In honor of California moving up its primary (and to spark up the blog and make me “care” about politics again), I am starting my 2008 Presidential Campaign watch now even though that goes against my better judgment. I am starting with an experiment. today, I “joined” the campaigns of Hilary, Barack, Giuliani, and McCain - I can’t be bothered to use full names and you know who I mean - that is, I signed up for their e-mail lists. I’m tempted to sign up with a different e-mail address and zip code because it would be interesting to know whether there’s any blue state/red state variance in e-mail campaign messages. Iowa City doesn’t get the San Francisco speeches or ads and vice versa so why would the written communication be the same (other than the logistics of parsing that out - but modern technology is amazing).

I picked the four people I could stand the most and plan to compare, analyze, and mock their messages. I’ll think about signing up for a few of the longer shots and people whose messages I imagine I’ll have a hard time stomaching. I should be fair, but I haven’t got a lot of time to devote to this. We’ll see.

One observation, so far. I only got confirmations and thank yous from Giuliani and McCain. Both were amusing. Giuliani, mindful of aggressive anti-spam defenses, asks me to add his site’s url to my safe senders list. McCain asks me for money and to set up a “McCainSpace” page, which made me giggle because it comes off like an awkward, desperate to be hip (”the kids still like MySpace, right?”) rip-off. But I give them points for the effort. Why do Hilary and Barack take me for granted?

Just finished filling out my absentee ballot and my god it was long (and reliably included measures that were short-sighted, evil, or impractical). It took forever to complete. I’ll admit that where my gut instincts failed me or the depth of issues was too great for me to obtain more than a glib understanding from a quick read of the proposed law or the candidate’s qualifications, I relied on endorsements of three different organizations. I picked three I could find myself agreeing with, but wouldn’t mind disagreeing with. I’d like to think I took a pragmatic approach that balanced my self-interest with the public interest.

I’ll be dropping it off at my polling place before work. 

Now I’m watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to cleanse the frustration and disgust.

I forgot that I was thinking about this all week. Today is 45 days before the November 7 election. Yes, it’s a midterm election, but here in California we’re electing (or re-electing) a governor, a lieutenant governor, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, attorney general, insurance commissioner, and members of the state board of equalization, the last of which I honestly don’t have any clue what they do (all position links PDF). There are also 13 statewide propositions and a number of local measures and offices up for grabs. Obviously, the fervor isn’t as great as for an election year and even the governor’s race seems a little muted. I actually think compared to the Angelides-Westly kerfuffle, the Angelides-Schwarzenegger race is somehow less exciting. Arnold’s making deals with the Dems in the state legislature and I don’t think Angelides is getting the visibility he needs to win (or look like he’d be interested in winning). Perhaps, I just need to tune in - but I’m gonna need a push.

The AP via MSNBC.com is reporting that the US fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq have now equaled (and then swiftly exceeded) the number of people killed on September 11. By any analysis, that’s a tragedy and it’s sad to realize that that figure is only going to increase. The problem with the story, of course, is that by folding the numbers of lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, the AP and MSNBC aren’t doing much to keep the distinction clear between those two theaters that technically have nothing to do with each other. Iraq isn’t really about the war on terror or 9/11 so why imply that it is? Other grisly figures include 2,390 who died at Pearl Harbor and, inexplicably, the 405,399 lost by the U.S. in World War II. Of course, the story concedes:

“Historians note that this grim accounting is not how the success or failure of warfare is measured, and that the reasons for conflict are broader than what served as the spark.”

The first part I totally agree with, but nice that the second part only serves to further confuse the issues. Good reporting, guys.

The magic number for the A’s is 4. The magic number for the Cardinals is 5. That’s the World Series I want. I’m pretending I haven’t jinxed it.

And not only is San Francisco the second “smartest” city in America, hometown Oakland the 18th, and most populus city in the metro area San Jose 15th, but those cities are also on the list of priciest places for renters. San Francisco lands at #2 (behind NYC and its wowza $2,469 average monthly rents), San Jose at #4, and even Oakland’s freaking out the renters at #7. It’s lovely that California has 6 of the top ten. I chalk it up to the weather.

Finally, I bought 14 books last night. I have a serious problem.

Update - 9/23, 12:19 am: The A’s magic number is now 2. Even better.

Just read that Ann Richards passed away tonight. I have been a fan of Ann Richards since I first got into politics as a high schooler in the 90s (even though I couldn’t care less about Texas politics) and was bummed when she lost to W in `94. The essential Ann Richards must include her priceless appearance on King of the Hill as Bill’s love interest.

So I generally find Slate’s Hot Document relatively amusing in general, but tonight’s post by Timothy Noah is hilarious. It examines some forthcoming books that have taken a page from the book of Ann Coulter, you know the “hot” insane conservative who says ludicrous things she can’t possibly mean, like insulting 9/11 widows, except maybe she does mean them, which would be kinda scary. Anywho, Noah looks at some forthcoming books (sure to be best-sellers and get their authors more time on the cable news talk circuit) that go on ludicrous, liberal-bashing tears. Noah dots the summaries from the publishers with delightfully funny annotations that poke at the complete fallacies of logic and falsification of fact that - at least according to the blurbs - permeate these texts. The rollover to read the snarky comments is a pain as it never leaves the notes up long enough, but your hard work is rewarded.

I got to say, the hilarity of Libby Lewis doing Lewis “Scooter” Libby stories on NPR never gets old. I heard an update during the five minutes of news at the top of the hour during Morning Edition a couple days ago (the Rove not being indicted thing) and I’m still laughing on the inside.