True North

-Stephen Colbert’s interview with Sierra Club jefe Carl Pope had me rolling on the floor laughing. The best part is at the end, there’s a puppet involved. Just watch it.

-Re: McCain’s supposed “Flip” on offshore drilling, think of this issue a different way:

You’re at a store and see a shirt you like but at $80 you’re gonna pass. A few weeks later there’s a sale and you decide to buy the shirt for $30. Hypocrisy? Flip Flop? Philosophic inconsistency?

Of course not. Something significant changed. In this case it was the price. It could have instead been a shift in need. The same goes for our oil resources. An increase in the price of oil has created a need to drill wherever possible to alleviate some of the pressures being put on middle Americans until technology is developed to get us off oil. McCain’s shift on the issue of oil makes sense. I’m thankful he’s willing to re-evaluate his positions.

-John McCain looks set to announce his VP choice within the next week or two. I hope it’s Sarah Palin. The old-fashioned paradigm for choosing a VP candidate, by picking someone from a certain state or area in order to help win or choosing someone who would bring together fighting segments of the party, is no longer efficacious. A VP candidate needs to complement the top of the ticket. Governor Palin is everything McCain is not. While I’d personally prefer Huckabee as VP, Palin should provide a youthful spark McCain needs. McCain is getting hammered on his age and dryness while the media is fawning over an attractive but vacuous sophist. Palin helps take the edge off and should produce consistent positive media coverage until election day. (Via Mr.D.)

-While I’m the political junkie’s political junkie, I don’t care much for this period of a campaign. The most important events are happening behind the scenes as local campaigns get organized and money is raised. It’s really impossible to tell if the infrastructure being created right now will be effective or not. The vast majority of people aren’t paying attention to the day in and day out news about the campaigns and they won’t until three or four weeks until election day. You have to be skeptical with the polls during this period too, for the above reason. Not a lot of important news will be heading our way, and as such I find it hard to do the daily blogging grind. As always, I write when the spririt moves me, but the spirit is normally at the driving range this time of year. If the posting seems light to you, well, get over it.

Cross-posted at Martin Andrade Blogs. Comments welcome.