Second Clip Show In A Row

A lot of thoughts the latter part of this week, few of them longer than 140 characters.

GOP operative Don McDowell, who I first met via his long ago blog Cyclone Conservative, is now the proud (?) owner of the 300 pound steel Mitt Romney sign. My suggestion for best use would be melting it down to mint the coin; Don says for a trillion dollars he'd seriously consider it.

Long, long ago in my radio days, one of my first big interviews was with Senator Jay Rockefeller, riding in the back of a car with him and Tom Harkin on the way to the airport. Now Rockefeller is retiring, and the DC punditocracy keeps speculating that his Senate classmate Harkin may too. We Iowans know better. Note the increasing pace of emails and press releases.

And of course the DC fundraiser at the Lady Gaga concert that Republicans have been mocking. That's probably because Republicans don't have entertainers who can compete with Gaga's popularity - 32 million Twitter followers and growing - and have to settle for Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. 

We have a Secretary of State race as Obama operative Brad Anderson jumps in. Todd Dorman bemoans the politicization of the race: "Who were the refs in the best-officiated football game you ever saw? Don’t recall? Perfect. That’s what I’m talking about." (Still a sore subject for us Packer fans.)

In principle, I would agree. I've worked with five Secretaries of State over the years and Mike Mauro was by far the best. His 2010 defeat was as big a tragedy as the loss of the three justices. 

But Mike was one of a kind. And judging from the high-powered Anderson endorsement list, the train has left the station. The next Secretary of State will be a partisan, and it's just a matter of which kind of partisan you want: one who wants to help people vote or wants to keep people from voting.

So Flavor Flav is going to the Hall of Fame, but Barry Bonds is not. Seems fair to me. Reportedly, Flav is working on a new Public Enemy track about baseball in the steroid era, "762 Is  A Joke." Hey, if the man can rock the beat to Differential Emergency Response Rates In Urban Minority Neighborhoods, he can find something to rhyme with Balco.

Washington Post picks the Top 10 Most Interesting Political States and we Iowans land at Number Three, with a John Hedgecoth shoutout to the Hamburg Inn. List slants heavily to the early presidential primary states: three of the top five.

And if you've been called a Nazi lately: 1) it may not be accurate and 2) someone might have been paid to do it.