Monday Night

* For another day or so there’s still unbelievably good analysis of the NCAA tournament at The March to Indy from my good friends Shankar and Srinivas. They won’t be happy with me for saying so, but just this once, go Duke.

* You had me at Back to the Future II concept art.

* Poll results we can believe in: The Tea Party is less popular than Russia and Communist China, more favorable than Saudi Arabia or Sarah Palin.

* Al Giordano handicaps the 2012 election using this methodological assumption:

012, for the Republican party, will be something akin to 1964 when conservative ideologues chose Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater (remembered mainly for this quote: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”) beat a strong field of moderate Republicans to win the convention. Goldwater bested NY Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, PA Gov. William Scranton, and MI Gov. George Romney (yup, as in father-of-Mitt), among others.
Goldwater went on in November to win a paltry six states – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina of the Old Confederacy plus his home state of Arizona – with just 52 Electoral Votes to President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ took the remaining 44 states with 486 Electoral Votes). Yet despite that lesson in civics, Republican primary voters are poised once again to make the most radical gesture in choosing their nominee.

*  And science has proved South Dakota is the Facebookiest state in the nation.