Super Fat Tuesday

It's Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pączki Day.

The clock is ticking. Lent is about to begin.

I have a lot of indulging to do before the penitence and the fasting and the abstinence starts.

This Fat Tuesday happens to fall on Super Tuesday, making it Super Fat Tuesday.

I really don't want to be glued to the TV to watch returns. Compared to the Super Bowl, Super Tuesday is a snooze. It doesn't have a halftime show or creative commercials like the Super Bowl, and no football.

But the clock is ticking, and Super Tuesday is huge politically.

By day's end, we may have a much better idea of the presidential landscape for 2008. Then again, there may be no clear victors.

I suppose I should be more interested in the primaries than my Fat Tuesday plans.

From the New York Times:

The presidential candidates from both parties campaigned frenetically on Monday, making their final pushes with a series of rallies and blitzes of television commercials for a last bout of November-style campaigning before more than 20 states vote in Tuesday’s virtual national primary.

Several candidates — including Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain — focused their time on the delegate-rich Northeast. But the tightening race in the biggest prize of all, California, was underscored when Mitt Romney and Mr. McCain both made changes to their schedules to add 11th-hour visits there.

The final day of campaigning before Feb. 5 showed how the dynamic of the race had shifted in the last month. Mrs. Clinton, who was long considered the Democratic favorite, found herself locked in a series of races in several states with Mr. Obama. On the Republican side, which only weeks ago had seemed wide open, Mr. McCain sought to ride his recent victories and rising poll numbers to the nomination, while Mr. Romney sought to win enough delegates to keep his campaign alive.

Mr. Romney spent much of the day trying to cast doubts on Mr. McCain’s conservatism — a theme that echoed loudly among conservative talk-radio commentators suspicious of his past positions on taxes and immigration.

“We’re going to hand the liberals in our party a little surprise,” Mr. Romney boasted in Atlanta, predicting victories in California and other states.

Mr. McCain responded with a national television advertisement showing Mr. Romney, in a previous campaign, saying: “Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” The announcer says: “Mitt Romney was against Ronald Reagan before he was for him.”

The candidates embarked on a final frenzy of campaigning. Mr. Romney began a grueling 24-hour tour to try to block Mr. McCain from sewing up the Republican nomination. Mrs. Clinton had an emotional moment during a nostalgic visit to Yale, where she graduated from law school 35 years ago. And, in the psychological warfare department, Mr. McCain swaggered into the heart of Romney country with a rally at Faneuil Hall in Boston, while Mr. Obama held a rally in East Rutherford, N.J., across the Hudson River from Mrs. Clinton’s home state of New York.

“We have a real choice to make,” Mr. Obama said at a rally at the Izod Center in the Meadowlands, where he filled about a third of the seats for a rally where he appeared with Senator Edward M. Kennedy. “It is a choice, not between black and white, not between genders and regions or religions, but a choice between the past and the future. And if I’m running against John McCain, I want to be making the argument for the future, not for the past. I want to be going forwards, not backwards.”

Mr. Obama was accompanied by Robert DeNiro (his tough-guy endorser, in a year in which Mike Huckabee got a boost from Chuck Norris and Mr. McCain from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California).

Summary:

On the Republican side, McCain is confident. He's probably buoyed by the polls showing that he has been successful in duping voters into believing that he's a conservative and he's not a liar.

Romney is hopeful that he can win in California and put the brakes on the McCain juggernaut.

Huckabee is pretending to be relevant and Ron Paul is... Where is Ron Paul? Alaska?

On the Democrat side, Hillary is crying again.

After getting a warm introduction from an old friend, Clinton's eyes welled up and glistened under TV camera lights, she paused and gathered her composure.

She didn't choke up - as she did at a similar event on the eve of the New Hampshire primary - in a widely publicized moment that Clinton herself now says may have helped her snag a critical victory last month by making her appear human and vulnerable.

But there were enough similarities between the two near-crying jags that some skeptics wondered whether the whole thing was contrived.

"Whenever Obama picks up steam, she seems to open up the waterworks," said one Democratic operative.

It all started today, when Clinton got a warm introduction from one of her mentors, Penn Rhodeen, who supervised her at a legal-aid society while Clinton was a student at Yale Law School.

Rhodeen called Clinton "our incomparable Hillary," after describing the day when, "You appeared at my door, dressed mostly in purple" in a sheepskin coat with bellbottoms.

"You looked wonderful - and so 1972," he said.

Rhodeen himself choked up during his remarks, and Clinton came to the brink of losing her composure, as tears welled up in her eyes as she gathered herself to address a group of 12 pre-selected women sitting around a table at the Yale Child Study Center, where Clinton once worked.

"Well, I said I would not tear up. Already, we're not exactly on that path," Clinton said, evoking laughs and sympathy from the crowd.

"She controlled it, but at the table you could see [the tears in her eyes]," said Erin Phillips, a second-year law student, who said Clinton "did great."

But the display also was remarkably similar to another Hallmark moment on the campaign trail just a day before the New Hampshire primary.

"I don't want her to be crying while we're dealing with Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan and all that stuff," grumbled Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a former adviser to Sen. John Edwards.

Settle down, Mudcat. It's that sort of smart remark that sends women rushing to the polls to vote for Hillary.

I wonder if Edwards is leaning toward an endorsement for Obama.

And Obama, he brought out Robert De Niro!

I get the feeling that was to provide some hormonal balance due to the overdose of estrogen over the weekend, from Oprah and Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver.

De Niro doesn't look too comfortable in front of a crowd and campaigning.

This is really getting surreal.

De Niro, the dean of "Goodfellas" thuggery, just made a surprise appearance at a rally here for Barack Obama, using words that we didn't know were even in his vocabulary.

"I've never made a speech like this at a political event before. So what am I doing here?" De Niro said. "I'm here because finally one person has inspired me. One person has given me hope. One person has made me believe that we can make a change."

Pretty florid words from a guy who's whacked more than a few wise guys in his long career, don't you think?

De Niro began his remarks with a backhanded compliment: "Barack Obama does not have the experience to be president of the United States." The crowd booed, but De Niro continued, and his intent was clear: Obama didn't have the experience to get the country into a misguided war, or operate a government run by special interests, and so on.

"You know, that's the kind of experience I could get used to," said De Niro, who stood clapping as Obama, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Caroline Kennedy mounted the stage, his trademark half-smile, half-scowl etched on his face. Allowing himself a moment off-character, he gave Obama a big hug, and descended.

Obama called De Niro "one of the greatest actors of our generation." "Some of you know I now have Secret Service protection," Obama said. "Those guys never smile; they are always cool. But I noticed when De Niro walks in, they're all like elbowing each other - 'Hey!' They were excited. Who wouldn't be excited?"

OK. De Niro sounded somewhat touched by the estrogen effect. He's inspired. He has hope. He seems like he came straight from a taping of Oprah.

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here."

Will De Niro's appearance sway New Jersey voters? Will white males swing over to Obama?

Who knows?

I'm not making any predictions.

One thing is certain -- I will be celebrating Fat Tuesday in a big way.

Hopefully, come Wednesday, there may be a real chance that I can give up John McCain for Lent. That wouldn't be much of a sacrifice though.