St. Louis cheers the Palins

As a Blues fan, naturally I had to watch the carnage as Sarah Palin dropped the ceremonial first puck before the Blues took on the Los Angeles Kings in St. Louis. Surely she'd get booed right out of Scottrade Center!

Except, well, she didn't ...

I saw a few comments on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's website urging the fans to be classy and not boo Palin, as they did in Philadelphia, and it appears most fans took it to heart. The cheers weren't loud, so probably those who otherwise might have voiced their displeasure just decided to stay silent. Maybe they didn't want to boo her in front of her husband and daughters, who were on the ice with her (Willow and Piper were wearing Blues jerseys).

Oh, well. Perhaps Sarah leaves town thinking St. Louis loves her, but remember, that's the same city where Barack Obama drew 100,000 last week. Hey, at least Palin can look back on those few cheers through the long, cold Alaska winter, as she fades into well-deserved obscurity ...

UPDATE (11:42 pm 10/24/08): The Blues had their worst game of the young season tonight, losing to L.A. 4-0. They looked listless and slow, and they made some really egregious mistakes, giving up the puck in their own zone way too many times.

Naturally, I blame Palin.

Confirmed: Palin's dropping another puck

No, "Puck" is not the name of Sarah's next baby (as far as I know).

Rather, as I reported earlier this week, it's been confirmed that Republican VP candidate and batshit crazy Alaska governor Sarah Palin will be dropping the ceremonial first puck at another NHL hockey game. This time, sadly, she infests a game hosted by my favorite team, the St. Louis Blues.

Palin today confirmed that she will make the stop at Scottrade Center in St. Louis following a previous visit to Springfield, Mo., during her campaign trail in the state of Missouri.

Palin is a self-described “hockey mom” who is running with Sen. John McCain on the Republican ticket for President and Vice President of the United States.

Well, that's the official announcement from the team ... now let's see how the people feel about this.

When Palin visits Friday, Democrats say they plan to be outside the hockey arena handing out shopping guides for Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, in a jab at the national GOP's $150,000 tab to clothe Palin and her family.

Seems appropriate to me, especially since the Neiman Marcus shopping spree actually took place in suburban St. Louis.

There are more comments here ... but suffice to say the mood seems pretty split, and I think that's what you'll hear from the Scottrade Center crowd tonight as the Blues take on the Kings. But it's terribly hypocritical for St. Louis wingnuts to urge those against Palin's appearance to keep politics out of hockey, when it's eminently clear that the only reason for Palin's appearance is ... politics.

BOOOOOO!

Obama is a rock star

Do people want change?

You tell me.

The New York Times estimates that about 100,000 people came out to hear Barack Obama today in my old hometown of St. Louis, Mo.

Wow. 100,000 people ... in Missouri.

November 4 can't get here fast enough for me.

A prediction for Thursday

Here's what's gonna happen:

Thursday morning, Sarah Palin will announce that she has to pull out of the VP debate scheduled for that evening in St. Louis (at my law school alma mater, incidentally) because baby Trig -- remember him? -- is ill.

"I regret that I will not be able to meet with Sen. Biden as previously scheduled," the statement released by the campaign will say, "but my first responsibility is as a mother. My son Trig, who as you know is a Down's Syndrome baby, is ill, perhaps critically, and so he must come first.

"I hope Sen. Biden understands but, more importantly, I know the American people understand."

Okay, the wording may be different, but you get the idea. Watch for it -- and remember, you heard it here first.

Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) (1929-2007)

Another landmark on the roadmap of my life, both political and personal, is gone, with the passing of Tom Eagleton (right, at a rally last year for Claire McCaskill) yesterday.

A St. Louis native, Sen. Eagleton perhaps was best known for having to withdraw as George McGovern's running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket in 1972, when he revealed that he had undergone psychiatric treatment for depression. Today, that would probably be viewed as an asset (seeking treatment, that is), or at least as a non-issue, but 35 years ago that was a doozy of a political liability.

Eagleton's withdrawal and eventual replacement on the ticket by Sargent Shriver constitutes one of my earliest political memories, along with the assassination attempt on George Wallace that same summer of '72. I have vague memories of the election that year, shortly after which I turned 7, and Watergate (1972-74) is pretty solid in my mind, but I definitely recall the media frenzy (by 1972 standards) over Eagleton's situation.

Many years later, as an adult in the mid-'90s, I had the privilege of clerking for a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals in St. Louis, and my judge was a close personal friend of Sen. Eagleton. Quite a few times, I would pick up the phone in the judge's chambers and hear a gruff voice bark out, "Is the Judge there? This is Eagleton." I never had the privilege of meeting the man in person, but he was treated with great respect and reverence among those with whom I associated in the St. Louis legal community, and I admit to feeling a bit of a thrill whenever I spoke with him on the phone, as though I were talking to history.

Tom Eagleton was one of the true "fire-eating" Democrats in the Senate. Although as a devout Catholic he opposed abortion, he was well known for his virulent opposition to the Vietnam War. I like to think of someone like Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) as a successor to Sen. Eagleton, in spirit if not completely in ideology.

That Eagleton, he was one of a kind.