Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Nobody's perfect

By Brendan Loy

Giants 17, Patriots 14, final. Wow!

Turns out Plaxico Burress gave the Pats' offense too much credit!

Somewhere, the '72 Dolphins are drinking champagne right now.

Liveblog thread below.

P.S. Now, can Obama pull a Giant-sized upset against Tuesday's overwhelming favorite?

P.P.S. I just had a thought. Forget Maria Shriver. Forget Al Gore and John Edwards. Barack Obama needs Eli Manning's endorsement. If Eli were to publicly endorse him in the next 24 hours, Obama would win the New York primary in a landslide. ;)

Baby's first Lady Vols game

By Brendan Loy

We went to an Obama rally, and a Lady Vols game broke out!

Becky and I decided to check out the Obama rally outside Thompson-Boling this afternoon. We figured it would be a good excuse to get out of the house with Loyette, and I wanted to take some pictures of the festivities. So we drove over to UT, tucked Loyette snugly inside her kangaroo pouch (which I was wearing), and ventured out toward the arena. We ended up getting free Obama signs of our own...

...and struck up a few pleasant conversations with Obama supporters heading into the arena. Several people were curious to see the baby inside the pouch -- the "youth vote," we said. :) Then one of those conversations took an unexpected turn: a middle-aged couple was looking for someone to give their tickets to, and asked if we'd like them. We figured, what the heck? If Loyette didn't do well with the crowd, we could always leave. So we accepted the tickets, and thus ended up unexpectedly taking our baby to her first basketball game.

And she did great! She was sound asleep inside her pouch for pretty much the entire affair. The crowd noise didn't seem to bother her at all, and after flinching the first few times the P.A. announcer yelled, she got used to that, too. At one point, with my hand on the bottom of the pouch, I could actually feel her snoring -- out like a light in the midst of a crowd of 19,259. Heh. She's a sound sleeper! We ended up staying till the final buzzer, much to our surprise.

Tennessee won the game, by the way, routing overmatched Kentucky, 79-51. And Candace Parker dunked!

Oh, and lest my Connecticut readers be concerned, I sang the UConn Huskies fight song to Loyette during the car ride home. Wouldn't want her to get too indoctrinated with this Lady Vols stuff. :)

Super Bowl open thread

By Brendan Loy

Super Bowl XLII is underway. Leave your comments on the game -- and/or the ads -- here. I may post occasional updates as well.

UPDATE: A rather surprising halftime score of 7-3 in favor of the Patriots. If the Pats put it together in the second half, the Giants will rue their failure to get a touchdown on either of their two red-zone opportunities.

Nothing terribly memorable on the ad front, IMHO, though the Budweiser Clydsdale ad was cute, as usual.

Did anyone else in a Super Tuesday state get an Obama ad during the local block of ads immediately after the first half ended? There are no national political ads during the Super Bowl, by Fox's decree, but Obama bought an ad from the local affiliate here in East Tennessee.

UPDATE 2: 10-7 Giants with 11 minutes left!

UPDATE 3: Patriots re-take the lead, 14-10, with 2:42 to go. Giants ball, all three timeouts remaiing.

UPDATE 4: After the Play. Of. The. Century. by Eli Manning and David Tyree ... TOUCHDOWN GIANTS!!

Now, can Tom Brady lead New England down the field in 35 seconds to put them in position for a game-tying, perfect-season-saving field goal? Or will we see the biggest upset since Super Bowl III?

UPDATE 5: GIANTS WIN!!!

17-14, final. Wow!

P.S. Is this a good omen for Obama? :)

UPDATE 6: Back-to-back Super Bowl MVPs for the Manning brothers!

P.P.S. About that Obama ad, it was indeed run in 24 23 states (plus D.C.) during the local affiliates' halftime ad block. The cost was around $250,000. Here it is:

Here's the list of states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Washington, plus the District of Columbia.

Super Bowl & Super Tuesday

By Brendan Loy

I've un-"bumped" my Super Tuesday Prediction Contest post for now, but just a reminder, you can enter the contest here.

Meanwhile, there's another "Super" event today. I'm not having a formal prediction contest, but feel free to leave your predictions for the Super Bowl in comments. I'm going to say... um... Patriots 42, Giants 31.

Apropos of which...

Vizu.com: Opinion Polls & Market Research

California up for grabs (!)

By Brendan Loy

A bunch of new polls show Obama anywhere from up 4 points in California (Zogby) to down 2 (Field) to down 9 (Mason-Dixon). And Drudge says a new Rasmussen poll, not published yet, will show Obama up 1.

In comments, Derek urges caution with regard to Zogby's reliability -- and he's previously questioned Rasmussen as well. But with multiple polls showing Clinton's lead in the Golden State narrowing, and a huge number of undecideds still out there (Zogby and Mason-Dixon say 16%, Field says 18%), it's clear the biggest Super Tuesday prize is up for grabs. As Greg Sargent says, "Bottom line: We have no idea what's going to happen on Tuesday."

If we assume that Hillary is a de facto "incumbent" against Obama's hordes for change, Tuesday's vote may be an epic showdown between the Incumbent Rule (which says that late-deciding voters tend to break overwhelmingly in favor of the challenger) and the Bradley Effect (which says that many white voters who tell pollsters they're "undecided" are actually planning to vote for the white candidate).

One other thing that's really interesting: Mason-Dixon says Clinton leads Obama among Hispanics in California, 68% to 18%. But in Arizona, the same polling firm, polling at the same time, found Obama winning the Hispanic vote, 53% to 37%!

Man-crush 101

By Brendan Loy

Who's your man crush? (Hat tip: BK.)