Primary Blues

With a full three weeks still to go before the next presidential primary election in Pennsylvania, MSNBC is getting so desperate to fill airtime they are thinking of reprising their award-winning feature on “Primary Night Fashion Tips.”

No fooling. There’s such a dearth of political programming right now that there’s even a rumor going around that David Shuster and Chelsea Clinton might co-host a new primetime show called “Pimping the Candidates.”

Fox is reported to be negotiating with Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright to become the new co-host for Sean Hannity, and CNN wants to host a presidential debate with one of the Geico cavemen asking all the questions. The only obstacle at this point seems to be the gecko’s agent complaining about his client being relegated to audience microphone duty.

XM Radio’s commitment to 24/7 coverage on POTUS ’08 is also being severely challenged. If I just heard them right, this weekend they have a six-part series on “The Wit and Wisdom of the Franklin Pierce Administration.”

Even the candidates themselves are beginning to check their watches and calendars to make sure they aren’t missing something important.

I hate to say it, but maybe what we need to stir things up right now is a big ol’ screw-up by one of the candidates to get everyone paying attention again. And not one of those McCain Shiite/Sunni/al Qaeda/4-H mix-ups, either. What we need is a real, honest-to-goodness American humdinger.

Q: “Senator, why didn’t you campaign for the North Carolina primary?”
A: “Oops. Is that today? I guess I just forgot.”

A nice little exchange like that might get us out of the dumps.

There is so much time between now and the April 22 Pennsylvania primary that John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd are all considering comebacks. Bill Richardson was even spotted shaving his beard in the restroom of some bar in South Philly.

The candidates are certainly doing their part to stay relevant during this peaceful, eye-in-the-middle-of-the-storm calmness. I understand that Barack Obama was on with the women of “The View” having facials and body-waxing the other day. He is one good sport.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton are using the downtime to catch up on their late-night show appearances. McCain was set to appear on Letterman Tuesday night, and Clinton will be sitting on Jay Leno’s couch Thursday.

I understand that Leno wanted a joint appearance with Bill, but schedules couldn’t be accommodated because President Clinton is booked up speaking at several Bull Riders for Hillary fundraisers in Butte, Montana.

Things are so quiet right now that after his week-long bus tour of Pennsylvania the word is that Team Obama will keep the engines running and zip up to Niagara Falls and take in the sites for a few days.

The folks in Michigan and Florida must be absolutely kicking themselves just about now for getting all jiggy with that Iowa/New Hampshire envy late last year.

A full six-week stretch of nothing on the political calendar — and Michigan and Florida could have owned it all. Three weeks for Florida. Then the next three weeks for Michigan. Not only would the whole world have been paying attention, but the candidates could have kept all the antsy reporters happy and pacified by letting them catch some spring training games.

One upside of having this six weeks of nothingness is being able to have the time to go through my reporter’s notebook and follow up on any number of those stray, yet important, notes that one jots down in the heat of battle. Like this entry.

Note to self #324: What’s the deal with Nevadans’ insistence that we pronounce their state “ne-VA-deh — as in AHHHHHH! and not the sound the doctor urges when he sticks that popsicle stick in your mouth? Can’t these folks chill???

Note to self #784: Get to the bottom of who was the first cable news anchor who said, “Let’s take a listen” when tossing to a speech clip.

Note to self #233: What’s up with these New Hampshirites’ congenital, mind-numbing, hardwired, rabid, God-given insistence that they be FIRST in everything they do????

Could it be traced to the fact that New Hampshire had the first free public library in the country? The first legal lottery in the 20th century (in 1963)? America’s first man in space, Alan Shepard Jr.?

Is it just coincidental that the nation’s first potato was planted in Londonderry Common Field in 1719? And how about Levi Hutchins of Concord? He invented the first alarm clock in 1787. Interesting, right?

And how about this? It takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to make approximately one gallon of New Hampshire maple syrup. This has absolutely nothing to do with holding the nation’s first primary, but you sure can learn a lot by trolling around the Internet these days. Like I said, folks. These are tough times.

You can reach Jim Mills at jmills@digital-staging.thehill.com.