Pennsylvania on my mind

POTPOURRI

I continue to be bemused by NPR's unwavering insistence that Pennsylvania is a battleground state. The network is continuing to run a series to that effect and apparently will do so until election day. The truth of the matter is that the Keystone State isn't close to being undecided as Obama's lead there is 11 percentage points—at least in the latest poll I've seen. Nevertheless, NPR has a story and it's apparently sticking to it. (Frank Rich discusses this phenomenon here.)

On the sports scene, two Pennsylvania teams won last night—or this morning, depending on your time zone. The Nittany Lions won at Columbus for the first time in thirty years (Joe Pa was even on the sideline for this one.), and the Phils won in the bottom of the ninth.

What a quandary for Pennsylvania sports fans: Do they watch the football or the baseball? I suppose the ridiculous start time for the baseball made the debate moot, but the situation had the potential to have been a real dilemma.

For what it's worth, if viewer ratings had the potential to be down before the World Series started, I've got to think they absolutely submerged for a game that didn't end until after 0130 in the east. The whole thing was pretty much symptomatic of just how much baseball has sold its soul to the great god, Plutus.