A super weekend

Tomorrow, I am going to celebrate the Chinese New Year with a friend from church. gong xi fa cai! I really need to restart my ChinesePod lessons.

Sunday, I am going to watch my New England Patriots (since 1998) beat the tar out of Eli "spoiled brat" Manning's New Jersey Giants in the Super Bowl. While I grew up in Utah, I never really got why we were supposed to like Denver teams. In fact, I hated them. I did like the 49ers, because of the constant glowing coverage of Steve Young and Joe Montana, but I fell hard for the Pats, even when they sucked (Pete Caroll era). So I feel justified in cheering them on now that they are so good. Same goes for the Red Sox.

And then Tuesday (I know this is a stretch) is Super Duper Tuesday. For election night, my wife and I love to order food and watch the results come in and discuss the speeches etc. Our dog Poe is so excited that John McCain looks to be practically sweeping this round. She will even be a poll worker all day that day, so I will give you her turnout anedotes, and please be nice to her if you vote in the lower aves. She will be there from before 7 a.m. until after 8 p.m. when the polls close. And basically gets paid squat.

In 2000, I routed for McCain over Bush and Gore over Bradley. For some reason, I wanted the Republican nomination to continue on because it was so exciting, and couldn't stand the Democratic one, because it was so boring. Here both are facinating and I wish both could go on. I really think big national primaries are a mistake. Usually, it results in a tarmac campaign where media consultants get a big piece of the ad budget they push for, go figure. Thankfully, much more money is being spent on GOTV and field this year, at least on the Democratic side.

Having a series of primaries in different states a week or two a part for months is a much better way to really energize a party's base, generate good campaign staff for the fall and future elections, and to keep up lots of free media. This is true even it costs more to do intensive week-by-week campaigns. More importantly, parties prevent a steam roller effect if the contests are spaced far enough apart (or the candidates are strong enough with good field teams) that it isn't a purely "bounce nominee" ala John Kerry. I think most Democrats now look back at the 2004 race and say Edwards or Clark or Dean would have been a much better nominee than John Kerry.

While it is cool that Utah is getting all this attention for once, I would be even better if Utah was in the next round or two, since it looks like Obama and Hillary will both be in the race for another month at least. (I don't know about Mitt)

Anyway, I am looking forward to the weekend.