Tom Sawyer and the Fine Art of Sillyness:

Quick aside: First post in awhile, still reeling from a bloggers bracket slaughter (grats to the winner though!) and the arrival of a new little bundle to the family!! So, posting may be spotty over the next few weeks as we here at the Walk Back homestead acclimate to our new, and frankly beautiful, member.

Ok on to the stuff. A bunch of blogs have posted on the negatives of many a candidate. And more interestingly many an anonymous commentor has come to the defense of a few of them. In this spirit I've been trying and trying to think of a reason someone would come to the defense of Tom Sawyer (as defense of him as been so sparse on the net these day). When lo and behold he comes out in response to Betty Sutton in the ABJ by saying that her comments are bullshit! HOSANAH and ROCK!!! When we finally get a quote by him on a substantial issue his response is, esentially, bite me you hoser. Now, this is a candidate we can get behind, subtantive issue based debate be damned, Mr. Sawyer is getting his hands (and mouth) dirty with a response only one step removed from Nuh-uh. In his last campaign he had image consultants and a bank roll a mile long and some kid from the valley was able to school him. And now, he is seemingly operating from his house, with little budget, no staff, and tons of free press. Why then is he poised to win? The only answer i can come up with is name recognition.

However, in rebuttle to the mainstream oppion that he is the front runner i say this?
-Have you or anyone you know gotten a mailing?
-A robo call?
-A person at your door?
-Seen a web site?
-Seen chatter on the blogs supporting him?
-Seen any endorsements other than newspapers?
-Seen any evidence of a campaign infrastructure at all?

If so let me know! I can't shake the feeling that this guy is a paper tiger. With Sutton and Cafaro having far more union support and thus more known votes in their pocket from the start the question must be asked, where is Sawyer in the race really? Do we know if the polls have been sampling likely voters or registered voters? And in that event did they ask if the respondant was planning to vote in the primary (as most "regular" voters don't ever bother)? This is stuff we bloggers must know if our well and not so well informed political discussions are to have any merit. Ok, while that be going a bit to far, i bloody need to know something the silence is starting to become deafining.

The Bottom Line: While i could be entirely wrong (see bloggers bracket above), It just seems that Sawyer is hot air with no backing, all flash and no substance. I just think it takes more than buzz to win an election.