Human dumpster Sarah Palin hasn’t held many unnecessary interviews in the last few weeks, what the hell is wrong with her? Does she want this thing in 2012 or not?? Her lazy ass needs to be in cold motherfuckin’ IOWA right now and every week for the next few years, going to fried steak dinners with the Des Moines Register people and what not. This is what one must do. John Edwards put four goddamn years into that state and look what happened, OH RIGHT, he’s President. Well, Sarah Palin may not have the “grit” of John Edwards, but she’s at least creeping her way back onto the interview circuit. The safe outlets only, of course. Now let’s see what she told the wingnuts at Human Events about her experience on the McCain campaign… ah, she did nothing wrong and wasn’t allowed to do enough right. MORE »

Democratic Superstar Tom Vilsack nearly won the nomination, until he dropped out in … what, 2006? No, it was February 2007 — almost two years ago! And he endorsed Hillary. So she paid off his campaign debt, which wasn’t really very much as his campaign consisted solely of old props from a local high-school musical version of 1984. MORE »

Guess who made a campaign stop in Iowa this morning? Mike Huckabee! Iowa! 2012! It’s the new-new Republican Party, with a platform based on Huckabee’s special blend of a) jesus-y socialism, b) weight-loss schemes, c) playing bass in the Christian Rock band “The Wiggles,” and d) just cold puttin’ down Mitt Romney all the time, because Romney SUX. Also Huckabee is selling his shitty book, about how much he hates Mitt. [CNN]

• RON PAUL MIGHT RUN IN 2012: Wouldn’t want to disappoint the Internet, would he? Paul’s spokesman and “grandson-in-law” Jesse Benton says that a decision would have to be made in the next six months, so as to set up early ground ops in Iowa and New Hampshire if the answer’s “yes.” Could Ron Paul be the next John Edwards? [Reason]

Vulgar sex clown John Edwards is ending a three-month public silence tonight with a lecture of sorts at Indiana University. He will discuss politics for a cool $35,000, which is more than many American adults make in a year of manual labor. Then he will probably go to Iowa to get them ground ops all geared up for 2012! He’s gotta win it one of these days! [Indiana Daily Student]

Some hobo cat lady must have forgotten her meds this morning and, as a result, thought that she was Sarah Palin and needed to show up beside her “running mate,” John McCain, at an Iowa rally. Because here she is, behind and to the right of John McCain, acknowledging the cheers as Walnuts says nice things about Palin. Or maybe John McCain has started keeping a (very bad) Sarah Palin lookalike with him at all times, so as to draw crowds? [YouTube]

John McCain went to Iowa yesterday and talked to the editorial board of the Des Moines Register (why we don’t know, that paper is very important for about two months every four years and is otherwise just your garden-variety moon colony fishwrapper). The exchange gets testy over the issue of Sarah Palin’s creds, and we see what Jonathan Martin calls “an emphatic, combative and at times surly John McCain.” It’s clear that this Des Moines editor lady is in the tank for the black. Oh we remember this lady’s voice! She moderated those two INCREDIBLY BORING Iowa afternoon debates last December, remember? Alan Keyes was in one? No? We’ve been doing this too long… [Jonathan Martin]

Even though the Internet has already concluded that Barack Obama lost the election after some unknown wingnut vice president lady gave one surly speech last week, we couldn’t help but check out the electoral map anyway, just for kicks. Above is the fun Pollster map, and then you’ve got your FiveThirtyEight map, and this is a good thing to read also. Now play around with this stuff for exactly two minutes, preferably while drinking, and after those two minutes you’ll realize that Barack Obama still has this shit safely locked up. MORE »

And that is exactly what we did. With Mitt Romney.

Oh goody, we are now at the “blame John Edwards for pretty much everything” stage of the Edwards Was A Baby Mamma scandal. Somehow the mortgage meltdown and the brand-new war in Georgia will turn out to be his fault, but we’ll leave it to Sam Stein to uncover those crucial links. In the meantime, former Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson has found something else to blame on John Edwards: the implosion of the Clinton candidacy. MORE »

A Wonkette Refuse Desposal Spy sends us this snap taken while biking through beautiful Lisbon, Iowa recently during the RAGBRAI, which is Iowan for “bicycle ride.” Bikers and volunteers were asked to vote for president by throwing stuff in the dumpster for the earnest young Egyptian man or the sinister one-eyed albino villain. The fellow on the left won by a three-to-one margin, which is why Barack Obama is President of Iowa. [City of Lisbon]