The Wednesday night line

The line is open. Might have some closing thoughts later, in addition to the Herb Rule TV spot above, which is to begin airing on cable tomorrow, the campaign said. I've also put on the jump two of several Rule flyers that are appearing around town. They knock Sir Tim Griffin, the Republican congressman and former Oxford student, pretty good.

* WHAT'S BEING SERVED AT YOUR HOUSE TONIGHT? Fun-sized M&Ms at my place. As a kid in my day, this would have been too good to be true. Some candy corn was about as good as it got, after a single piece of wrapped hard candy of some sort. Do kids around here trick or treat for UNICEF? That was a better deal in my day. They had doughnuts at First Methodist after it was over.

* UPDATE: AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: U.S. exceptionalism is a popular theme for the Tim Griffins of the world. Blindness is not patriotic, however. You could argue the reverse. Read this NY Times column. Every word of it. It paints a picture about the U.S. — in economy, health, education and more — in the context of election choices that's worth thinking about. Poorer health outcomes at higher cost, the declining middle class, etc. Who would brag about that?

* UPDATE: ALL HERB ALL THE TIME: The Herb Rule campaign is positively energized. And they're having some fun seems like. So I'll share it.

Here's his news release about the news that the law-and-order Republican Congressman Tim Griffin finally filed the proper paperwork with the city to get a certificate of occupancy on his $700,000 house in the Heights, shown above.

On Tuesday, Griffin belatedly applied for the certificate of occupancy from the City of Little Rock’s Department of Planning & Development.

“Well, it’s about time,” Rule said. “If you take out mortgages of more than $700,000 so you can squeeze a giant new house onto a tiny lot to dwarf your neighbors’ homes, it seems like you’d pay attention to things like building permits. Tim’s either sloppy or thinks the rules don’t apply to him. Or maybe he’s just plain lazy.”

... Rule promises to pay attention to details. He’ll focus on what’s important to the people of the Second District and not be distracted by, and blindly follow, party bosses and special interests in Washington. Such blatant partisanship has been Griffin’s way.

You wonder if this will get any traction in other media. If not, we can consider whether, say, a failure by a Joyce Elliott to obtain a proper house permit would merit a news story. Things like this aren't campaign makers, but they will fire up the base.

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