Hear that? It’s the sound of momentum

Hear that? It’s the sound of momentum

The Democratic presidential caravan has finally arrived in full force in South Carolina this week, which means it’s time to give prospective voters the much-awaited Talk About Town endorsement.

So without any further ado, we’d like to throw the full weight of this column — and that’s a lot of weight if you’ve seen us recently — behind the distinguished U.S. representative from the great state of Missouri: Dick Gephardt!

Wait, hold on, stop the music. We’ve just been handed a note from the Talk political research staff that says Gephardt dropped out of the race. He did? When?

OK, don’t panic. There is a backup plan in place. We’d now like to endorse the former U.S. senator from the great state of Illinois and the former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand: Carol Moseley Braun! We’ve always believed you can’t run a big country like the United States until you’ve gotten a handle on a small country like New Zealand.

What’s that? She’s out, too? Good gosh, our political research staff appears to be out of the loop.

Maybe we’ll just sit back and hold any endorsement until we take a closer look at the remaining candidates.

Let’s see, Joe Lieberman is touting his “three-way split” for third place in New Hampshire. Of course, a three-way split for third appears to be political code language for “fifth” in voter terms. That, however, hasn’t stopped Lieberman from claiming he has “Joe-mentum.”

But then, everybody has to put the most positive spin on how they’re doing, even if it doesn’t match reality. We bet Dennis Kucinich thinks he has “Dennis-mentum.” And the Rev. Al Sharpton can probably feel the surging “Al-mentum.” Wesley Clark, no doubt, has “General-mentum.”

John Kerry and John Edwards are going to be fiercely battling over which one has the most “John-mentum.” As for Howard Dean, he’s still got a whole lot of “Yeeeeearrrrgghhhh-mentum.”

Ultimately, one of them will get to challenge President George W. Bush, who’s still insisting he has “WMD-mentum.”

In the meantime, however, Palmetto State residents get their chance over the next few days to decide which candidate is most deserving of a real momentum boost. As the candidates fan out across the state, people will get the opportunity to look them in the eye and ask the most pressing question facing South Carolinians: Where do you stand on ice storms?

A wrong answer in support of them could prove fatal to a campaign. Our latest polling shows that a large majority of S.C. residents are strongly against ice storms. This polling doesn’t reflect the opinions of school-age children not yet old enough to vote. They loved the fact that ice storms got them out of school, even if it meant they had to endure the incredible hardship of switching from electrically powered X-box game systems to battery-operated hand-held Nintendo GameBoys.

As for the adults, it was fun to gather under blankets as a family for one night in front of the fireplace when their power was out. But if they have to live like “The Waltons” for more than one night, they start to get downright testy. One good answer for candidates would be to come out in favor of mandatory federal prison terms for TV meteorologists who can’t spot an ice storm coming the day before despite having all of that fancy Doppler radar equipment.

In fact, many people may have been so distracted by this week’s storm that they’ve lost track of the Democratic race. That’s why some of them turn to endorsements for guidance.

Sen. Fritz Hollings and Rep. Jim Clyburn, for instance, have now climbed firmly aboard the Kerry bandwagon. Clyburn, you may remember, had a short ride on Gephardt’s smaller wagon.

But endorsements don’t always mean everything. Dean had them stacked up like cordwood in an ice storm before Iowa, and they haven’t helped him one bit. Why, look at our endorsement of Gephardt at the top of this column. It had no impact at all.

Legendary rocker Chuck Berry also endorsed Gephardt, but like our endorsement, it didn’t mean a thing. People still have to go out and actually vote for you.

Roll over, Kucinich, and tell Joe-mentum the news.

Call Talk at (803) 771-8643 or e-mail ntwhite@thestate.com.