Edit: No upset just yet - Xavier's defense keeps them in the game and they come back from an 11-point deficit at the half.

The games have started, so I thought it might be fun to get some discussion going about the Daily Kos (and MyDD, and others I believe) March Madness tournament.

Come on, it will be good for you to get away from all the candidate diaries for a few minutes anyway.

Tournament Page - http://tournament.fantasysports.yaho...

Maybe a few questions to get things started - anybody please feel free to comment, not just those in our league.

Who do you have in your Final Four? National Champ? How many brackets did you fill out?

For the first time in his tenure, Gov. Pawlenty has been overridden. Let me be the first to say, it's about time. The measure in question is our state's transportation bill, and if you've paid much attention to Minnesota the past 12 months (or live here), you know how dire our situation is when it comes to our bridge and road infrastructure.

Just a quick response to the recent diary that got all up in arms regarding a line from Obama's SC victory speech. In this diary, it was said that

In his Saturday night So. Carolina victory speech, Barack Obama said, in pertinent part:

"It's not about rich versus poor..."

-referring to the election and I suppose all of the hopefulness and America and puppies, etc.

Well, Mr. Obama, I'm sorry but it IS about "rich versus poor/middle class".  

The full quote is also linked, but I'll provide it here to help make my point:

"The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white," Senator Obama said. "It's about the past versus the future."

The recent uptick by Barack Obama in certain polls (not including Zogby) must be ruffling the feathers of a certain frontrunner. It's the only explanation I can give for the recent strategy of playing loose with the facts (Bill Clinton's claim to have been against the war from the start being one, but that's another diary).

Sure, I'd vote for Hillary Clinton if she was the nominee. I'm confident she'd make a pretty good President. But the problem isn't whether or not I would vote for her.

The problem is that she's the Democratic nominee most likely to put a Republican in office.

With stakes this high, is it worth the risk? To me, not even close. Not when we've got other candidates out there that would be equally (if not more) outstanding in the White House.

There's no denying that she's a polarizing figure. She's been "battling the Republicans" for years, right? Good for her. But that also means, if she's nominated, we're looking at another sharply divided election, one with very few voters crossing party lines. With stakes this high, I want a candidate with the ability to bring in the independent vote.

Q2 fundraising results around the corner, and the results will be...way more important than they should be. The Democrats may be trumping the Republicans in cash flow, but what does that really mean? Let me state that I fully understand the need for funding to run a campaign. It takes cash to retain top people, build websites, manage volunteers, etc.

But a huge amount of campaign cash goes to one place.

Television. It's a battle for sound bite supremacy. And it's time we took it out of the equation, for everyone's sake.