PoliticalDerby.com

If I weren’t married, and straight, and much younger, I’d be like totally crushin’ on David Broder. His piece is today’s Washington Post is so good it makes me green with envy. It’s the best thing you’ll read online today, trust me.

Here’s a tasty sampling:

Presidential Spring Training

By David S. Broder
Sunday, April 1, 2007; Page B07

This stage of the presidential race is a lot like spring training in baseball. Names that may never be heard again, once the season begins and games really count, fill the box scores and occupy the news columns. People such as former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore or former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, who have no remote claim to be considered presidential candidates, get mentioned at the bottom of stories.

Speculation overwhelms facts in the preseason, just as hope triumphs over experience in the hearts of Cubs fans at this time of year. In the past couple of weeks, The Post has created front-page “news stories” about the possible presidential candidacies of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson without either of them taking a single step toward running.

History suggests that 90 percent or more of what is written now about the White House hopefuls will be forgotten once the first real votes are cast next January. Do you recall the Howard Dean boom of 2003? It existed mostly in the minds of political reporters looking for something to write about — and it collapsed once voters became engaged.

Nonetheless, the political equivalent of the Hot Stove League — the off-season chatter of die-hard fans — is going full force. On the Republican side, the unsettled picture allows for one “new star” after another — first Mitt Romney, then Rudy Giuliani, now Fred Thompson– to emerge as a threat to Arizona Sen. John McCain, who keeps piling up endorsements from across the GOP spectrum and deepening an organization that already looks formidable.

Read the rest.