Patty Judge's Confession

Quite honestly, I didn't know there would be much news coming out of the noontime gathering at the Iowa Statehouse. I knew it was a group of new supporters for Barack Obama. They were going to push delegates to vote for Obama this weekend at the county conventions. BTW, four of the 17 there said they originally supported John Edwards.

Two "extras" came out of this. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (a former supporter of Joe Biden) said Iowans should root for Obama because Hillary Clinton won't keep the caucuses first. McCarthy believe Obama will. I haven't heard any Clinton supporter argue to me otherwise yet.

Also, Lt Gov Patty Judge made a confession. She said she and Governor Chet Culver had planned to stay neutral (and publicly silent) about supporting a Prez candidate before the caucus. But she said a few days before the caucus, she told the Gov she wanted to go back home to Albia and caucus for Obama (Culver is also an Obama fan). She went that night to the Monroe County Courthouse, the site of nearly every precinct for the Dems on caucus night. She said she signed in and then starting walking around chatting with her neighbors, friends, etc. By the time she went back to her precinct's site in the building, she was told by the precinct captain she was too late to caucus. The precinct captain was her son. Sorry, mom.

ETC.
St. Louis Cardinals update: the pitching stinks. too little planning, too many injuries, too many times going the cheap route. That's the background on this. There's a pitcher the Cards (mostly their fans) had talked about). Kyle Lohse is a 29 year old right-hander who has decent stuff, but is a loser. His record, that is. His agent apparently thought he was worth about $50 million bucks since the free agent market looked weak. My pitching-weak Cards just signed him to a deal. 1 year, $4.25 million. I wonder how Lohse's agent explained to him why he's now worth $46.75 million less. Must have been a bad winter.