Todd Martin writes for the Wrestling Observer:

In any event, here was the point I was making. Prior to the 2000 election, WWE started a non-partisan campaign aimed at getting young voters out to the polls. WWE said time and again that it didnt matter who people voted for, just that they voted. Then, after they had registered many voters under those auspices, they specifically endorsed one of the candidates the day before voting. Who they endorsed is immaterial to this specific point. The crime would have been the same no matter who they endorsed.

While I remember the 2000 “get out the youth vote” campaign and the appearance of the Rock at the GOP convention, I don’t remember the actual endorsement of Bush by the WWF at that time. I’ve emailed Todd (and Dave Meltzer) about this, hopefully I’ll have something to report on this later. Can anyone remember this for me?

Note to self: find out why corporations never seem to endorse political candidates.

411 relates:

The plan now for the WrestleMania XX World Title match is to have a three way involving Triple H, Chris Benoit, and Shawn Michaels. It was originally thought that Triple H and Benoit would go one on one for the title.

The only way this is a good idea is if it’s an elimination-style match. “Triple threat” is highly correlated with “lower buyrate” in my mind. It’s also very closely related to “one of these people is obviously jobbing”.

So Dan Gillmor says that Dean’s new campaign manager is a horrible, horrible lobbyist. Unfortunate. He also harps on Dean’s flip-flopping, something I find not that important. I like a politician who expresses an opinion, reconsiders, then changes his mind. Flip-flopping, while easy to play ‘gotcha’ journalism with, indicates three things:

• A politican with an opinion
• A politician who considers things
• A politician who can change his mind based on consideration

Now, Gillmor’s charges of Dean’s pandering on the religious and family fronts are just disturbing. This kind of wedge issue stuff is just ridiculous. Dean shouldn’t play to it, and neither should anyone else.

Gamefly delivered Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to me yesterday. So far, it’s pretty great. It turns out that I’m really into RPGs. Must have been my nethack upbringing. Oh, for a crysknife!

Via metafilter, I learn of some disturbing privacy/Internet related stuff that came out of Howard Dean’s mouth two years or so ago. Declan McCullagh (a “name” reporter on tech issues, of dubious reliability) writes for ZDNet (whom I loathe) that Dean advocated a national, biometric, smart card ID, and proposed that the use of this ID be mandatory on all computers and internet terminals. Text of speech available at the website of the “trusted” computing company at whose behest he spoke.

Okay, that is a sucky thing to say, Howard. Take it back. You were just talking out loud, right?

The Register has an article which, shall we say, refines some of the points made by McCullagh (who brought us the “Al Gore says he invented the internet meme”). I haven’t found the time to read the actual speech yet (and I doubt many people will), so getting more than one point of view on it seems good.