THE EARMARK

A new Gallup poll released last week offers both good news and bad news for President Obama.

The bad news?  Obama is statistically tied with a generic Republican in the 2012 presidential election.

The good news?  Many Republicans surveyed believe that “generic” candidate should be either John McCain or Scott Brown.

To rephase: That’s one candidate who’s fresh off a 2008 loss, would be 85 by the end of his second term, and might lose his Senate primary to Atilla the Hun.  And a second candidate who has spent more time buck naked in the pages of Cosmo than he’s spent on Capitol Hill.

Among GOP frontrunners, McCain and Brown trail only Mitt Romney, whose entire governing experience consists of a single term as governor, and Sarah Palin, who didn’t even make it that far.

And that’s your top four: Romney, Palin, McCain, Brown.  This leaves us with just one question:

WHAT, no Ronald Reagan?  Or at least Curt Schilling, Barry Goldwater or Joe the Plumber– all right-wing heroes.  And what about Rudy?  It’s only been nine years since 9/11.  Hell, even Joe Lieberman should be on this list.

As for professional GOP campaigners like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Robot-in-Chief Bobby Jindal, the message is clear: They’d best either lose an election or irrationally quit their jobs pronto if they plan to be flipping pancakes in New Hampshire come January 2012.

Listen up, Washington!  Your former denizen, George Allen (R-VA), is about to lecture you, and he’s going to begin just as soon as he can get the American public to pay attention.

In a blog post entitled “George Allen’s Road Back?“, Politico’s Ben Smith writes…

A book is often a start on that road, and Regnery announced today that they’re publishing one by the former Virginia senator:

The book, due out next year, will be called, “The Triumph of Character: What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports.”

Although the book’s publicists are revealing few details (apart from the exciting news that Allen was an excellent rugby player in college), we imagine that Allen plans to admonish his colleagues to:

- Display a noose in a tree at one’s law office in a former Confederate stronghold.

- Call a dark-skinned constituent “macaca” to incite taunts from a redneck audience.

- Allegedly use racial epithets against African-Americans.

- Deny being Jewish.

The only caveat is that, according to Allen’s book title, Washington politicians need to learn these lessons via the world of sports.  Well conveniently enough for our purposes, Allen personally has a NFL Hall of Fame father of the same name!  So all the tips listed above still apply!

Now as for Ben Smith’s prognosis of an Allen comeback, we urge GOP leadership to proceed slowly with this.  Sure, a book on “character” is going to vault Allen into the 2012 presidential dialogue, but will it really be enough to hold off the surge generated by Mark Sanford’s guide to a healthy marriage, Bobby Jindal’s public speaking manual, or Sarah Palin’s tome on perseverance in the workplace?

Because at the current rate, those books are definitely on their way!

Item! The word in Washington is that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is about to announce his pick for his vice-presidential running mate! This will be McCain’s most important decision of the campaign. Whoever serves as his #2 will have the responsibilities of:

* Serving as President of the U.S. Senate.

*Being dispatched to dinner functions in countries whose cuisine gives McCain gas.

* Running the country each night from 7 to 8 pm while McCain is watching Matlock.

Washington Insiders have narrowed down McCain’s choices to five front-runners and the Pages are pleased to give you our Official Vegas Betting Odds on each of them:

Name	Why He’ll Get It	Why He Won’t	Page’s Betting Odds
Tim Pawlenty Governor of Minnesota	Evangelical Christian from a potential swing-state.	Who wants a vice-president who can’t even score with his own wife?	2 : 1
Mitt Romney Former Governor of Massachusetts	Only candidate who can carry the hedge fund and polygamy votes simultaneously.	Americans might be intimidated by such a brilliant, accomplished, righteous, wealthy, handsome family man. (Source: Mitt Romney)	Six : Half-Dozen
Charlie Crist Governor of Florida	Having an obviously gay man on the ticket could help McCain cut into a traditionally Democratic voting bloc.	His dark orange tan clashes badly with the McCain campaign’s blue-and-white theme colors.	69 : 1
Joe Lieberman Senator from Connecticut	Brings valuable experience in the field of losing vice-presidential campaigns. Comes with his own theme song.	Dogged by insidious Washington whisper campaign that he is a Jew.	666 : 1
Bobby Jindal Governor of Louisiana	Introduced an Amber Alert for senior citizens in his home state, so he’ll be ready to respond when McCain wanders off during a G-8 Summit.	America may not be ready for a Catholic vice-president.	1.132 billion : 1