Earlier this morning, the Democratic Party in the United States announced that it's looking to back a nova candidate for President.

I pay some attention to politics though I'm no junkie by any stretch. (My husband is the news feed addict in the family.) I'd have figured that the primaries would be over by now, and it strikes me as odd that they're leaving this so late. I'd have thought that having such a short lead-in-time would hamstring efforts for the GE, but presumably the Democratic Party knows what they're doing. (She said, sarcastically.)

I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, a nova President would show how far we've all come in a mere ten years, and there's no question that picking the right one could pay tremendous dividends. You only have to look overseas to see how Russia's rebounded this decade for proof.

On the other hand, "looking for a nova candidate" this late in the game... it feels like they're going out shopping at the last minute for someone who'll boost the popularity of the party. The convention's in a little over two months. There's a primary process that seems to be getting skipped outright. The other candidates have been run through their respective party's primaries, but this is literally coming out of nowhere. If they wanted to run a nova candidate they may be leaving it too late. I forsee the DNC in August being heated.

For the record I lean left, having pulled Al Gore's lever in 2000 and having had heated arguments with my mother over voting Libertarian in 2004. (She wanted me to vote for the first female president, party be damned; I said that me voting Libertarian when I relied on so much state-funded care was out of the question no matter how many ovaries their candidate had.) If they select a nova candidate for the Democratic Party, however, I'll have to think long and hard about who to mail my vote to. Every political party panders, but this... might be too far.

What do you all think? And who should they pick out of available prospects - nova or baseline?

Kinda think if yer gonna pick a nova president shouldn't you pick one with powers that help out with the job?

Why not a super-smart motherfucker?

So who are the possible candidate's? I think it's a novel idea for a Nova to run, and like the good Vile Bill has suggested hopefully he/she is intelligent enough to handle the job.

I believe that the idea behind the campaign is to pick the candidate that they best believe should be the next president. "Brain cancer" or "no brain cancer" shouldn't be something that we're picking between.

Well, I have many of the proper degrees and doctorates in the required subjects, but no one has contacted me yet.

Maybe I should register to vote.

I'm glad we have nice, boring Canadian politics up here. All the hysteria over the U.S. election is driving my crackers.

It's got to be the most annoying thing ever to share a border with us.

Are your crackers manual or automatic?

Oh ha ha ha. Typo humor.

Mexicans seem to like it.

Oh, it's that time again, I see. Time for the Americans to decide between two people (maybe even THREE!!!) with all the authenticity of a Disney theme park ride and about as much effect as turning the darkness knob on a toaster.

Not that we're any better. Watching the UK government these past few years has been an education. Outright theft as a domestic policy never occurred to me before.

Oh Jesus.

Randel Portman Shot

Very crazy day here in Cleveland. I'll write more when things have settled down.

Hell's bells. What is it with American leadership figures getting shot?

Does anyone have any more news on this?

I think it would be a very, very bad idea for me to say anything more until things have settled down. =\

On the Twitter for civic defenders -

By the way, there's a Twitter group fo civic defenders. It is pretty neat.

Anyways a lot of us on this Twitter are on "don't leave town" status. Everyone's nervous. They might even call me into service early, and I don't even live in America.

It boggles my mind. Why would anyone do this? First Slider and now Portman. My mom was talking about RFK and MLK. My dad wants to take me to a monster truck rally for male bonding. Something's in the air.

My mother just gave me a panicked phone call, about how she's afraid to leave the house because of the rioting she sees on the news and could I come home, please. And this is my mother, who is carved out of stone.

I'm in the flight terminal right now. Can someone who's back in in U.S. please tell me if it's as bad as it looks?