One of the cool things about All-Baseball is that there's some great minds and great writers around here that I have access to. I mentioned that the Cubs roster strategy looked suspect to me and there was a comment regarding Andy Sisco. I put out the call to Bryan Smith of A-B's Wait Til Next Year, for his take on this:

After hinting at the subject in his post yesterday, Will asked me to talk about the Cubs 40-man roster situation, and the players left available for the Rule 5 Draft. According to Rob Neyer's Transaction Primer, being Rule 5 Draft eligible means "the player was 18 or younger when he first signed a pro contract and this is the fourth Rule 5 draft since he signed, OR if he was 19 or older when he first signed a pro contract and this is the third Rule 5 draft since he signed."
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I took a waltz through the rosters tonight, digging to see the recently turned in 40-man rosters. I'll wave off on trying to do any cogent analysis of something as esoteric as the Rule 5 draft - I'll wait on Dayn Perry, Joe Sheehan, or Bryan Smith to put something together before ... then I'll ask Kevin Goldstein who the heck these guys are once they're picked in Anaheim.

What stood out to me, as normally happens, is the pitching. For some teams, the rotation is pretty much set. For others, I don't have the faintest clue how it's going to come together. I'll ignore bullpens for now. Those are unset for almost everyone and let's face it, those decisions should be made in spring training. Bullpens are being put together now, but mostly in the sense that there will be three or four set and enough bodies to sort out once March comes around again.

There's a common theme here - teams usually have four solid starters and then either a young guy or a question mark. I'll just shake my head somberly and point to the work Rany Jazayerli has done documenting just how a four-man rotation would help the team with the balls to try it.

So, let's take a quick look at National League rotations, pre-Meetings:
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I once famously wrote that people needed to stop blogging and start writing. It was as famously misunderstood (and famously poorly written, etc). Not to go meta again, but it's interesting to watch the format evolve. I have my daily reads, occasional reads, things people point me to, random links, and assorted whatnot. RSS is beginning to alter that, though it's recalling late 90's push technology like Marimba and ... oh what was that other thing everyone said we'd be using instead of browsers? (Ed.: Pointcast!)

For me, it's interesting to watch the traffic here plummet as the drama of the past month took place. Apparently, WCP is easily replaceable in a daily read or at least the habit is easy to break. If I can continue writing -- and once baseball season rolls around or the next time I say something people consider controversial -- I imagine the traffic will come back up as quickly as it went down.
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Taking a week off is a mixed bag. While I wouldn't trade that time to recharge and hang out with my best friend, it also takes me out of the loop that I work so hard to stay in. There's nothing like sailing, nothing like the warm sun, but then again, there's nothing quite like baseball.

This is the "dead week" - teams and agents take the holiday week off for the most part, only the most creative, dedicated and desperate working to make things happen. Last year was the Curt Schilling deal and the first rumblings of the Alex Rodriguez move. This year, the Jason Kendall soap opera finally ended with his bags packed for Oakland. Beane and Co. strike again with creativity.
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The only professional sport I'm fanatical about is baseball. I might watch 5 full NBA games a year. It just happened that I watched the last 5 minutes of the Pacers/Pistons game and I can tell you there is a huge difference between my feelings watching it live versus watching the video highlights, afterwards.

If you are not aware, after the brawl, ESPN's NBA crew were all talking about how horrible the fans were and host John Saunders was as irate as I can ever recall a broadcaster behaving, calling the Detroit fans "punks". Tim Legler stated that the saddest part of the whole melee is that the players are going to take the brunt of the heat from the incident. (paraphrasing) The whole panel all were of the position that the fans were the biggest culprits in the incident, but after David Stern hands down his edict, Stephen A. Smith sings a different tune from his initial judgements and completely buys into Stern's pronouncements.

This incident reminds me of the Rodney King tape, where if you just saw the horrible beating perpetrated by the police, you were irate, but if you saw the whole tape, which showed him refusing arrest in his drug-propelled fury, you had an altered impression. Not saying the cops actions were right, no more than I'm saying Artest was correct in his actions, just pointing out that if you are relying only on video highlights, you might not know the whole story. (King put police on a high-speed chase through neighborhoods which endangered many lives.)

I'm a journalism school grad and generally defend the media, but there are certain times where what the media offers the public is an unfair picture of what the actual live event was all about. If you watched the last 5 minutes of the Pacers/Pistons game and then the melee after, I believe most people would have a different point of view on the whole matter

I know how some who lurk here get disappointed when any post not about baseball is written. The fight between the Pacers/Pistons should not fall under this category.

Wrong or Real F-ing Wrong, Ron Artest is now a folk hero to other athletes, as he stood up to out of control fans. In Indianapolis, Colts player's have been wearing Artest jerseys around as protest to the amount of his suspension. After being kicked out of tonight's game, Rasheed Wallace made comments that he's now the NBA's whipping boy, since Artest is out for the year.

Sure Artest is an IDIOT. His appearance on Tuesday morning's Today show demonstrated the bizarre reality the guy lives in, but the death sentence he received by the NBA has actually made it seem to a large percentage of the population that he's been treated unfairly.

By David Stern focusing almost all of his scorn on players, he's created an atmosphere where fans have special rights that the players do not have. I'm sure Stern's actions were predicated on not wanting to say anything on the subject of how the Detroit Pistons organization was negligent in it's security or that the NBA's officials had little control over the later portions of the 4th quarter. Put all the blame on the players.

This attitude will create a more militant point of view among professional athletes in all sports. When a suspension is delivered which dwarfs anything prior ever put down by any other major sport, the players have to feel like they are targets.

Lost in the discussion I've heard about Artest and O'Neal's suspensions is that they are 2 of the best 15 players in the NBA. Playing in Indianapolis has kept their abilities from being fully recognized, but taking down talents like these is not much different than taking Shaq and Kobe away from the Lakers in past years. Did you know the Pacers won 61 games last year? Did you know J. O'Neal was the best player in the Eastern Conference in 2003-04? Did you know Artest was the NBA Defensive Player of the Year and so far this year was averaging 25 points on 50% FG, 41% 3 pt, and 92% FT shooting?

I suspect that one of the major bargaining issues for players versus owners will now be their safety and what side the league will fall on when issues with violent fans arise. Stern's severe player punishments and staying virtually quiet on the league and fan's culpability, has made Ron Artest a martyr to most professional athletes. Stern has also created a wedge between the NBA union and the league, which always had a great relationship in the past. MLB and the NFL I'm sure will be visiting this issue soon, as well.

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In regards to the comment about Jermaine O'Neal possibly punching a Pistons security guard, I have my doubts, as I never saw any security until the players were being whisked into the beverage and chair throwing gauntlet, better known as the Palace at Auburn Hills locker room tunnel. I saw no example of any Pistons security doing anything to protect Pacer players on the court.

If you missed this, the Piston fan who threw the initial drink on Artest, has in his past served time, been convicted of drunk driving 3 times and also has been caught printing counterfeit money. I agree that Artest's past indescretions should be held against him, but then the same should go for this loser. On this subject, Jermaine O'Neal is known for his charitable work in the community and is known around the league for being a classy guy and a good interview. 25 GAMES!!!!???????

It could be argued the worst behavior at any World Series by fans was during the Tigers/Cardinals 1934 battle where Joe Medwick slid hard into a Detroit Tiger third baseman, despite being up by a 9-0 score. When Medwick came out to left field the next inning, he faced an onslaught of bottles and garbage thrown at him by the Detroit fans. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was at the game, ordered Medwick to be replaced by another Cardinal, so the game could be finished.

I bring this past instance up to address last Friday night's debacle at the Palace in Auburn Hills. Once again, the terrible actions of some Detroit fans were seemingly vindicated by directly helping their team. Many people have lauded NBA Commissioner David Stern for the way he handled the ugliness that occurred last Friday, but I'm not one of these people.

Let's not start with the suspensions, but how Stern at his press conference ignored the issue of how these suspensions decimated a potential championship team and has destroyed the hopes of Pacers fans. As knowledgeable as any in the NBA, Pacer fans are known as some of the classiest in the NBA. Now they get to watch a squad that's just a shadow of it's actual roster, while it's biggest rivals, the Pistons, will find it just that much easier to repeat as NBA champs.

Yes, Ron Artest was wrong and yes I do think that his past indiscretions should be factored in, but I believe a 41 game suspension, with the league mandating that he receive counseling, would have been a more fair judgement.

Stephen Jackson initially appeared to be chasing into the stands to keep Artest out of trouble, until another fan threw a drink in his face. 20 games seem more appropriate to me.

The worst of the sentences to me was the one given to Jermaine O'Neal. I believe that when a fan steps onto the playing field and is not just looking for an autograph, the player has the right to sign his name across the idiot's face. In football, when a fan runs on the field, there's a tradition of the players leveling the trespasser. After what has occurred at US Cellular Field, don?t think that the next fan who makes a move at a baseball player isn't going to receive a communal ass-kicking by both teams.

Sure, O'Neal ran at the guy to deliver a punch, but he had just seen the same guy try to go toe to toe with Artest and probably felt that in a barroom brawl, you sometimes have to fight your way out. I would have leveled a 10 game fine on O'Neal, but considering he hit a fat guy wearing a replica jersey, I chop that down by half, to 5 games, as nothing annoys me worse than some wannabe athlete who thinks he somehow is part of the team he roots for, because he's wearing a jersey.

Stern should also have asked the Pacers front office how they wanted to serve the fines he was doling out, as by staggering the O'Neal and Jackson suspensions, the Pacers would have a better chance to put a half-way quality product on the floor for their fans.

Obviously, the fight between the Pacers and Pistons was scary and holds repercussions for all other sports in general, so a strong action against the players was necessary. Unfortunately, Stern went way over the top and failed to even address how his decision would affect one organization, the Pacers, while giving a pass to the co-conspirators in the brawl, the Pistons players, fans, and organization.

To me it does seem ironic that the team who brought the awful, brutal style of play, which controls the current NBA, was the Detroit Pistons of the 1980's. The history of Detroit has teams known for going past the edge of physical; Pistons, Red Wings, the Cobb-led Tigers. Only the Lions have escaped this stereotype and maybe that's why they have been the most pathetic football team in the NFL for the last 50 years.

David Stern said it was a unanimous decision, as his was the only vote. As much as I think Stern has done a great job marketing the league, this time his instincts were wrong, as the players in the league must now wonder what they are going to have to deal with from out of control fans. This was too complicated of a decision to just hand down the death penalty on one team, without at least addressing how the Pistons organization should be heavily fined for lacking proper security and how certain fans should not be allowed to attend NBA games in the future.

ESPN is announcing tonight that Bud & Co. will announce that the Expos become the Nationals on Monday. My report on "Grays" is, therefore, wrong.

Luckily, I can explain why, unlike most times. The Grays were the clear favorite of Mayor Williams of D.C. as well as the leading ownership group (the DCBaseball group, led by Fred Malek). The failings of the DC mayor to get the deal passed left Bob DuPuy with the need to make some sort of splash. While the hat designs were presented for three names, only Grays was sent back for a second design. That's where my source saw it.

Anyway, the decision's apparently been made. Whether the new ownership group will go all Bullets to Wizards remains to be seen.

On the plus side, I'll defy you to find anyone else that named Len Kasper as one of the favorites for the Cubs PBP job as me. Len's a great guy. I met him first at the Cubs-Marlins NLCS and was impressed then. I think the Cubs made the right choice.

Finally, forgive the wonkiness here lately. I appreciate the patience everyone's shown through a strange and difficult time. We're going to "change the metaphor" here soon and I hope everyone will hang with us.

Since the White Sox hired Ozzie Guillen last year, it seems to me they have positioned themselves to focus on obtaining Hispanic baseball players. Considering the high percentage of quality Hispanic players, plus the growing Hispanic population, it seems like this is a new business model to observe.

Guillen, who can be difficult to understand in English, seems to have great comraderie with fellow Spanish-speaking players, so I would guess he would appeal to Hispanic baseball fans, also. Considering that the White Sox can't really expect to grow their fanbase with native Chicagoans, as most are already Cub fans, appealing to the fastest growing part of the city's population, Hispanics, seems to be a good bottom line decision. (I know Arte Moreno has stated he's trying to market the Angels to Hispanics to increase the team's fanbase.)

Despite "failing" to sign targeted shortstops Omar Vizquel and Christian Guzman, the White Sox seem to be focused on adding more Hispanic players for their dugout. By creating an atmosphere catering to Hispanic players, this would logically seem to make it a more attractive place for them to want to sign with.

Just like some players sign for less to play with a winner or to be in a major market, by creating an atmosphere of comfort for players who speak English as a second language, might this not be a different twist on cutting costs? I'm not sure the White Sox have done this by complete design and I would really doubt they would admit it, even if they did, but it's something worth watching.
(By the way, I haven't read anyone in the major media discuss this concept in any detail and I'm guessing that is the case because of the fear the discussion of race or nationality creates, especially to White-male writers, which is the makeup of almost every baseball writer in the country.)

Until further notice, this "bar" is closed. It's not something I wanted to do and I hope it's not permanent. At this stage, I am attempting to protect everyone's privacy, not bowing to a bully. I wish each of you the best and thank you for your readership, friendship, and time. I hope to see you each again soon.

I'm prepping for tomorrow's BP Radio and one of our segments will be on "what to watch for" this offseason. Here's my top ten:

1. Baseball in DC - no owner, a hostile city council, and a rapidly expanding stadium bill. MLB's done nothing right with this so far; why start now? Bringing in Jim Bowden is an interesting first step, but who's money is he spending?

2. Boras in Wonderland - Scott Boras controls many of the top free agents. Will he function as a 31st team when the Winter Meetings start? Carlos Beltran, Adrian Beltre, Kevin Millwood, Derek Lowe, J.D. Drew, Jason Varitek, and several others are Boras clients.

3. Carlos Dineros - Carlos Beltran is the best free agent since Alex Rodriguez. How close will his contract come to some of the 2001 bubble? He's looking for 10 years, 200 million. He probably won't get that, but it will be the biggest deal since A-Rod's without much effort.

4. BALCO - the story that won't go away finally goes to trial. It's bad for all sports, but baseball has the worst record of spinning damaging info. Barry Bonds is the "sexiest" name and expect the media to follow him. His run at Babe Ruth earlier in '05 might be as hard on him as it was on Hank Aaron.

5. Yankees Say Yes or No - The Yankees need pitching, but they may not be the big spenders they have been in the past. Did George read Moneyball or will he just spend money? Eric Milton, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Russ Ortiz, and Carl Pavano are all firmly in the sights of Big Stein.

6. Anaheim Gold Rush - spending big on Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon put the Angels in the playoffs. Will Arte Moreno open up the checkbook again for Pedro and Beltran? He *was* an owner in the spend-now D-Backs. Unlike Boston and New York, no one really knows how high the Angels can go besides their owner.

7. Cursed Again - the Red Sox have more free agents than any team. Will the ring on Theo Epstein's finger give him free reign or will he elect to bring back as many "idiots" as he can? A weak (but improving) minor league system might force their hand at a couple positions.

8. No Cooperstown? The only legitimate first time candidate is Wade Boggs and his media problems make him the type that the BBWAA makes sweat it a couple years. It could be a big year for the Veterans Committe (Santo?) and guys that didn't make it last year (Sandberg and one of the big closers?)

9. The Next Threat - With Montreal moved - probably - baseball needs another threat. The likely culprits are Oakland and Florida, two teams that haven't convinced their communities to cough up a new stadium. These two both legitimately need it. Mike Lowell gives us some indication that Miami isn't expecting a new stadium this season.

10. Hockey - What? Baseball is closely watching the current NHL strike. If the hockey players cave to a salary cap, baseball will be the only major sport without one - and labor negotiations are only two years away. Baseball might actually get involved in this one, either on the player and owner side. (Rangers owner Tom Hicks is also the owner of the Dallas Stars.)

So - your thoughts? Which might I have missed?

... that everyone says "get back to baseball" to me when we get "too" political, but that we get insanely long participative threads when we talk about anything except baseball?

Or is it just that everyone nods their head and says "Oh, dead on!" when I write about baseball? Nah, I'm not that good.

Baseball is our common thread. We have discussions about everything from politics to file sharing, from movies to hip-hop, yet in the end, our one commonality is baseball. We probably don't agree on that, but in the end, whatever our race, creed, nationality, religion, gender, background, sexuality, party identification, or idiocy, we all can agree on one thing.

Baseball rules.

They better hurry, It has a strong possibility of not passing the new council.

I like the ending best. (Edit: I mean the part about Clinton and the funny Selig aside.) Brilliant work.

NOTE: I'm deleting comments that I deem deletion-worthy. Go ahead and call it censorship. I've also banned one person from posting on personal grounds. If it gets to be too much effort, I'll turn off comments, as I've done on certain posts.

Once Clarence Thomas gets his supermajority in the Supreme Court - and yes, it looks like Thomas is Bush's choice as Rehnquist's replacement - they'll look for the chance to overturn Roe v. Wade. That's no secret.

This one will be the next target.

In the first real action of the off-season, baseball has three new managers. The Diamondbacks brought in Wally Backman, the Phillies have Charlie Manuel at the helm, and the Mets hired the oft-interviewed Willie Randolph. With the hirings of Mike Hargrove and the extensions in Toronto and Houston, all managerial slots are now filled.

Managers are one of the most visible things and yet our tools for evaluating them remain almost completely subjective. Managers seldom gameplan like their counterparts in football, nor do they "X and O" like in basketball. What managers do is ... well, that's a mystery to most baseball fans and analysts alike.

Managers make the lineups, work with GM's to set the roster, and hold their various coaches and instructors responsible for their areas. They control and motivate the team to some extent, each manager finding his own techniques and tenor. Often, managers are seen for one skill that seems to stand out, such as Dusty Baker's work in the clubhouse or Tony La Russa's pitching changes. They're also seen for their faults.

Still, the managerial job track seems circular. The same names, again and again, circulating from failure to failure, almost all sure to be fired at some point. What they do seems as much mystery as anything left in baseball besides Derek Jeter's Gold Glove.

What managerial hirings does do is tell us about the psychology of the front office. Hiring an "aw shucks" friend of the player like Charlie Manuel is normal after a hard-nosed SOB like Larry Bowa hits the road. The opposite is seen as Wally Backman brings a Larry Bowa Lite mood to the laissez-faire clubhouse that Bob Brenly left behind.

Willie Randolph, on the other hand, offers our first insight into the new Mets front office. Last year's team seemed of five or six minds. Now with Omar Minaya in control - we think - he was able to bring in someone who has experience with winning. Randolph was thought to be the front-runner when Joe Torre left the Yankees bench, so perhaps Joe's locked in for longer than Willie wanted to wait ... or maybe Willie didn't like what he saw a couple years down the line. In Queens, he'll have the task of taking an underachieving team up. He has good prospects to move up quickly; teams normally play near their true talent level and the Mets certainly did not.

The hole in the Mets is pitching, something Randolph isn't on the hook for. Rick Peterson is still the man there, letting Randolph focus on ... whatever it is managers do. Perhaps he can be a good influence on a young Jose Reyes or rebuild the psyche of Kazuo Matsui. Perhaps Mike Piazza won't undercut his influence and perhaps Willie will let Mike just be the best-hitting catcher in baseball history.

Two clubs are looking for changes while one is looking to be changed. It's subtle, but important.

To take my mind off life in general ... and yes, I'll get back to the "All Baseball" ethic soon ... I watched a film I love, but haven't seen in years: The Warriors.
Time hasn't done well by this film. It's obviously of that odd late 70's/early 80's visual, yet it is both laughable in some ways (a gang of mimes?) and disquieting.

Cyrus comes off as a mythic figure and The Warriors' quest to get back to "their turf" is Homeric. It's one of those stick with you for no reason, quoteable movies like "Real Genius" or "Office Space." Worth a look, if only for the metaphor, before it is remade in 2006.

"We fought all night just to get back to this?"

I just want to clarify something that I said earlier. A broadbased educational reform has nothing to do with calling anyone stupid. For the most part, everyone here - right and left - are smart. Edw and Rich Lederer are two of the archest of conservatives and two of the smartest people I know.

What I meant, in the clearest of terms, is that I think the basic problems of our society all go back to the failure of our educational system. "No Child Left Behind" is a simple travesty in construction and in funding. That bill is the latest of the thousands of bills and the Federal, State, and local levels that have left our educational system a shambles.

The left and right are to blame (and I shouldn't leave out whatever center is left.) The right sought to blur the lines of church and state through vouchers while the left fell victim to pandering to the powerful teachers unions.

Where we are left is a crumbling system that works for the few at the expense of the many. Private schools do well, but only the well-heeled or lucky get that benefit. Most of our tax dollars are thrown into a money-burning operation with so little done to help the actual children. Instead "it's for the children" has become a rallying cry.

For a Mac guy, this is an odd promo, but the Gates Foundation is doing transformative work on high schools, work that needs more grassroots support.

Our educational system needs to stop being about tests and start being about learning. In the end, it's impossible for our country to move forward if much of our population is either disinterested by intelligent discourse or unable to adequately participate. John Kerry is both stentorian and sonorous, but neither do we need the malapropism of the Yale to Harvard Bush to talk directly down to the people.

Education is not about calling anyone stupid. It's about making sure we never have to do so.

What state did George W. Bush do best in the 2004 election, next to Texas?
Answer: California, where he had only 93,000 less votes than in the Longhorn state.
Sure it's our largest state, but 44% of people in Cali voted for Dubya. Even in blue states, there are a lot of reds and vice versa.

As I've written before, the thing that made me most irate about Bush's first term is how despite winning a disputed election, he did almost nothing to reach over to the opposite side of the aisle. I hope that Bush shows a lot more bipartisian spirit this time, but I really doubt it will happen, as all 3 legislative powers are Republican. I hope I'm proven wrong.

I'm not interested in discussion, debate, dissection, or much of anything. I did all I could to work for my candidate and he lost. At this stage, it doesn't matter if it was fair and square or not. He conceded. The popular vote went wildly to Bush. Fine.

Now, I'm not interested in "reaching across the aisle." I'm not interested in "building bridges" any more. I'm not interested in explaining the nuances of educating the masses. I'm somehow numb and angry, forelorn and dismissive. As others are saying, you want him, you got him. The ones of us that didn't want him, that did what we could to save the country, we'll be the ones saying "told you so" when kids are dying in Iran, when the budget deficit explodes, when the Constitution is rewritten, when our gay friends are rendered illegal by archaic laws, when they bring back coat hangers as a medical instrument, when they rule the 14th Amendment is as "quaint" as the Geneva conventions, and when somehow we are horribly reminded that Osama bin Laden is still free.

To quote Dick Cheney, "Go fuck yourself." For the freepers and the people that buy into the propaganda that the Roves and Atwaters gave them, you already have.

1. If he won, he won. I'll accept it, look at moving, and move on.

2. I don't think, if he won, it was fair. I'll have a longer post on my Ohio experience, but there are already many reports of fraud. Add in the co-ordinated suppression efforts and the legitimacy of this President will always be in question.

3. Bush '04 = Nixon '72. I think we'll have an organized protest movement and more scandal than you can shake a stick at. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cheney get Agnewed by Halliburton, then Bush forced out.

4. Karl Rove. Rudy Giuliani. George Bush. Dick Cheney. I'm not sure which I like least.

5. I'm more disheartened by the bigots like DeMint, Thule, and Coburn getting elected to the Senate than I am the Presidential results.

6. No, I won't shut up. I love this country and fought for the rights that I possess. I know exactly where I stand on every issue. I can't say the same for most of America and that's where things need to change. We need a grassroots educational campaign.

Hey, remember when you first came here and thought this was a baseball blog?

Well, sad Dems, let me restate the positive I saw from Kerry losing. Let me reiterate that Bush getting to select Supreme Court Justices and continually adding to our deficits wasn't worth it to me, but I'm not as shaken as most of my fellow Bush-haters are.

From day one I've felt that Kerry was a bad candidate, but I can't say there was anyone the Democrats could have put up in 2004 that would have done much better. (Actually, Kerry exceeded my expectations for him, as his war background gave him a chance. I think both Bush and Kerry are similar, as they needed a war to win this election, without it, you had to focus on their other characteristics and policies, which were pretty abysmal.)

I still believe that in normal circumstances, Edwards could have whupped Bush, but not when a war was going on. In 4 years, I see him as the Dems best hope.
Who I'm afraid will be victorious in the 2008 primaries is Hilary Clinton. Liberals who contribute here, you have got to stop with that concept, as she is hated by way too many people in this country and she will not only lose every red state, but I can't see her winning the upper Midwest, either. Edwards, Joe Biden, or someone who has Schwarznegger/Ventura pull with men (call me crazy, but Tom Brokaw would be a perfect candidate) is the type of candidate the Dems need to push forward.

Now, I know there will be a million reasons pointed to that cost Kerry the election, but the issue that was out of his hands, which I believe cost him most was gay marriage. Now let me state that I believe gay marriage should be legal and I personally think it's stupid that in 2004 it's still an issue, but............ I'm in the minority and despite how Kerry/Edwards tried to impress on the voters that they are just for Civil Unions, the President's efforts to make this a constitutional amendment was a huge winning issue for him. I believe a big reason Kerry got less of the black vote was because of the gay marriage issue. In the state of Ohio, alone, I think this gay marriage amendment might have cost him the state and in Iowa and New Mexico, if they end up in Bush's corner.

This is something that people in the Blue states need to remember in the future, that even though everyone they know in San Francisco and Boston think gay marriage should be legal, it puts Democrats in very tough positions in swing states. Sometimes you need to be a little more patient on pushing your liberal agenda. Making civil unions legal should have been the complete focus, which after 5 or 10 years of this being law, more swing state voters would realize that
it's not hurting anyone. I'm not blaming the Dems loss on this subject alone, I'm just saying it didn't help.

Just have to tell everyone ... Among the R Kelly jammin baby mamas, Kerry is doing well.

"Me and my baby daddy both voted!" is one of those phrases you just don't expect.

Noon in cincy and we're on the streets doing the gotv. Do your part! Things looking good on the ground of this battleground state. More soon.

I suck at predictions. Flat out suck. Doesn't stop me from making them, so here's mine:

Kerry 308-227, with a "FLOHPA" sweep. Why does the map look like the Confederacy is back?

Senate - 50/50 split, if you include Jim Jeffords with the Dems.
House - 220 (R)/ 215 (D) on a massive turnout.

Kerry Cabinet:
State - George Mitchell (former Senator, N. Ireland negotiator)
Defense - Max Cleland (former Senator, war hero)
Homeland - get rid of it, but Wesley Clark (General, can't be at Defense yet)
Intelligence - Gary Hart (no more Monkey Business)
Treasury - Robert Altman (not the director. Because ...)
Fed Chief in waiting - Robert Rubin (inspiring choice)
Atty General - Eliot Spitzer (wow, blockbuster. Anything's an improvement.)
Labor - Harold Schaitberger (Firefighters Union chief)
Education - Jim Hunt (former NC governor)
Transportation - Greg Nickels (Seattle mayor, big mass trans sponsor)
Commerce - John Merrigan (big time lobbyist from Piper Rudnick)
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack (Iowa governor, but needs to deliver Iowa)
HUD - Marc Morial (former N.O. mayor, now with the Urban League)
HHS - Dick Gephardt (I wish Howard Dean, but he has bigger fish to fry)
Interior - Jeff Bingaman (NM Senator; Bill Richardson won't take it)
Energy - Carol Browner (Clinton's EPA head; big nasty job that no one wants)

I can live with that. Your thoughts?