Mansfield Fox

Law student. Yankees fan. Massive fraggle. Just living the American dream.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Grand Old Madness

Well, my NCAA bracket - which had Florida, Wake Forest and Syracuse in the Final Four, with Syracuse beating Wake for the title - is in tatters. My only hope is to win the "worst bracket" booby prize, but even that seems out of reach. (I'm even a failure at failing!)

In the meantime, I'll amuse myself with this alternate form of early spring madness, in which St Louis polling firm is trying to predict (and I use the term extremely loosely) the 2008 GOP nominee.

My highlight thus far, is 15-seed Pat Buchannan upsetting 2-seed Arnold Schwarzenegger. Man, the GOP base really dislikes Ahnuld. Either that, or they don't want to nominate someone constitutionally disqualified from serving. Either/Or.

My dark horse? Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. He won't win the nominee, of course, but he'll advance surprisingly far, and will earn himself a VP spot with a shocking Final Four appearance. Mark it!

UPDATE: Looking over the bracket more closely, I see that Gov. Pawlenty is a 3-seed. Realistically, you can't be a 3-seed and a dark horse simultaneously. Nonetheless, he'll still advance awfully far.

Also, the biggest upset was actually 16-seed Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) beating top seed Sen. John McCain, who, unlike Schwarzenegger, is actually able to be president. The base really doesn't like McCain. As for me? I don't mind him, though the campaign finance thing is just a disaster. He seems to be basically on the right side of the issues that matter most to me (e.g., the war and life issues), he's much less divisive than the current president, etc.