(Via Lol.)

So it looks increasingly like McCain or Clinton for the White House. (The Times weighs in endorsing them both this morning—not that it will do McCain’s campaign much good.) Meanwhile, over at Slate, Jack Shafer has some interesting thoughts on the press’ much maligned fixation on who’s up and who’s down:

Horse-race coverage isn’t the devil spawn of the television age. Scholar C. Anthony Broh dates horse-race coverage of campaigns back to 1888, when the Boston Journal reported that a “dark horse” was unlikely to appear in a campaign. While noting horseracisms’ obvious deficiencies, he catalogs its many pluses. Horse-race journalism increases voter interest in campaigns, something you can’t say for the average newspaper’s delineation of a position paper. “The horse-race image encourages reporters to emphasize competition rather than to forecast results,” Broh writes, arguing against the common view that reporters are keen to anoint a winner as soon as possible. Every political reporter I know yearns to cover a deadlocked presidential convention.

Critics of horseracism complain that it isolates on poll results and reports from campaign rallies to the exclusion of discussions of political “substance.” But that’s hardly ever the case. Mother Jones’ Jonathan Stein has been cataloging some of the best of the substance coverage, recently citing pieces about Clinton’s voting record vs. Obama’s and a comparison of the Democrats’ domestic policy. He’s also refuted Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone piece that claims the campaign press corps has bogged itself down in trivialities. But even if the press corps had abandoned substance, no voter is more than a mouse click away from detailed policy papers and unfiltered campaign speeches by the candidates. If you’re not an informed political consumer this year, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

A political campaign is more than a traveling debate society. Beyond the issues, voters need to know why a candidate is (or isn’t) performing well in the polls, is (or isn’t) raising money, is (or isn’t) drawing crowds of supporters, or is (or isn’t) keeping his cool. Candidates win or lose for a reason, reasons that have to do with issue papers but also with how they carry themselves and present their positions. Candidates appreciate this fact, which is why they commission private polls so they can construct their own horse-race results and act on them.

In Praise of Horse Race Coverage (Slate via Mediabistro.com)

I just took the electoral compass USA test and came out closest to John Edwards. Urgh. I have to admit I can’t stand Edwards (commenting here about his poor showing in the Democratic Caucus in Nevada this weekend, which pretty much ensures his imminent departure from the presidential race).

It’s not so much what Edwards says but the way he says it. There’s something about the permagrin, the pinched lips, the perfect teeth and the now famous haircut. I would rather have been closer to any of the other Democratic candidates.

The only comfort I can take is the fact that the electoral compass places Edwards somewhere between Clinton and Obama, which I suppose is the general position I’d take if I was a passport-carrying citizen of the USA, like a certain British turncoat.

Electoral Compass USA (via Clive Davis.)

Morecambe and Wise need no introduction for British readers but I’d hazard a guess that few, if any, Americans have ever heard of them. Because an exceedingly good steak and delicious bottle of Malbec at Buenos Aires last night has left me a little impaired, I’ll leave Wikipedia (and YouTube) to do all the work:

Morecambe and Wise were a famous British comic double act comprising Eric Morecambe OBE and Ernie Wise OBE. The act lasted four decades until Morecambe’s death in 1984. They are widely considered to be the most successful double act in Britain for generations. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The Morecambe and Wise Show was placed 14th. In September 2006, they were voted by the general public as number 2 in a poll of TV’s Greatest Stars.

Morecambe and Wise making breakfast (YouTube)
More Morcombe and Wise clips (YouTube)
Morecambe and Wise (Wikipedia)

In case you haven’t already heard, everyone’s favorite Facebook application Scrabulous is under attack.

The owners of the rights to Scrabble in North America (Hasbro) and the rest of the world (Mattel) have sent the Indian brothers behind the application (and Facebook) a cease and desist letter. It’s only a matter of time—weeks rather than months—before Scrabulous is forced offline.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Hasbro and Mattel have had a hand in stifling one of the world’s greatest board games. My memory is a little fuzzy, but if I remember correctly from Stefan Fatsis’ excellent book about competitive Scrabble, Word Freaks, both companies have been reticent to promote the game and to support competitive tournaments over the years.

It seems a travesty, but true to form, that two people who have done more to raise the profile and popularity of Scrabble in the past year than Mattel or Hasbro have done in ten years are about to pay the price. (Though, it’s also interesting to note they have been making $25,000 a month off the app!)

By the way, Simon. The highest recorded score in an official Scrabble game is 830.

Mattel in War of Words over Scrabulous (MSNBC)