Been taking a break

Lots of stuff going on all over. Not just with the campaigns in Bexley, but everywhere from my dining room ('soft duckling') to Sweden Norway (Gore goes for the Grand Slam). In between:

Columbus Blue Jackets Hockey. Want to know what's more depressing than losing at home on a late goal that forces you into a shootout shutout? Doing it front of 7,000 empty seats? Maybe, but perhaps what's most depressing is being in a city where the local paper feels that it's necessary to interpret during the following Nash quote:

"Everyone would like to have a (Daniel) Alfredsson, (Dany) Heatley and (Jason) Spezza line (one of the NHL's best, in Ottawa), but you have to be pretty lucky. Hitch is just looking for the right combinations." (emphasis added)

Perhaps they should have gone further - "...in Ottawa, a city in Canada where hockey is also played professionally." Argh. How to make the best of it? Well, I just picked up two tix for a weekend game, literally on the glass, for $50 apiece. The upside to low demand is a buyer's market. If you want to read hockey, go to the sidebar and click on the Neutral Zone Trap. She's my favorite CBJ blogger, and she can gateway you to the rest of 'em.

Another blogger I read, but who I don't actually link to: Megan Mcardle. She's a national blogger and fairly conservative, but that's okay, as she's an economist. I sometimes think I should have been an economist. More often I think that perhaps I should have worked harder to overcome the impediments to actually becoming a career cognitive neuroscientist, especially now that the work I was doing is coming out in a nice venue. But I'm more than happy enough to be doing research on higher education, which is my new gig starting at the beginning of next month.

Speaking of conservative bloggers, the walking blogger stereotype Matt Naugle has decided to weigh in on the race here. He's narrowed his endorsement field to 7.

And in a final nod to other bloggers, A Mere Detour has picked up my slack and expressed annoyance with Pat Tiberi.

If I did read more bloggers, I would probably have a better handle on how folks are viewing the Stephanie Groce/FCDP tiff. I liked her when I met her, but I'm really pretty neutral on the issue of whether she should have gotten the official endorsement of the party in the first place, given the set of issues that are being brought up now and the general inconsequentiality of the endorsement in a non-partisan race. The time for labor, however, to express an objection occurred a while ago. I'm not sure how long ago, but less than three weeks prior to the election is a late hit. And then, even if the unions just now realized that Groce supports charter schools and pay freezes, perhaps the party could have said to them "yanking our endorsement three weeks before election day makes us look petty and stupid." FCDP would have some unhappy friends, sure, but would have done less overall harm to the brand name.

In the end, the party keeps its foot soldiers morale up (good), and Groce (with her vastly increased name recognition) wins her seat handily (I really am not sure who would actually prefer otherwise, at least this cycle). And Bill Todd finally gets a coherent talking point on education (Ugh).

And speaking of Todd, the CD did a piece on the Columbus mayoral candidates (mis)use of crime statistics. In that piece, the author characterized Coleman's optimistic reading of the numbers as making Columbus "look like Bexley with three-quarters of a million people." A strange indirect compliment for our city, but a nice indirect compliment, nonetheless.

Back to the homestretch here this weekend.