A race where they set down right on the horse!

• It's hard to believe but after the first quarter I gave up on the bowl game in favor of MSNBC's coverage of the Iowa caucus. Word is that Kansas won.
  
• Speaking of MSNBC, I've pretty much come around to the view that it's the only watchable cable news channel. Not that I can stand to watch much of it when there isn't something serious going on.
  
• I think the green Dave makes some good points about Huckabee. The loving thy neighbor part of Christianity is da rill shit, and Huck makes me believe that he means it. Also, if you can look past the fact that he's entirely out of his depth when it comes to, you know, policy he's got astounding political skills.
  
• During Edwards' speech I found myself thinking that he'd make a good running mate for Obama.
  
• I think I've finally figured out what all of the people who never took Intro to Lit Studies think that 'ironic' means. They think it means unexpected.
  
• Sure, sure Edwards talks a good game about unions and I love me some two Americas style class warfare, but Obama drops the buzzword that really moves me. Organizing.
  
• And he did organize, you know. People talk about Obama's political talent and they're thinking about things like how effective a speaker he is or how charismatic he is. Me, I think about the fact that the dude knows how to put together a campaign.
  
• So do the Clintons. Edwards, not so much.
  
• By the by, the Michigan primary is coming up in two weeks and I still haven't decided between Obama and Edwards. Also, I'm considering not voting in protest to the stupidity of the primary being in two weeks.
  
• Is it me, or has Howard Dean been working out?
  
• The conventional wisdom is that Fred Thompson is just too gosh durn lazy to run a decent campaign. But consider this. Maybe he's just too lazy to campaign in a state where the voters expect you to show up in their living room three times a week. Anyhow, Mitt and il Mayor seem to be dead in the water. That leaves McCain and Thompson competing to rain on Huckabee's prairie fire. Nobody hates Thompson.
  
• My back of the envelope calculations indicate that about 10% of the voting age population of Iowa participated in the Democratic caucus. I don't know how many of voting age are registered, or how many registered voters are democrats, but I'd say that's pretty good turnout for a caucus.
  
• MSNBC reported that 20% of the participants in the Democratic caucus were registered as independents, and 4% were registered as Republicans. They also report that the three leading Democrats were only separated by a single percentage point when only the votes of Democrats are taken into account. Those numbers are preliminary, but if they hold up then the lesson seems to be that Obama has serious mojo with the median voter.
  
• Did you notice the hippie dude with the beard and the beret standing in the crowd behind Obama during his speech? I bet he was stoned.