Beware the Idiots of March
“Once I saw them I had to be very clear about the fact that these are not statements that I am comfortable with. I reject them completely - they are not ones that reflect my values or my ideals or Michelle’s.” Barack Obama to FOX News 3/14/08

It's amazing that each time we get about this far into an election cycle, many of the lessons learned from previous ones go right out the window.

Four years ago, in Minnesota at a time when political blogs were somewhat the novelty, a couple of operatives from the Thune camp hid out as bloggers and helped steer the media coverage without being discovered until after his victory.

Technology has progressed from this now kludgy blogosphere to the world of viral videos, posted within moments of being shot, as in the case of "macaca" or dredged from who knows where, as in the case of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. With a voice that didn't sound anywhere close to being under control, he famously asked his Lord to damn America (and a less than holy host of other rantings).

This wasn't a great week for Barack Obama, who had hoped the reverend's retirement would just take care of things and that would be that. As if by magic, just as in the case of the African garb photos, out comes this shocker.

Not to change the focus from this most disappointing cocktail of conceit, demagoguery and hate speak, the 'as if by magic' part still leaves me curious.

Just when the blending of 'not ready on day one' with the tease of Obama on her ticket had reduced Clinton to an incoherent, win at any cost phony, Obama was the one put into defensive mode by viral video.

Give him his due. He has done the right thing to denounce, accuse, raise a hue and cry, hold accursed, dispraise, expose, defame, pillory, stigmatize, brand as well as decry the contents of these videos. (We must hope that this diffuses the need for follow-up questions at the upcoming Pennsylvania debate.)

But some in the blogosphere are attempting a rational analysis of Wright's main thrust.

That is not helping anything.

MoveOn's "betray us" is of that same species. There is no way to be clever and oppose nationalistic fervor. Period.

The race has gone over to the opposition research teams for now, so expect threesomes of embarrassing clips; from Hagee, to Wright, to Ferraro, this week, to who knows what the next.

There's just too much time to kill before the next real advance in the nomination process to expect that a news reader's objectivity would be able to tell the story. Especially if they have to be on the air next hour and the hour after that because their bosses call themselves America's place for politics and other such hooey.

That's how these sidetracks obtain their more than inordinate share of traction.

Coming forward with new figures on the Rezko matter will help to rehabilitate Obama as Bush's incoherency addressing the matter of financial market meltdowns will help McCain as Hillary's tossing Obama under the experience bus continues to help her, but there's also one thing terribly wrong. Here we are waiting for the next shoe to drop, as though the process were meant to play out this way.

We all agreed, right, that swift boating is horrible? Never again!

If you have ever taken the time to compare and contrast campaigns, as we did with education issues culled from the respective websites, you know the disconnect between 'coverage' and the kinds of things that actually help you vote.

If only Pennsylvanians could take charge in some new paradigm and not succumb to the pressure to fit in to the archetypes of old.

We already had our chance to caucus here in New Mexico, with voter lists that were criminally inaccurate, with poll workers standing over us as we wrote an "x" into one of the boxes provided. We can look forward, if history repeats, to our June primary (the one for all the other races), when candidates appearing on our ballot will be standing in the room where we vote.

We, evidently, have a thick skin for fraud here in Nuevo New Mexico. Let's hope Pennsylvanians get a fair shot. (Chris Matthews: this is definitely not the time to go "ha!")

I was canoing down the Delaware, a long time ago, and we ran into a fierce ice storm.

On the river.

The nearest farmhouse offered warmth, food, and telephone calls on demand, without question, and the time to await what we considered a rescue.

The good folks of rural Pennsylvania are anything but phony. The governor, however, is of a different stripe. He has postulated the cockamamie.

(I paraphrase.) The super delegates should also consider the relative blue or redness of the states in which the two have won their ordinary delegates.

Oh please.

Remember what Minister Shakespeare has writ (and play it three million times on YouTube): 'Beware the idiots of March.'

Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and America in between.

And we trust they will do the right thing.

Next week: A Discouraging Word

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