Dear Governor Richardson:

Thanks for coming out here to western Iowa.  Yesterday you presented yourself as an amiable, thoughtful and pragmatic candidate for the Presidency.  And yes, a Presidential one too.

You talked about Iraq and diplomacy, about health care and education, about fiscal responsibility, about science and space tourism.

You offered a sensible explanation of the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill and what it did without once using the word 'amnesty'.

Almost every time you used what would politely be called a politician's cliche, you stopped to define precisely what you meant by it.

You made jokes, good jokes, with probably more natural ability and less conscious effort than any candidate I've seen yet this year--and now that you've been here, I've seen 'em all.

Not only did you arrive on time, you arrived freakin' early.

As far as I can tell, you made a lot of friends, impressed a lot of people, and probably gained some caucusers.

In short, you done good.

But there's just one thing ...

Last month, John Kerry came to town  on his way to Boston, drawing an open-air crowd of about 3,000 and a few dozen wingnut protestors (with flipflops n' waffles, of course) in the parking lot across the interstate.

It's somehow fitting, then, that Bush seems to be following him around: he's got an event scheduled this Saturday in our lovely new corporate-branded indoor arena.  But for the visit of a sitting 'president' is coming to town, I've seen surprisingly little buzz.

Gone shopping for a greeting card lately?  Try it sometime; you might be surprised what you find.

In the aftermath of The E-Mail this morning, I noticed on a few of the threads that there wasn't a lot of love for the new Kerry-Edwards logo.

Unfortunately, it looks like they've already painted the plane (Two different serif fonts?  Say it ain't so!) so I don't know if, indeed, they'll come out with a fresher logo in a few weeks.  I agree that this one looks a little hurried, and did a quick experiment to see if I couldn't Kerrify it a bit.

As you probably know, Stephanie Herseth will run for the SD-AL House seat vacated this week by convicted manslaughterer Bill Janklow.

Her opponent in the June 1 primary (to determine who will serve out the rest of Janklow's term) will be state senator Larry Diedrich of Elkton.

I know we've been hard on Nedra Pickler of late for her Iowa coverage of Howard Dean, but her report on The Speech seems to play it straight and fair ...

So, in the midst of Sunday's caucus prediction thread over the weekend, I tossed out my own precinct just for the hell of it.

How close was I?  How many of these caucus anatomies have already sprung up in the diaries?  Well ...

DrFrank's been reading the IA caucus rules, and he explains very nicely a few of the finer points about how the system works in practice--most importantly the so-called "horse-trading" where non-viable groups with <15% of the total caucus can either align with each other to become viable (it's worth emphasizing), or be assimilated into larger groups.

I don't know if BushOut has seen these yet, but SEIU (or their PAC, at least) have hit the air in Iowa.

Thanks to that lovely little link on the home page, Kossacks far and wide know about Stephanie Herseth's bid for the SD-AL House seat.

After Wild Bill Janklow's resignation, the seat would be essentially empty until the June 1 combination primary/special election.  Voters will select 1) a Rep who will serve out the rest of Janklow's term, and 2) a nominee for the November general, whose winner will take over the seat in January '05.

It may not happen quite that way.

Hot on the heels of Dennis Kucinich's glorious Ted Koppel smackdown at Tuesday's Durham debate, the Kucinich people would like us to know that ABC are pulling their "embedded reporter" traveling with the Kucinich campaign.

Maybe now the Note won't take five minutes to load ...

Looks like Dean 'won' the WMUR debate last night by virtue of 1) not blowing it, and 2) having his "Don't attack Al Gore, attack me" lead the press coverage.  As usual, he wasn't great, but as usual he doesn't have to be.

If anything, maybe he's trying to play the lowered-expectations game against Bush when the fall debates approach--since the latter 'won' debates by lowering his expectations so much that by the time he was finished, he was lauded for not swallowing his tongue or something.

But what about everyone else?

Just in: Janklow has been found guilty of manslaughter and three other counts.

Just went to the jury this afternoon.

Link courtesy the Argus Leader in SF.

Say what you will about Matthews playing only 40% or 60% the asshole on Hardball--I enjoyed the show as much as the next Deaniac, but still I can't help but think he missed a golden opportunity to hit one out of the park without Tweety's help.

... John Kerry.

However his campaign may be going (or not going), however snarky and obsessive he might have become about my man Dean, whatever he may have done (or not done) about the energy bill, looks like he's swinging his Harley back around to DC to fight the Medicare Destruction Act, Monday's debate in Des Moines be damned.

"This vote barely survived the Republican House and only managed to do so when the Republican leadership used all their power to switch votes.  Now as it comes to the Senate, and it is essential that we fight with everything we have to stop it.

"That is why I am going to join Senator Ted Kennedy to lead the filibuster of this legislation in the Senate. Unfortunately that means I will miss the debate in Iowa.  But I think the people of Iowa will understand that potential harm of this bill is worth the effort.

 "This legislation is a boondoggle for the pharmaceutical industry and a raw deal for America's seniors and that's why we have to fight it."

Link.

Why?  Because he's a Senator. It's what they do.

Good man, for doing the right thing.

Smart man, too.  He's hanging in there in IA (out here in the west anyway, his stuff is far more together than Gephardt's) and he figures all those pissed-off Iowa seniors might forgive him for taking a rain check to go fight for them.

Perhaps they will.  Certainly couldn't hurt.

Yesterday's Sioux Falls Argus Leader, flashes an Argus/KELO poll of 400 likely voters conducted over the weekend by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C. (who?) MOE +/- 5%.  The poll sez that SD approves of both Daschle and Bush about the same (Daschle 57, Bush 61 - same as August).  Favorable/unfavorables: Bush 54/27, Daschle 55/27 - this in a state where the Idiot Son took 60 percent in '00.

Okay, fine.  Nothing terribly exciting about that.  The favorable/unfavorables for other prominent South Dakotans are a little more interesting, though (August in parentheses):

John Thune 54/21 (53/22)
Stephanie Herseth 47/15 (N/A)
Bill Janklow 29/45 (37/33)

In head-to-head matchups, Daschle leads Thune 50-44 to hold his Senate seat (assuming Thune runs--noting that as bad as things got in '02, he couldn't take out Tim Johnson).  It probably helps when Daschle gets 20% of the Republicans, I guess ...

In the House, Wild Bill would get pasted by Stephanie Herseth should he somehow manage to run again (57-29), but admittedly Janklow has bigger problems than her at the moment (his trial opens Dec. 1).  Should Thune run for his old House seat instead, he's up 47-40 on Herseth.

More about Janklow at the Argus Leader (no, I don't know why they call it that either).