had to Delete the Endorsements

I was so proud of myself last night. I posted up a short endorsement of Barack and McCain and then threw in some nifty graphs from Real Clear Politics.

It looked great on Firefox.

Then when I got in this AM and looked on IE, everything was out of whack and throwing the blog off.

So, for the record, I have a two-tiered endorsement at this early stage. I'll put up a more detailed explanation later.

Iowa is Ripping Minnesota Off!

Will Cody be offended, or is this just another example of the easy going gopher being violated by its neighbor?

This new term has been going around a lot lately among the pundit class when talking about the debates, but the term is more-solidly associated with Minnesota.

"Until Someone Writes a Song About You, You Don't Exist"

I've been looking for someone to put out a little mix of this one for some time and finally a kind soul got around to posting Zappa's Jewish Princess from the Sheik Yerbouti album.

As is often the case, don't listen if you don't have a sense of humour...

Underreported Political Item of the Day

Yesterday, Cleveland's own Dennis Kucinich put out the word to his troops that if he does not survive the 15% threshhold in Iowa on Thursday, he would appreciate it if his supporters jump to the Obama camp.

The way the Dem side runs their show in Iowa, if candidates don't meet a 15% level of support within a caucus, their people are up for grabs again and can play for another team. (The Republicans, not known for public displays of playing for the other team, don't do it this way.)

So while, by definition, this cannot create massive change in the results, the race is tight enough that this could end up being materially-important for Barack.

Way to go, Dennis!

Some Quality Research From Lake Superior State University

I love this list!

Hillary's Medals

The Next Iteration of Hillary

Oh this evil, cold and calculating woman drives me up the wall.

I think I will have to move to Canada, into Richard Gere's old house, if this witch gets elected.

Her new 'motherly' tone of voice she adopted this weekend is almost worse than the cackle.

It's equally haunting, fake and poll-tested.

Barf!

A Classic Iowa Caucus Moment

Yesterday, we had a zinger for the ages out of the Huckabee campaign.

We also found out why the other guy from Hope is paying Ed Rollins the big bucks to run the show.

The narrative of the last week or so in the Hawkeye State has been that the Huckabee campaign may have already crested. A combination of the political media's perverse love of building a candidate up only to tear him down along with the effectiveness of a few negative/comparison ads out of the Romney campaign have coincided with a dip in the polls for him.

So yesterday, the Huck came out to the press corps and told them that he and his team had spent Sunday (when he was largely absent from the public eye) making an attack ad against Romney...because that's what conventional wisdom told him to do.

But his better angels took over and, at the last minute, he'd decided to pull the ad that he's already sent to some TV stations. So if it's shown, it's only because it might take them some time to get it out of rotation. Other than that, he's simply not going to show this attack ad because that's the wrong thing to do...except this one time. He shows the ad to the press here so they can understand what he's made but decided not to run with.

Obviously, the press is in on the game and laughs along with him because now he's gotten the ad up on the evening newscasts (for free) and it's probably not played with the mandated "I'm Mike Huckabee and I approve this message" at the end.

And I love how the Huck says that he's pulling the ad, lest the public become even more cynical than they already are.

"Holy f***. Look At All Those Balloons!"

Bobby rings in 1983 with that observation at about the 4:15 mark in this cut from 1982 NY at Oakland.

Sugar Magnolia was concert promoter, Uncle Bobo's favorite song, so tradition held that this song had to be played at annual gala.

I'm going to have to dig out my audience tape of this show later on. Etta James sat in on Set III and it's a real doozy!

Happy New Year!

Say Goodnight, Johnboy

John Edwards is a competent guy.

I have no doubt that he's smart, organized and disciplined

But his decision on how to insert himself into the Bhutto assassination aftermath this week approaches the old GOP stunt of going to Bob Jones University in terms of annoyingness.

I just had him on CSPAN, giving a speech at the Gigglin' Goat (the pride of Boone, IA) where he still insists on relating to the crowd the details of the talk he had last week with Pervez Musharraf.

Look, I understand the urge one must feel to convey that they, too, are already a player on the world stage, but can you imagine the eye-roll that Pervy must have done when informed that a 1-term former Senator from Nawth Caro-lahnah was on the phone to offer his expert advice on maintaining the relative calm of his military dictatorship in the aftermath of the suicide-bomber assassination of his chief power rival?

Puhleeze.

You wear big-boy pants just like Hillary does...we get it.

Canonization Through the Barrel of a Gun

Maybe, just as we thought that Senator Paul Simon was a straight arrow because of the bow tie, the wearing of a veil could be something that wins over us westerners.

Or could it be Benazir Bhutto's upper-crust western education cred?

Then again, it could be a broadening of our sympathy towards the assassinated.

I'm inclined to think it's all these things combined with general laziness that's lead to the simplified portrait being painted in Iowa and Washington this week of Bhutto and rushing toward a secular sainthood for her.

Thankfully, Matthew Yglesias over at The Atlantic is trying to put the brakes on this train and asking that folks look back at the woman's real record in office. He stops short of saying that the woman's life was without merit, but it's dishonest to put her up on this pedestal so soon.

How long until we get word from the Hollywood press that Angelina Jolie will play her?

>>Addendum>> In re-reading the notes on her education on Wiki, I found that Benazir and I share in common a membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Huh, I guess that means I can begin referring to her on a first-name basis, as has become the fashion this week in Washington.

Grateful Dead Perform Sugaree

Sugaree is just a cool song. While the lyrical parts are nice, slow and laid-back in tone, it does have some nice guitar solo interludes for Jerry in the middle.

He eases into his magic around the 1 minute mark here, picks much faster around 4:20, then brings us back to earth around 7 minutes.

Enjoy this cut from NYE 1982 in Oaktown.

David Yepsen Gets Ready to Turn Back into a Pumpkin

Without a doubt, the most popular name on the Sunday shows this morning is not going to be one of the candidates, but that of David Yepsen.

The Des Moines Register political god is entering the week where he's the must-have guy on every show's guest list.

And good for him. He seems like a very likable guy and I love hearing his thoughts on Iowa's political psyche....even if he does bear a striking resemblance to National Review's Jonah Goldberg!

C-PORN

I guess part of the benefit of posting this stuff up is that it's a way to clear one's conscience in a semi-public/anonymous way, depending on who the reader is.

This is one of the best weekends you can get in C-SPAN land...the weekend before the Iowa Caucuses.

My winter project is to organize and begin cataloging the bootleg music collection, so I've staked out a place in the living room where I can plug away on the organizing and simultaneously enjoy C-SPAN's All Politics Weekend.

Maybe I'll get really crazy and stay up after 9PM tonight, too.

Chelsea For President

In addition to being considerably easier on the eyes, Chelsea Clinton shares her mother's deep foreign policy experience.

Here they are practicing the delicate art of international diplomacy, during a trip to Vietnam during Bubba's last few months in office.

I Might Have Narrowed My Prez Pick Down to Two

Based on this CNN item.

Oh, To Have Been Dead 22 Years Ago

For our next installment of New Year's Week Grateful Dead videos, I'm putting up the midnight countdown from NYE 1985-86 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Ken Kesey and Father Guido Sarducci provide the commentary as Bill Graham rides in as Father Time on the cake...before the boys whip the crowd into an In the Midnight Hour-induced frenzy.

Bobby and Brent sing back and forth at each other towards the end, which is always fun.

Enjoy!

Random Media Pet Peeve

In the last 24 hours, I've noticed something that I find somewhat annoying.

A number of the US news media outlets I've had on have referred to all kinds of 'back channel' dealings the US has been having with parties in Pakistan.

Wouldn't one think that the whole point of back channel stuff is to keep it on the low-down (as Ben Stiller would put it)?

While I'm on the topic, Chris Dodd seemed a whole lot more Presidential-looking today on Morning Joe than I'd seen him before. I don't know that the events over there will have a material effect on who wins in Iowa, but it could do some shuffling down-ticket.

New OBL Tape Coming?

CNN and others are saying that a new tape, presumably made before yesterday's assassination, is on its way from the bearded one.

The Rolling Stones Perform Sweet Virginia

I've found myself on a bit of a Stones kick lately. During the traveling, I had a marvelous 6-disc compilation from their 2006 tour of Japan that was knocking my sandals off.

Enjoy Sweet Virginia from 1972...the video seems to repeat itself after the first run, but it's good enough to enjoy twice!

Vocabulary Word of the Day, Courtesy of Perez Hilton

Presidential Candidate Play Horshack

One of the most memorable recurring situations in Welcome Back, Kotter, was Arnold Horshack, when he knew the answer to a question, sitting in the back of the room, waving his arms wildly yelling, "Oooh Oooh Oooh Oooh!"

With the news coming out of Pakistan today, we're seeing the current Presidential candidates in the US each performing an homage to Ron Palillo.

Each is trying to show off just how much they know about that region of the world and are about as informative as the original.