Embrace Your Inner Don Draper

In the cross-promotion that is standard for Caskey Worldwide Enterprises™, you can find my blog post about men's haircuts over at FigColumbia.

Mark Sanford: Straight From the Bottle

Mark Sanford has won the election for the South Carolina's First Congressional district, and is heading to the United States House of Representatives. I can sum up my thoughts with both a .gif and with words. First, my reaction to Mark Sanford being elected last night can best be summed up by Julia Ormond:

Yeah, straight from the bottle. No need to waste any taxpayer money on a glass, baby. Just open 'er up, and take a swig. The fact that the Charleston area sent Mark Sanford to the United States House of Representatives illustrates several things.

As an initial matter, Sanford should not have been the candidate. He won by a comfortable margin, but in the last few days before the election this race was starting to look like the GOP's failure to make an easy layup. This district is Red, Red, Red. The GOP could have run a Labrador Puppy, and as long as it had an "R" by it's name, the puppy would have been the favorite.

Second, and as a corollary, it shows that the people of this district would rather send and admitted adulterer to Congress than a Democrat. Think about that for a second. The people of South Carolina, who are always portrayed as socially conservative and "puritanical" basically took a look at a deeply flawed man who went AWOL on the job to have an affair...and they decided to go with him rather than with a Democratic candidate. Basically, Ms. Colbert-Busch's political views were more distasteful than Sanford's personal flaws.

In winning you learn no lessons. In losing, you learn. The GOP won, so they think everything is fine. But what conclusions should the Democratic party draw from this election?

There's an old rule that William F. Buckley put forward back in the day: Support the most conservative candidate who is electable. The Democrats would do well to heed this rule. Not every state is the same. Not every district in a single state is the same. If the Democrats really wanted to win this seat, they should have found the most liberal candidate who was electable. As the results show, Ms. Colbert-Busch was not electable. Her accepting large donations from labor unions was a self-inflicted wound that cost her lots of votes in a district that just obtained a new Boeing plant despite the efforts of unions.

She tried to put a conservative spin on every liberal position. She said she was proud to live in a right-to-work state, but she took money from labor unions, while Boeing donated to Sanford. You can talk all you want, but the money talks. At the end of the day, people knew that Colbert-Busch was hiding her true liberal views, and Sanford was just being himself. The voters chose to go with the unfaithful, lying guy who was honest about his political views, rather than go with someone who they distrusted on the issues.

Overall, the race doesn't have broad implications. South Carolina is a deeply conservative state. Yeah, we already knew that, thanks. Folks from SC have a history of sending flawed people to Congress.

I personally think that Sanford is too flaky for the job. Going AWOL while Governor is unacceptable and (in my opinion) unforgivable. The only silver lining is that he isn't seeking executive office. He won't be "in charge" of anything. I wouldn't put him in charge of organizing a bake sale.

People will certainly make fun of South Carolina being a "punchline" for sending such a scandal-ridden person back to public office. But don't think for a second that South Carolina is different that other places. Illinois sent Jesse Jackson, Jr. to Congress while he was being treated for bi-polar disorder and plagued with scandals. New York sent Charles Rangel back to Congress even after he was basically exposed as a long-time tax cheat and formally censured. Heck, Massachusetts kept sending Ted Kennedy back to the Senate, and he killed a girl. To date, I am not aware of anyone that Sanford has killed.

So before all y'all in other parts of the country get on your high horse to judge South Carolina, look in the mirror. He won't be the most scandalous guy to make it to Congress. (I know, that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.)

Ken Levine's Criticism of Mad Men

Quick, which character from Mad Men are you cheering for? Is that a tough question?

I really like Mad Men, but I agree with Levine's thoughts here. The show is really becoming a collection of horrible characters. Mrs. Permanent Press and I were discussing it after the last episode. It's just a story full of people that we hate. Where are the people we're supposed to be cheering for? I dislike all of these characters.

The first few years were phenomenal television. I loved it so much I almost took up smoking...But then things started to shift. Betty, who season one was my favorite character, became such a hideous bitch I now expect her to wear a coat made of Dalmatians. Still, almost everybody else had some redeeming qualities (although I’m still looking for Pete’s). Peggy was adorable, Roger provided comic relief, Joan advanced in a man’s world using both her brains and bra, and then there was Don Draper...Why should I care anymore about this miserable soul?  Because he gets to his front door, slumps down to the ground, and feels sad?  At one time there were glimmers of humanity, moments when he would exhibit surprising kindness. But not anymore. Not this season.

Levine hits the nail on the head, if you ask me. Think about it: Every story has a character that you somehow are cheering for, or you're on their side, or you understand why they do bad things. In Mad Men, they don't have a character like that anymore. (For me, anyways.)

If you like Mad Men, you'll really want to read the whole thing.

Should we care about these people?

Thoughts on the College Football Playoff Logos

It's been awhile since we've discussed the most important topic of all - college football. As I'm sure y'all are aware, the NCAA has decided to allow a four team playoff. The fact that it will end up being chock-full of SEC teams is something that will be fun to watch. The Big 10 (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) will be the hardest hit.

Almost as important as the playoff system itself is the logo that goes along with it. First, the name "College Football Playoff" isn't that great, so we're going to need an awesome logo to make people forget about how bland the name is.

Ok, so here are the four finalists. The final four. Sigh...It just kind of makes you realize all over again how stupid the name "College Football Playoff" is in comparison to March Madness, The Final Four, The SuperBowl, etc.... Where's Don Draper when you really need him? He'd be all over this.

Logo #1 Bastardized American Flag Football. Ok, so the first one (starting from the left) looks like a weird version of Captain America's shield with a football at the bottom. If we maybe had Captain Football America as a superhero to go with it, that could be promising. However, it just looks like a bastardized American flag with too few stripes and stars. And flags are supposed to be squared off and the bottom, not football curved. What are we looking at? Not really thrilled with this one.

Logo #2 Football Eye of Sauron. Sorry, I can't claim credit for coming up with that. It belongs to @edsbs, but not that I've started thinking about it being the Eye of Sauron, it's not going to look like anything else. Damn you Spencer Hall! Can't use this one - I'll have nightmares about it.

Logo #3 Insect Antenna. This looks like a weird type of insect's antenna that's been plucked off, or some kind of pincher from an ant. It kind of gives me the creeps. I know that it's supposed to be a silhouette of a football, but good god man, what kind of crazy pincher is that thing? (Warning: Do not click on that link if you are scared of bugs.)

Logo #4 Game of Thrones. Did someone take a bunch of swords and put them under a football? This one could be promising if you got some players and coaches to do commercials where they say "In college football, you either win, or you die". As I've pointed out, college football is already so much like the warring houses of Westeros anyway, this may not actually be a bad fit.

Overall, I'm not really amazed by any of these logos. Your thoughts?

It's Monday: What Would Don Draper Do?

You'll need to consult this flowchart to find out.