All politics is local

Y’know, one of the great things about writing about local politics as we do here, is that whenever you want to write about something beyond the pale of local politics, you can always just fall back on Tip O’Neill’s famous line, “All politics is local.”

We beg your indulgence while we do just that.  We’ll finish off the weekend with the blog equivalent of that last story on the evening news, about a “very special little kitten,” or some such fluffery.

Y’see, the fine folks over at NBC are doing something that has the potential to be really interesting or really lame, and we wanted to mention it.

If you’re a fan of The West Wing, as we are, you’ll know already that on the show, they’re in the midst of a Presidential campaign, pitting Republican Arnold Vinick (played by the incomparable Alan Alda, sans bathrobe) against Democrat Matt Santos (played by the incomparable Jimmy Smits.)

To that end, NBC has actually launched faux candidate websites, complete with (extremely poorly updated) blogs.  The NBC folks are also doing a live candidate debate for the November 6th episode.

This has the potential to be kind of cool, if NBC actually takes the time to do it right.  Right now, though, they really aren’t.  (C’mon guys, how much money does it take to buy two damn domains?)

Anyway, check ‘em out.  

Santos/McGarry                                   Vinick/Sullivan

Tips.