The Dish

The Paulbonanza goes on. He looks certain to beat his November 5 blowout.

A strange but hilarious commercial for light bulbs:

That’s the scoop. Tomorrow, in a bid to cause the netroots’ heads to explode, Joe Lieberman will endorse a Republican for president in New Hampshire. Marc writes:

The endorsement could help McCain with independents in the state. Combine that with news that Rudy Giuliani is scaling back his advertising buy there, that the Boston Globe endorsed McCain, and that McCain’s rivals are spending most of their time in Iowa.

Mike Allen notes:

The announcement looks like an effort to stem a stream of independents moving to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

McCain is already enjoying a mini-surge in New Hampshire, which is not Huckafriendly. This could help bring more momentum. But it may not help McCain nationally, reinforcing his maverick, bipartisan independent appeal that the Christianist base suspects so much. It seems to me more generally to be the solidification of that sliver in national politics that still believes that the Iraq occupation has advanced the security of the United States, and is still eager for the occupation to become permanent. It also seems to me to be another piece of good news for Clinton. She has to prevent Obama from becoming a dominant figure in New Hampshire. His appeal to independents could sink her campaign. McCain has just helped her. Whether he has done so in a tangible way in this campaign has yet to be shown.

A high-school football star in Texas.

Another consequence of climate change?

A reader writes:

In the span of a week and a half, Clinton and/or her surrogates said that Obama is or might be:

    * Muslim (Iowa Clinton campaign volunteers)
    * Drug dealer (Billy Shaheen)
    * Drug giver (Billy Shaheen)
    * Gifted television commentator (Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose)
    * Chef (Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose – see quote below)
    * Plumber (Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose – see quote below)
    * Hasn’t "actually done things for people" (Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose)
    * Less black then Bill Clinton (Ambassador Young)
    * Am I missing any others?

I’m a centrist Independent who’s managed to go from "So tired of Bush that I’d vote for Clinton if she beats Obama" to "will never vote for Hillary under any circumstances." If Obama or Edwards doesn’t get the Democratic nomination, I grit my teeth and vote Republican.

"Even if Obama and Huckabee don’t win their nomination fights, they represent a changing of the guard in African-American (from Sharpton/Jackson-style leadership) and evangelical politics (from Falwell/Roberston-style leadership). They will be leaders for years to come and will be less hard-edged and vested in the disputes of the past than their predecessors. They will have cross-over appeal (Obama, among whites; Huckabee, among the media—unless he actually wins the nomination). And they are both are winsome guys. You don’t have to be a fan of their presidential candidacies—I emphatically am not—to acknowledge that this changing of the guard is a most welcome development," – Rich Lowry, NRO.

Is nothing sacred any more? Money quote:

So long as the user writes on paper printed with a special pattern, the smartpen transforms what is written into interactive text. For example, the pen has a recording function, called paper replay, that can record sound and connect it to what the user writes while the sounds are being recorded. Later, the user can tap the pen over what she wrote and replay the associated sounds. "We’re starting to make the whole world of printable surfaces accessible and functional," says Livescribe CEO Jim Marggraff.

It becomes clearer and clearer that the CIA was told not to destroy the tapes; and they did anyway.

His Iowa surprise?