Some say the surest sign that McCain is a front-runner again is that his events are so crowded that they have to be pooled. Some say that it’s that “it feels like 2000 again.” I say it’s that people are jumping all over his quirky sense of humor and unexpected set of cultural references. Today, the McCain-o-phobes are faux-chin-stroking over his invocation of “I Am Legend”:
“I’ve been declared dead in this campaign on five or six occasions. I won’t refer to a recent movie I saw, but I think I am legend,” he told reporters, referring to the film in which Will Smith stars as the last man on Earth.
At least it’s a cut above “Battlefield Earth.”
(I’ve long believed that the Venn diagram of political junkies/indie rock fans/baseball nuts/sci-fi fanboys would be just about circular. What they have in common: controlled alternate universes that reward obsessive list-keeping and don’t penalize lack of social skills….)
UPDATE: Oh and this:
Asked how he intended to respond [to a Mitt Romney attack], the Arizona Republican said: “Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty — and the pig likes it.”
Which is a, uhm, non-story, and a joke that goes back to Lincoln. McCain’s problem has never been that he tells jokes, it’s that he re-tells them. And re-tells them. And re-tells them…