The “comedian” Gallagher–he who smashes watermelons for sport–is also

in the race.

I remember in the final episodes of “Cheers,” Frasier masterminds

Woody’s

campaign for city office to prove that any fool can be elected. Woody,

of

course, wins, and Frasier explains, “It started out as a small joke and

turned

into a huge one.” I think the Founding Fathers would have a similar

opinion of

this farce, this disaster.

A professor of political science at Northwestern had a fairly good piece

on

explaining where the recall, initiative, and referenda came from in Newsday yesterday.

My favorite part:

Democracy is not like money, a good to be maximized. Let’s assume
that
having
some money is good, having more money is better and having the most
money is
best. It’s not similarly true that maximizing democracy is “best”
in the
sense of
maximizing the quality of government.