Sideshows

Assuming the Obama and Speedbump campaigns are the center of the action, there are things happening on the perimeter that are worth keeping an eye on. The one that's probably significant in the overall scheme of things is the increasing effort on the right to tamper with the outcome of the voting. The Republicans specialize in election theft and vote suppression and they're at it again, particularly in critical states like Colorado and Ohio. This time they're using the ACORN organization as misdirection to divert media attention from what's really going on.

The other sideshow is the fracture in the conservative commentariat, which isn't as significant as an attempt to steal an election but is mildly amusing nonetheless. In their hierarchy, talk radio is the broad base of the pyramid, and Limbaugh is the undisputed ruler of that domain. The guiding principle in talk radio is that every mobile home and rusty pickup truck in America has at least one radio capable of picking up an AM signal, and talk radio targets the absolute lowest common denominator mentality. At the top of the hierarchy are people whose conservative opinions are sometimes heard on talk radio and Fox News, but who tend to express them on the printed pages of influential newspapers and journals like National Review. Since writing for publication is more demanding than talking, the few intelligent conservatives are found in print, and some consider themselves part of the nation's intellectual elite. Lately, conservative writers like David Brooks, George Will, and Peggy Noonan have been writing favorably about Obama or very critically about snowbunny. Christopher Buckley, son of the 'Don Corleone' of the modern conservative movement, has gone completely off the reservation and announced he'll actually vote for Obama. It's a hairline fracture, not a total break, but I'm getting a few smiles out of it.