Thursday’s Wall Street Journal deconstructed the bracket racket:
Where Was the Bracket Born?
It’s a Cultural Icon, but Nobody Knows Who Invented It; E.R. Seymour Gets a Bye in Round Two
Helpful graphic:
Nut graf:
This simple design, which is used whenever a competition needs to winnow a large group of contestants to a single winner, has become a much-admired cultural meme. If there were a hall of fame for sports graphics, the bracket would be the first inductee.
But as ubiquitous as brackets have become, they’re also the center of a surprising mystery: Nobody knows for sure where the idea came from.
But the idea for this piece is pure WSJ.
And while we’re at it, check out WSJ columnist Jason Gay’s “The 23 Rules for Winning March Madness” piece on NCAA basketball tournament pools.
The new Honda Civic is so boring you’d probably have to pay me to write something positive about it, which is exactly what Honda attempted to do via a third-party European company. Welcome back to the world of pay-for-post blogging where automakers desperately try to generate positive social media buzz — and fail.
I first received an email from Russell Thomas in January saying there was “a major car brand” that was willing to fork over cash to Jalopnik to write about their car. While my journalistic pride means I have no intention of actually accepting a check in a money-for-coverage scheme, my journalistic curiosity led me to write him back and and let him know I was interested.
I was informed by Thomas that all I’d have to do is sign up as a “publisher” on the website of eBuzzing, the company he works for, in order to access campaigns. I did, and, after filling out their form telling them my primary language and general traffic stats, I was “validated” and assigned my first story.
It just gets more interesting from there, so you should read the whole Jalopnik post.
Suffice it to say, blogola lives, despite any and all efforts to regulate it.
Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!
A string of recent polling, an agreement to bar outside money from the race and some savvy legislative moves have put Democrats on notice that ousting the first-term Massachusetts Republican will be anything but easy, even with a first-class challenger.
Six months after Elizabeth Warren burst into the Senate race as the heroine of the left and swiftly leapfrogged Brown in polling and buzz, her superstar candidacy has plummeted back to earth.
It’s now Brown whose gotten a lift in this marquee match-up, and observers on both sides of the aisle credit the candidate for the turnaround.
The piece goes on to cite Brown’s savvy positioning on the recent insider trading bill, his smooth maneuvering on the payroll tax cut extension, and “the agreement to sideline super PACs” in the Senate race, which the piece labels “a coup for Brown’s team.”
(See also Joe Battenfeld’s Boston Herald column today.)
The Politico piece also includes this quote from local Democratic chinstroker Dan Payne:
“He uses pop-culture well. He spontaneously calls up sports talk-shows and gabs about the teams and scores, and maybe if they ask him about politics, that’s okay too.”
Coincidentally, Brown released his latest installment of the Scott Brown Radio Report, which salutes retiring Red So players Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek.
The hardworking staff has yet to hear from @globemartybaron about Boston Globe reporter Matt Viser’s big wet Romneykiss in this month’s Town & Country, but Politico’s Morning Score has weighed in:
THE ROMNEY BOYS get written about by Boston Globe reporter Matt Viser in the current issue of Town & Country. Tagg is the “leader of this merry band.” Matt is “the jokester.” Josh is the “heartthrob.” Ben is the “alterna-Romney.” Craig is the “curly-haired baby.” Story not online but here’s a short write-up about it: http://politi.co/x7Aqbi.
Anyone think this will play well in the upcoming Louisiana primary?
It’s clear that Mitt Romney (R-Cheesy Grits His Teeth) will limp to the Republican presidential nomination, but he’s getting a real tune-up in the process, especially in light of his third-place finish in Tuesday’s Alabama and Mississippi primaries.
Predictably, there is a chorus of political observers who are calling for Romney to shake things up after his shutout in the South last night, but that seems unlikely.
“The lesson from yesterday’s primaries?” one of Romney’s top strategists, Eric Fehrnstrom tweeted this morning. “Even when Romney doesn’t finish first, he is successfully executing against his plan.”
And, to a large extent, he’s right. Team Romney knows that if they stick to the plan, Romney is still in the best position to clinch the nomination. The former Massachusetts governor is sitting on top of a delegate lead that is nearly double Santorum’s count and well over triple Gingrich’s.
For Santorum to have a real shot at being more than a thorn in Romney’s side as he plods along the path to Tampa, something has got to give — either Gingrich will have to heed calls to exit the race or Santorum is going to have to come up with a game changing move that give him a real shot at overtaking Romney.
Short of that, Romney still appears to have the upper-hand.
And yet . . .
Romney has the elephant gun loaded for next week’s Illinois primary:
ROMNEY AND HIS BACKERS POISED FOR ILLINOIS AD BLITZ.With Tuesday’s Southern primaries in the rear view mirror, the candidates are already gearing up for battle in two of the month’s remaining contests: Illinois and Louisiana. With recent polls showing Mitt Romney locked in a closer-than-expected race with Rick Santorum in Illinois, Romney’s campaign is buying up air time ahead of the state’s March 20 primary — to the tune of nearly $1 million. Romney is getting a big assist from the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, which has already purchased more than $900,000 worth of airtime, according to Federal Election Commission filings. And sources tracking ad buys indicate the super PAC has bought up as much as $1.5 million more in TV time in just the last week. More than half of that is being spent in the greater Chicago area. That means pro-Romney forces could wind up spending well over $3 million — and perhaps more — in Illinois.
Can you say “desperate”?
I knew you could.
Meanwhile, the pro-Santorum Super PAC Red White and Blue Fund is funneling its money into Louisiana (via Politico’s Morning Score):
LOUISIANA (MARCH 24) – SANTORUM SUPER PAC SPENDING $260K: The 30-second spot from the Red, White and Blue Fund hits Obama on energy, ignoring Romney. Alex Burns says the ad goes into full rotation Wednesday, with a full strength of $260,000. “That money is spread across the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport and Monroe markets, with 750 points in each.”
If you want a snapshot of the mainstream media’s wishlist right now, check out this screengrab of the New York Times website around 1:30 Wednesday morning:
Get the feeling the Times is salivating for a one-on-one race between Santorum and Romney?
GOP Super PACs have spent over $30 million on this year’s presidential primary, most of it on television advertising. But the big spenders on TV aren’t necessarily the biggest players on YouTube.
Are all super PACs ads created equal? Not according to +YouTube views. We looked at viewer counts for content posted by super PACs supporting the GOP presidential candidates, using the +The New York Times ranking list as a guide (goo.gl/yctFN).
Updated Note: The New York Times guide doesn’t explicitly call out PACs like Endorse Liberty (supporting Ron Paul,youtube.com/endorseliberty, 14 million video views) or the Susan B. Anthony List (supporting Rick Santorum, youtube.com/sbalist, 577,000 video views), and they were not used to generate the graphic below.
We found Revolution PAC, which supports +Ron Paul, has earned more YouTube views on its content than the Super PACs for all other GOP candidates combined.
Cautionary note: A whole bunch of this Ron Paul stuff is web-only video, so take the Google chart with a block of salt. Still, something is happening and you don’t know what it is . . .
The Jaws of Life couldn’t extract Romney from the GOP presidential primary. He needs the Mini-Mitts too?
Well, maybe so. Check out this stat from ABC’s The Note:
If you want to understand why this primary season has — and will — continue to drag on look no further than this finding: 74 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents expect Mitt Romney to be the GOP nominee, but just 31 percent want to see him win the nomination.
Bring on the Mini-Mitts, yeah?
Campaign Outsider Bonus Question™:
This big wet T&C Romneykiss was written by Boston Globe Washington correspondent Matt Viser.
Because we’re all about you splendid readers, the hardworking staff signed up for a preview of Barack Obama’s hagiographic video The Road We’ve Traveled, scheduled to be released this week.
And so far we’ve gotten these emails:
1)
2)
Note the Warren Connection – a clear indication that reclaiming Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat (sorry, the People’s seat) is high on the Democrats’ priorities list.
Campaigning like it’s 2008? Amid the buzz about HBO’s Game Change, President Obama‘s re-election campaign has released an ad that features none other than Sarah Palin herself. In fact, the entire ad (entitled “Sarah Palin and the Far Right”) is centered around a clip of Palin’s remarks about racial discrimination and how the president has been influenced by radical philosophies.
The ad:
This is all nonsense – on both sides – but that’s politics, folks.
LOS ANGELES TIMES – GINGRICH’S PROVOCATIVE AD HITS OBAMA ON GAS PRICES:“Gingrich, whose attacks on President Obama have sparked accusations that he was exploiting bias against African Americans, has begun airing an ad in Alabama that some might perceive as playing into ethnic stereotypes, particularly in a region where the Christian president is seen by some as a Muslim,” The Los Angeles Times’ Michael Finnegan reports. “Gas prices, a narrator in the ad says, ‘didn’t go down when Obama bowed to Saudi oil princes.’ The ad shows Obama bowing to Saudi King Abdullah, dressed in Arab headdress and robe…The ad goes on to show an image of a white man with his hands up, as if being mugged at gunpoint, with an unseen assailant poking a gas pump in his back. ‘The Gingrich $2.50 plan stops the great gas holdup and puts money back in your pocket,’ the narrator says of the candidate’s pledge to cut gas prices to $2.50 a gallon.”
The ad:
This is nonsense, but that’s politics and etc.
• Obama’s a Muslim, y’all
Also from Morning Score:
CABLE CATNIP – ONLY 14% OF LIKELY ALABAMA VOTERS THINK OBAMA IS CHRISTIAN: The Democratic polling firm asked 600 likely Republican primary voters, “Do you think Barack Obama is a Christian or a Muslim, or are you not sure?” The results: Christian, 14; Muslim, 45; Not sure, 41. Other remarkable numbers: 21% think interracial marriage should be illegal. 60% do not believe in evolution. 53% have a favorable opinion of Rush Limbaugh. See page 3 of the top-lines: http://bit.ly/xNX6KW.
Good theater day for me and the Missus in the Big Town.
* “The Best Man” at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.
For once, an all-star cast (Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones, Candice Bergen, John Larroquette, Eric McCormack) lives up to its billing. This pitch-perfect production of Gore Vidal’s 1960 script actually delivers on its promise, with John Larroquette submitting a terrific performance and James Earl Jones absolutely riveting in a turn that’s sure to win him a Tony.
The staging was excellent and the cast (we love you, Angela Lansbury) even more so.
“The Best Man” is likely the best Broadway show of the season.
* “Tribes” at the Barrow Street Theatre.
At the other end of the theatrical spectrum, Nina Raines’s new play “Tribes” is an intimate, theater-in-the-round production that packs an incredible punch. As the Barrow Street Theatre notes describe it:
“Billy was born deaf into a hearing family, and raised inside the fiercely idiosyncratic and unrepentantly politically incorrect cocoon of his parents’ house. He has adapted brilliantly to his family’s unconventional ways, but they’ve never bothered to return the favor. It’s not until he meets Sylvia, a young woman on the brink of deafness, that he finally understands what it means to be understood.”
Yes, but it’s oh so much more compelling than that.
Campaign Outsider 