Monday Roundup: Midnight Mitt

I know this isn't the first time, and that various candidates have run commercials in the previous weeks, but it really hit home for me last night when at close to 1 AM during a rerun of Meet The Press, I saw a campaign commercial for Mitt Romney. We are through the looking glass, people. I had been thinking that all of this was getting underway a little early, but now the reality of the 2008 election has come to my very doorstep.

On NPR this morning, there was a story about what Super Duper Tuesday means to the race, and the opinions offered on the impact to Democrats are not alien to our discussions here at the Blue. I had not fully considered that Super Duper Tuesday might actually work out to the benefit of more moderate and liberal candidates like Giuliani, as is stated in the piece, but it does make a certain amount of sense. Also considered in the piece is whether New Hampshire will move its primary back to 2007. That idea sort of makes me cringe. Not necessarily for any specific reason or some political angle, but just because it feels wrong.

Speaking of something that just feels wrong for some reason, prepare yourselves for the most efficient, user-friendly, all-encompassing lobbying you've ever seen: Google is getting into the lobbying game even more than they have been previously, and they've got the money and the market share to do it right. Since net neutrality is largely something that few people understand and that Google has an extremely vested interest in, expect it to be totally solved about three weeks after their new office opens.

Bob Novak discusses the after-debate appearance by Fred Thompson, in which he apparently failed to impress. Take that, everyone who is fascinated with him, including George! If you aren't good enough for Novak, you aren't good enough for people like Novak, which significantly damages his Republican standing! (Maybe!)

We are getting pretty close to the end of the session down in Austin, and the usual desperation is presented for your examination. Today is the day you have to have your bill out of committee, so, uh, today will probably be pretty busy. Notice, in that story linked from the Chron, that Berman is still shopping for something to amend with his "kids born here to minors can't have citizenship rights" bill. Time is running out for bad bills as well as good, I suppose.

Denton County is mentioned in the news for elections administration happenings again, and that kind of news is usually not good news. Today's story is about how some centralized database software used since March by the Texas Secretary of State's office might have canceled the voter registrations of some people who renewed their registrations via driver's license renewal. So that could have gone better. If this is enormous you'll hear about it again. If it is a less-than-impressive number of people, it will likely go away.

This came out last week, but it bears discussion: apparently, when border officials in Texas got behind the Homeland Security plan for a border fence, they didn't realize the plan was for an actual fence. This story outlines how city officials don't want actual fences in and around cities and would prefer the "virtual fence" sensor and camera array, while fences in the cities is exactly what Homeland Security was planning on. Senator John Cornyn's vote for the legislation establishing this program may end up being a liability for him.

Lastly: Washington Survivor! My money's on Wolfowitz; Gonzales is in a higher profile position, so it will likely be easier to get rid of Wolfowitz. Well, that, and also that everyone else where he works isn't also an appointee or totally dependent on partisan loyalty. And also that, if Gonzales had been on his way to a good sacking, I think it would have happened already. Now it seems like he might resign in a few months or something, quietly, in the summer months. I probably wouldn't actually put any money on either one, because you can just never tell.