This time from Chicago.

If you're reading this, it really, really works.

Now all I need is time.

I'll be here live during Survivor Thursday night. Blog, blog, blog, all the way through.

You know we only have 11 days left. Today/ tomorrow (not sure which time zone this thing will pick up), next week and the finale the following Sunday. How will we spend our Thursdays together?

We'll come up with something. See you tomorrow.

The Trippi plan?

The Dean phenom has amazed me the past six months, but the thought that keeps perplexing me is how come no one has copycatted? Not run off with his policy agenda, but with all his clever campaign innovations? He's really revolutionizing the road to the White House, and he's doing it in plain site. So?

The current little flurry in my little brain kicked off when Calpundit linked to my post on Dean's latest clever campaign tactic last night. Quite the lively discussion has emerged in his comments thread, with about three dozen responses so far. Thought you might find it interesting.

This one from "Steady Eddie" caught my attention, for reasons which will be clear in a moment:

Dave Cullen -- Your blog update on this identified what many of us (including formerly-cynical oldsters like me) find so exciting and energizing about Dean's campaign. It's not solely about Dean, though his openness to embracing this kind of unconventional creativity is itself exciting and important. But the whole use of the Internet to engage and empower millions of disaffected citizens is a much bigger deal which is potentially revolutionary -- if Dean and Trippi continue to make it real and genuinely value it.

Caught my attention not just because my name was mentioned, but because of the copycat question so implicit here. I responded there directly, but figured it was just as pertinent here:

Thanks Eddie.

Did you have the same fear I did last fall? As soon as things really started taking off in July, it seemed like everyone was jumping on the bandwagon and would steal all the innovations immediately. Kerry had a growing meetup, Kuchinic was surprisingly strong there, everybody was working on their websites, looking into meetups and blogs . . .

But nobody really pulled it off. Kerry had some meetup growth for awhile, but did you see the numbers on how quickly it fell off in the early fall. Without the enthusiasm, the whole thing just crumbles.

And I checked out his blog a few times. Mostly whining, hardly anything constructive. I don't think he had attracted the kind of people Howard Dean had, who would take the ball and run with it. That may be half of it.

Wes Clark did attract a lot of those people--I know, I went to a few of his meetups, even before the announcement. It was electric, and I have to say, more bursting with action than the Dean sessions. But his campaign chose to go conventional, looked on them as a minor appendage. None of the entrepreneurial, "just go out and do it" attitude emanating from Trippi. More reminiscence of Perot. (And believe me, that is Perot. I worked at EDS for five years. That attitude really drove him, that's what made him his billions.)

And the others. Did they even try? Nothing even noticalbe.

And Bush. Have you seen his blog? I mean his "blog"? It's so completely impersonal, slathered in such unabashed spin . . . All that's going to do is win a round of applause from the people who read Ann Coulter's books. It's never going to mobilize anyone to do anything.

Amazingly, no one else has figured this stuff out. Even with the successful model right there in front of them. I guess it's a lot harder than it looks. It's just tickles me to death that Joe can run the whole thing there right out in the open, and nobody can figure out how to copy it.

Great. That's really all we need.

From AP:

Ralph Nader has not yet decided whether to make another run for the White House, but he's authorized a new exploratory committee to raise money for a potential bid. . . .

Nader has said he would decide by the end of the year, but Amato said Tuesday an announcement is more likely to occur early next year.

Amazing how some people don't learn, isn't it? But I'm betting most of his supporters have. I doubt he'll get one percent this time if it's a close race. Still, you never know where one percent will kill you.

You would think Howard Dean ripping the pres a new one on every front would be enough to please anyone, but I doubt it will be enough for him.

The one possible--possible--bright spot:

"Some other candidates have used it as the launching pad, but he's using it to test the waters,'' [spokesperson Theresa] Amato said. "He is not a candidate now.''

(Gay genes in bondage? What to call these things?)

Interesting little op-ed from Nicholas Kristof on gay-love in the Wednesday Times. (Thanks to VodkaPundit for the link.)

It opens (after a brief intro about fire and brimstone reactions to a previous column suggesting homosexuality was likely genetic) with this interesting question:

Yet surprisingly few readers raised the most obvious question: if homosexuality is partly genetic, why are there so many gays?

I have always been a little puzzled by that question, but figured the main answer was because the gays were generally forced to integrate, fake it and fuck their wives and husbands sufficiently to prove their sexuality. Maybe even overcompensate.

(That still leaves some questions: wouldn't they be unlikely to have as much sex as horny heteros, thereby pushing their genetic numbers down?)

Kristoff does a decent two-minute rundown of the various genetic theories, which offer some plausible explanations. But I'm just as puzzled as he was, about him overlooking an obvious question:

If homosexuality is largely genetic, and the genes have stuck around in the gene pool by millenia of closet cases performing their marital obligations, what will happen when gayboys finally quit faking it with women, and lesbian eggs remain unfertilized?

Have Pat Robertson and the pope considered the possibility that gay marriage might be the strongest long-term strategy for eliminating us homos? If we're nothing but carriers, wouldn't they want us to pair off in procreation-free homozones?

I know I'm required to get slapped for entertaining such ideas, but surely I haven't been the only one thinking these thoughts the past several months. The odd thing for me is that our boy Nicholas tiptoed right up to it this morning and ignored it.