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And another: "Bernie Sanders says he's for the little guy. But, you check his voting record. One time, he voted to allow foreign drug dealers to get visas to live here. We're nice people in Vermont, but not nice enough to invite the drug dealers to move in next door!"

This is mind-bogglingly silly. There has to be enough footage of Sanders shouting incoherently to run from now until Election Day without using any shot twice. Just as Democrats erred in 2004 by trying to convince voters Bush was Satan personified rather than simply a bad president, so too do ads attempting to cast Sanders as a HIV-infected drug dealing rapist's best friend rather than a socialist crank seem, even beyond being gaudy and tasteless, unlikely to be helpful politically. Then again, would anything have been? Sanders is like a matinee idol up here.

In truth, if the Senate campaign in Vermont is to be judged by the flailing banality of its two candidates, then it is safe to say there is a lack of seriousness to the whole affair that would render it completely meaningless were control of the chamber not somewhat in question. Nonetheless, the candidates present could not disagree more. "This election," Sanders declared, "is the most important election in our lifetimes." Welch only slightly downgraded it to "one of the most important elections of our lifetime." Boxer struck out for the middle ground, calling it "most important election in my lifetime."

Fair enough. I suspect we'll not likely see an unimportant election until Democrats have regained some semblance of power, just as voter fraud will run rampant in every election a Republican candidate wins for perpetuity. Each election that passes without the sky falling despite the mind-numbingly similar rhetoric employed every two years, the harder it becomes to energize people to work to hold it up. Sanders is a good Chicken Little, but that's unlikely to translate his worldview into legislative victories.

Indeed, Boxer seemed to have a better sense of Sanders' potential usefulness than he himself does.

"In the Senate you can add amendments, filibuster, cause all sorts of problems." Boxer enthused from the podium. "Bernie, you're going to love it."

No doubt he will.

topics:
Nancy Pelosi, Constitution, Oil