A reader: Actually, why don’t they just bury each one clutching a real NFL
football…seems cleaner (assuming footballs are still made out of pigskin)…and just as “damning”. Betcha they could even get the NFL to donate them to the cause.

The latest batch of polls in southern gubernatorial and Senate races suggest that, on balance, Republican prospects are brightening. Jeb Bush is back out to an 8-point lead in Florida against Democrat Bill McBride. Republican Mark Sanford now has a slight edge against South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges. In Georgia, Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and Sen. Max Cleland still lead their Republican challengers, but not by much. In North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole’s lead over Erskine Bowles continues to shrink in the public polls, but I am told that the GOP campaign’s private polling has begun to show an uptick. In Tennessee, Lamar Alexander’s lead for the Senate seat has “dropped” to 10 points; more importantly, one of two media polls released this week put Republican Van Hilleary slightly above Phil Bredeson in a governor’s race that many observers had thought was a likely Democratic pick-up just a few weeks ago. Only bad news for the GOP is that embattled Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman has closed the gap in his reelection bid against Republican Bob Riley. Given what’s going on elsewhere in the country, Republicans might feel a bit relieved at the turnaround in Dixie — but the outcomes remain in serious doubt because of the Democrats’ demonstrated superiority in getting out the vote.

Kathryn, if Israel or the U.S. did that, there would be PETA protests.

Walter Mondale says that he is “worried” about the economy. Could this be
the same Walter Mondale who was Vice President during the ‘malaise years’?

Ok, for a few reasons, but here’s a creepy one for Halloween: a student says, “At this point, you either go online or go downtown to the sort of scary and not very woman-affirming place sex-shop downtown.”
a) You poor dear. B) Who talks like that, but women’s studies majors (I’d bet a dollar…)?

Russia is burying the dead Chechen terrorists from the Moscow theater attack in pigskin. The reasoning: The Islamic terrrorists consider themselves martyrs. Buried in unclean pigskin, however, by their own beliefs, their plans are derailed.

ELECTION ’02 FLASH
”MAN OF THE PEOPLE”
Raul Damas of Opiniones Latinas makes this point:
One of the more racist attacks against Miguel Estrada, President Bush’s nominee to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, was that his being a brilliant lawyer from a middle-class family, meant that, in the words of Sen. Leahy, Estrada “did not exactly share in the experiences of most Latinos.”


One would think this kind of low expectation-mongering would keep the Dems from backing the mostly self-financed campaign of Texas oil millionaire Tony Sanchez. One would be wrong. Sanchez has spent $60 million of his own money only to be down by 10 points with a week to go in the TX Governor’s race. Maybe next time the Democrats will run someone who has shared “the experiences of most Latinos.”

I’ve been astounded by how many Minnesota Democrats have written me essentially agreeing with yesterday’s Goldberg File. Most didn’t even have a problem with my calling Welstone more useful dead than alive. Surely, this is a sign that “memorial” really was a debacle (to use Howie Kurtz’s word for it).

A couple people have written me asking why I should care one way or another if Cornell wants to provide vibrators to female students (See, below). It’s the kind of question that takes you a moment or two to answer because it’s not immediately obvious in an intellectual way why we sometimes say “yuck” to things. So, let me answer now that I’ve thought about it. By offering these devices as part of its “Health Services,” Cornell embraces the idea that sexual pleasure is not merely a “women’s health issue” but that it is in a sense an entitlement that should be guaranteed by public institutions. It also, diminishes sex and romance while elevating self-indulgence. As some dopey kid told the Cornell Daily Sun, “We know masturbation is healthy, so any tools that can help people discover their sexuality are positive. Any action by the University that gets the idea of sexuality out of the marginalized place that we’re used to seeing it in is a good thing,” he said. I could go on, but as I write this I’ve decided that “yuck” was the right and most apposite response from the get-go.

Mondale just said he plans to serve all six years.

…except that I cannot believe I am watching Walter Mondale running for the Senate.

Reuters discovers there’s campaign news on the Internet. Ironically, a UC Berkeley prof says he prefers sites with “neutral content.” He explains: “Like talk radio and cable TV, certain Web sites find a niche of people who want to hear things that they already believe. That just reinforces the prejudices of certain people.” And, of course, Berkeley isn’t known for any bias.