This morning as I was working out, I was watching (without the sound) a segment on CNN about the fact that the candidates tend to call each other by their first names as opposed to titles.  The clips lasted for much longer than I would have expected, flashing back and forth through the debates as candidates cordially (and not so cordially - Cool it Hillary and Barack!) called each other by first name.  It must be a pretty big news day, eh?  Of course, at the end of this segment, they went on to explore our good friend Mitt Romney.  You see… apparently he was not named after equipment used in America’s favorite pasttime.  Has he {gasp} been lying to the American people?  Apparently, Romney’s given name is Willard Milton.  Now, as amazingly newsworthy as this is, it got even more so as they played at least a minute worth of clips from the blockbuster smash: Willard.  Everyone remember that movie?  No?  That’s because NO ONE WENT TO SEE IT.  But we sure saw more than enough of it this morning.  Rats pouring out of everywhere.  Apparently CNN feels that it’s appropriate and responsible reporting to associate a presidential candidate with a movie about a bunch of rats… simply because they share a first name.  While I’m certainly not a Romney supporter… this does seem to lower the level of discourse, eh?  I mean, as if his last name weren’t giving him enough trouble, Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, isn’t it?  I’m sure they could have all kinds of fun finding b-roll footage for that.  Heck… we really should just let those clever third-graders who used to call me "Miniature Golf" (cuz my last name is Goff… and I was short… get it?) take over for the political pundits.  I’m rubber, you’re glue!

Me… I voted yesterday as an absentee-in-person since I’ll be out of town this weekend for the oh-so-exciting South Carolina Democratic primary.  And as much as I considered writing in Stephen Colbert (oh Stephen!  Where are you!?!), I ended up voting for someone who was actually on the ballot.  So I’ve done my civic duty.  And now I want them all to shut the hell up!  At least they’ll forget where South Carolina is after tomorrow, so things will quiet down a bit.  And speaking of quiet… it actually occurred to me yesterday that, in The Distracted Globe’s ongoing push for election reform, I think that we should require the candidates to campaign in mime.  Don’t panic, we would still give them specific times when they were actually allowed to speak in circles around the issues, but other than those appointed times, they would be seen, not heard.  I think you learn a lot about a person from non-verbal communication.  They love waving and handshakes anyway, don’t they?  And you can just imagine some of the hand signals that would be flying between Obama and the Clintons right now!

And while Clintons and Obamas get down and dirty with each other, the GOP prefer to let muscley famous people do their fighting for them. 

{sigh}