John McCain le gusta "gasolina!"

Bill Richardson just ain't gonna cut it.

As evidenced by his run in recent polls, John McCain is a wily campaigner who is full of surprises. But I never expected to see this image: McCain urging Puerto Rican reggaeton superstud, Daddy Yankee to hug and kiss a crowd of screaming, hispanic, high school-age girls.

This Monday, McCain and Yankee, the author of El Cartel: The Big Boss and a DJ for a radio station in Grand Theft Auto IV, appeared together at his wife's high school in Phoenix, Arizona.

The press got a gimme gag, unable to entirely restrain their snickers at McCain's reported affection for Yankees biggest hit, Gasolina. The lyrics of which, we can only hope will become the McCain's energy plan anthem:

A ella le gusta la gasolina! Dame mas gasolina!

(She likes gasoline! Give me more gasoline!).

According to the Wall Street Journal, when the rapper was asked about the true meaning behind the lyrics, he replied wryly:

"Energy independence."

Why all our dreams will be crushed, eventually

One of the great modern rituals of campaigning is the unveiling of personal tastes, blanded out in order not to offend even the most culturally backwards constituent. And nothing could be more revealing than the songs in each candidate's iPod. The best word for Barack Obama's taste in music is, um, tasteful. He showed his iPod to Rolling Stone and unsurprisingly, the magazine didn't find anything that the average Rolling Stone reader isn't familiar with. He likes the Stones, Dylan, Coltrane, and Stevie Wonder above everyone else (nothing wrong with that) and also Sheryl Crow (Hillary come back, all is forgiven). He also likes some modern hippa-to-the-hoppa stuff like Jay-Z, but only with much furrowing of the brow about the misogyny and materialism and the message it sends his daughters. It's sad to say, but Obama just might be a Rockist. Of course, if Obama so much as breathes in or around one of these evil rapper folks, a million idiotic right-wing blog posts will spring forth. Blandness is probably the best defense. At least he loves The Wire.

You probably don't think John McCain has an iPod. After all, he is unable to answer the question "Mac or PC?" (Seriously, there's a 50% chance this guy will be the most powerful person in the world in a few month. This planet is the best.) But here is his personal listening device, in all its glory:
He leaked his current on-the-go playlist to Daily Kos:

Woodchopper's Hornpipe
The True And Trembling Brakeman
That Crazy War (of 1812)
Globe Trotting Nelly Bly
Adam In The Garden Pinnin' Leaves
Roll The Cotton Down
Granny Does Your Dog Bite
Hop Up, My Ladies
Cluck Old Hen
Boys All My Money's Gone
Gonna Keep My Skillet Greasy

and an ode toA his lovely wife Cindy:
Liberty Off The Corn Liquor Still

Actually, John McCain doesn't have an iPod. But his trust-fundie "Blogette" daughter sure does! And she likes Ryan Adams! And Incubus! And Joss Stone's horrible White Stripes cover "Fell in love with a boy"! If John McCain can't stop his own daughter from listening to Ryan Adams, how can we expect him to be able to stand up to Ahmadinejad? (Hmm, can't seem to find any iPod playlists on his blog. On the other hand, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has his OWN BLOG! Maybe Buzz Bissinger was right about blogging after all...)

But the purpose of this post isn't merely to implore good Americans to never, ever, EVER elect a hipster First Daughter. Because as fun as it is to point and laugh, your three correspondents have their own musical skeletons in their, um, iPod closets. This week's question/experiment, courtesy of the DCeiver, is:

1. Take out your iPod (or Zune, I guess...really, who buys a Zune?)
2. Press shuffle songs.
3. Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song?

If all goes as planned, then by the end of this week, none of us will be fit for higher office. But I guess that's nothing new. Good night, and good luck.

Beware The Blog!!!

John McCain hates bloggers.



And John McCain doesn't just talk smack. John McCain backs it up.

Ostensibly concerned with the propagation of child porn on the internet, Mr. McCain introduced a 2006 bill which adds weight to his more recent comments.

Saddled with the less than catchy title, “Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act of 2006,” Mr. McCain’s legislation requires, among others, any individuals with comment boards and any hosts of internet content to file reports on violations or face fines of up to $300,000.

So, to our readers , I understand your desperate need for child pornography, but we here at Today’s Snow Job would appreciate it if you took your business/hobby to a more appropriate venue.

And may I also say that it truly warms my heart to know that we’ve joined a community that inspires such ire from their elders. It’s akin to that rush of exhilaration a teenage mailbox baseball player feels when he connects a mid-sized blue boy for a ground-rule double.

On that note, I'll leave you with another anti-blogger greatest hit:



I remember saying to Shmuel and Jedd before embarking on this venture that our creed would be:

We are “dedicated to cruelty,” “speed,” and “journalistic dishonesty.”

Let us know how we’re doing.

Regulators, Veep Vetters, mount up!

“But you can't be any geek off the street, gotta be handy with the steel if you know what I mean, earn your keep!”

- Warren G (Not Harding), Regulate

It’s been a bad month for veep vetters.

Earlier in June, the man in charge of vetting Barack Obama’s Vice Presidential choices, Washington insider’s insider Jim Johnson, got the ol’ heave-ho. Roundly criticized for receiving two million dollars in questionable loans from Countrywide Financial, a mortgage company that’s been accused (by Obama, among others) of being at the center of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Stating that he would never, ever, ever dream of “distracting attention from [the] historic effort," Jimmy boy stepped aside leaving a chasm as large as Unity, New Hampshire in his wake.

That’s where your clean-pocketed Today’s Snow Job team steps to the fore. We’ve come forward to offer our sterling picks for Obama’s Numero Dos for your appraisal. In return, we expect nothing more than medium to large-sized low interest loans. So, if you have me in mind, Countrywide, Ameritrust, keep in mind that prices for Strathcona townhouses are only going up…

I suppose it’s worth pointing out that, in the long run, Johnson’s firing may ultimately be a plus for the Obama campaign. After all, he was the point man when Mondale foolishly picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, prompting Wu-Tang rapper Gza to furnish us with the line: “Geraldine Ferraro, who’s full of sorrow, cuz the ho didn’t win, but the sun will still come out tomorrow.”

So, with sunny days in mind, let’s get down to it.

First off, the art and science of the thing. There’s no unified theory of veep vetting. Other than the resounding lack of scandals like the one ended Jim Johnson, there are a number of proposed qualities a fine vice presidential nominee may, or may not, have. In no particular order:

1. They should bring you swing states (The potential biggies this time out: Ohio, Michigan, Florida. Nevada, Wisconsin, Colorado and, of course, Puerto Rico.)
2. They should be a ranking member of your father’s secret, world domination-minded cabal who will help to craft your every statement and action (ie. Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney).
3. They should be your ideological soulmate–the Yin to your Yang, the Tubbs to your Crockett, the Stringer to your Avon, the Ashley to your Mary-Kate. (Semi-surprisingly, Al Gore)
4. Failing the above, they should fill in the gaps in your own resume/ideology/persona. You’re a man, they’re a woman. You’re from a northern state, they’re from the south. You’re inexperienced, they’ve been in the senate for a billion years. You like dudes, they like chicks. (Ie: Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s #2)
5. If lacking in these other, more appealing traits, they should at least be endowed with such a paucity of mental competence that they make you look like a MENSA member by comparison (ie. James Danforth “Dan” Quayle.)

The problem with the last quality is that it necessarily entails a failure to reassure the people that in the event of your untimely demise a suitable second will be able to step in. In Quayle’s case, it led to an opposition ad campaign entitled: “Quayle, only a heartbeat away.” And yet, this is the catch-22 of the VP position: You have to be worthy enough to bring votes and reassurance, and yet also be enough of a lame-duck long shot that you don’t outshine the head of the ticket. Journalist Lance Morrow put in succinctly when he said, “The presidential nominee always says the person he has selected to be his running mate is the American ‘best qualified to take over in the White House in the event of my death.’ That is a ceremonial lie.”

The truth of the matter is that the selection of a vice-presidential nominee is a political, rather than quantitative, question; an attempt to guess which significant other will augment your own turn in the spotlight to the extent that you can walk home with November’s beauty prize in hand.

With that in mind and no further ado:

Fuck: Joe Biden

At first blush, Joe “Biddy Bone” Biden is all that you’d want in a veep and more. He ‘s got the wealth of legislative and foreign policy experience that Obama lacks. He’s both clean and articulate. He’s fair and from Delaware. And, most importantly, he is indisputably thugged out.

Unfortunately, Joe is a little too thugged out. His penchant for shooting verbal nine millies from the hip has led him down dark alleyways far too often for comfort. Most notably, when he said of Obama:

I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy… I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

As one blogger so aptly put it:

Our point, if we have one, is this: Joe Biden's comments are crazy ill in the worst way possible. Joe Biden says dumb shit on the regular, but this is above and beyond in several regards. But Joe Biden is a major American political figure with crazy foreign-policy intellect who likes to say insane things on the regular.

So this press remains open.

Kill: Isn’t it obvious?

It shouldn’t take Obama more than a cocaine heartbeat to decide that Hillary shouldn’t be a bullet away from the presidency.

Marry: Straight Talk-Era John McCain

He’s got a post-partisan record and oodles of experience. He served in the military. He’s adored by the national media, yet still falls short of the Guitar Hero level props that Obama gets. He’s conservative, but not too conservative… What more can you ask for?

For high hilarity, this is a move would be on par with Hillary offering Barack the nomination while he was trouncing her in the primaries. They’ll never expect it…

I’m being facetious, of course. I absolutely respect the man. He’s earned it. I think he’s a generally stand-up human being. Unfortunately, he also came out of the Vietnamese prison camps with his own particular and, I think, incorrect vision of how American foreign power should be used.

And he’s old. Boo.

As for who Obama should actually choose as his vice president…

(shrug)

Kathleen Sebelius?

I don’t have the foggiest.

In the end, elections can be lost, but not won on these decisions. That’s probably why America has such an uninspiring roster of VPs to begin with. I have to side with "Cactus Jack" Garner of Texas, F.D.R.'s Vice President, who infamously said that the vice presidency was,

"Not worth a pitcher of warm piss."