Ummmm... I meant ""Romney's begging for the VP SLOT."" Not clot. Whoops.....

Sad debate moments:

Clinton: "It's change you can Xerox,"

Clintn: "Maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow."

Obama: "...when you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart."

Clinton: "...when you were practicing law and representing your contributor in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."

Clinton: "And there's a difference between denouncing and rejecting."

Nash McCabe: "I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag."

Stephanopoulos: "Can you explain that relationship [with William Ayers] for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?"

Russert: [everything he said]

Poor Rudy, everybody's forgotten all about him. If you're talking weirdest moments of the campaign, doesn't he top the list? His very strange decision to bypass Iowa and New Hampshire and hunker down in Florida for a month. What was he thinking? By the time the media followed him there, everybody, including Floridians, had forgotten who he was. And he spent his entire time down there courting the Jews, most of whom are democrat anyway so couldn't vote in the primary,or registered to vote in NJ and NY. What a contrast to Hillary. He simply gave up so easily, after his staff worked so hard to turn NJ, CT, and Delaware into winner take all primaries, and after he spent 45 million dollars. Very very strange. You gotta think he didn't really want it all that bad. I wonder what made him run in the first place.

How about most painful moments? For me that was during the Pennsylvania debate when Hillary opportunistically brought up William Ayers out of left field after he'd taken that horrible grilling by Stephanapoulous and Gibson. That moment is what made it seem like he was being ganged up on rather than simply having an uncomfortable time anwering debate questions.

Another weird: the youtube republican debate. That forum was just so strange to me, plus everybody but Rudy (and maybe McCain, I can't remember) saying they don't believe in evolution. That was cuckoo. Or yet another Rudy moment: The phone call from Judy in the middle of talking to the National Rifle Association. Maybe that's what did him in -- all those weird moments (also think the Rudy-Judy spread on the cover of one of the nyc tabloids.) Or Huckabee's eating squirrel or his rocking out.

Best: The Iowa victory night, not just because of the Obama speech but because of the thrill of realizing that race didn't have to be an issue. That just blew me away when I realized that.

I gotta add to my youtube debate weirdnesses: When that gungho anti-immigrant candidate Tancredo went ballistic about illegal immigrants and he got this really wild, totally insane ("Heeere's Johnny!!!!") look in his eye as he ranted. I really thought the guy was loco after that. Very scary customer. Thank goodness he bowed out early.

(Hey, do you notice anti-immigration has not been an issue since all the Republicans but McCain fell away? That was a big issue when they were all still campaigning. Interesting).

Others already used some of my first choices, but I'll pick some honorable mentions for variety's sake:

Best: Joe Andrew's endorsement letter.

Worst: Hillary's "the sky will open up" mock. (Of all the things she's said, I don't know why this bothered me probably the most. Even too cynical for my taste, I guess.)

Weirdest: "Bomb, bomb, bomb . . . bomb, bomb Iran."

Best: Winning Iowa (my home state) was very, very cool, but it was the speech the night of NH results that really made me see this guy's grit, style, and ability to lead when the chips were down. I'd read from someone who knew him personally that he's at his best when challenged and that's what I saw that night; it set a new "metric" for me on how to assess the candidates going forward. How do they handle the hard stuff? By that metric, I think he's won hands down.

Worst, Best and Weirdest all in one: Wright. I still feel terribly sad that this issue arose, that he ultimately had to denounce and reject his former pastor's comments, that there was no good path out of it.

Wright was the Weirdest as well: I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that Catholics like Hannity and O'Reilly bashed him for not leaving the congregation - given the history of the Catholic church, of which they and I are members, and the fact that many of us have stuck it out with that institution despite some very horrific behaviors of church leaders.

But Wright was also a Best for generating the groundbreaking Speech. And for a number of SDs saying his handling of this crisis is what finally made their decision in his favor.

This Best, Worst, Weirdest question reminds me of closing lines from the last episode of the British office -- poorly paraphrased it was: "Life is hills and valleys and you never know until you're done which one you were at." We should ask ourselves the Best, Worst and Weirdest question again a year or two from now.

Can I add . . .

Funniest:

1. "Appoint Mitt Romney Secretary of Lookin' Good."

2. Every time I see Joe Lieberman now, for some reason remembering Will Forte doing his vein-popping Zell Miller impersonation way back when SNL did those Hardball skits.

(1) The first time I saw Hillary Clinton, a Democratic contender, not a republican opponent, stand there and say `I have the experience to be Commander in chief, John McCain has the experience to be Commander in Chief. Barack Obama has a speech.`
I felt as though I were Alice watching the Madhatter.
We've all become accustomed to that sort of thing now, but the first time was mind-blowing.
(2) Listening to Barack in his post PA speech at Indiana, assuring us all that Hillary had run a `terrific` campaign: this after we'd watched her during the debate actually trying to conflate the Ayers issue when Stephanopoulus seemed to be dropping it and we'd seen her time and again telling white voters `it's all right to vote for people like you.`
(3) Indiana: watching Clinton doing her most extreme, albeit excruciating, imitation of Sarah Bernhardt, whipping herself into some sort of manic frenzy as she `related` to these working people who were being betrayed by Washington and finally, in full operatic crescendo she wailed in extremis - they `don't hear your cries`... So UTTERLY melodramatic and phoney that it hit me clearly: they're all going to see it. This is the Bosnia thing all over again. And I'm pretty sure at least many of them - or at least many sane Indianans watching it later on the news - did see it.

Of course you misphrase what Ferraro said, but you knew that.

It's been the campaign of the gratuitous spin, with Obama standing there in a white suit trying not to get shit all over him. But you know, you can't mess with it and not get some on you. There's always blowback.

I don't know hy everyone was surprised by Iowa, clearly it was going to either Obama or possibly Edwards, but I had predicted Obama for a variety of reasons.

Still, it was a great speech and combined with the gushing from Chris Matthews, it was the kind of speech which causes you to turn to your wife and say; "He's going to be the nominee".

Yoda...I like this dude...

Sorry Timba, Im copying you..:)

Best - Obama's speech on race.

Worst - Hillary making Obama expand on relationships he has with other blacks. So after admiring them, losing complete respect for the Clintons.

Weirdest - HRC breaking down and complaining in the middle of a campaign debate! Sorry, that was strange to me. So after admiring them, losing complete respect for the Clintons.
Also weird is Dan Abrams going after Rove so hard, something strange there too.

Outstanding thread here. My $.02:

BEST
1) Barack's Iowa speech; still gives me chills

2) Barack's 3/18 speech in Philly; brought me to tears. For way too many reasons to explain here.

3) "I look forward to you advising me, too, Hillary." The ultimate comeback/putdown. Spot-on perfect. And without being mean at all.

WORST
Just about anything that Hillary has said since losing Wisconsin. But the one that still to this day makes me truly despise her is: "I have a lifetime of experience. Certainly Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002." F*ck. You.

WEIRDEST
The sad, ignominious transformation of the 42nd President of the United States from brilliant, distinguished statesman to shrill, embarrassing, psychotic doofus.

Very good salection. But for weirdest, for me it was the "Who let the dog out, Who, Who" of Romney. The face of the little black kids looking like " Who is this dude..."

Great idea for a thread. Many have already been mentioned but here's a few that have been left out.

Joe Biden's comment on Giuliani was pretty funny: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11."

Mitt Romney's speech on religion was so bad it qualifies as both bad, weird and funny at the same time. How about this inscrutable line:
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom."

Weird: Kucinich acknowledges UFO sighting.

Bad: Whether you support Clinton or Obama, pretty much everything written by Maureen Dowd has been really, really, really bad.

Also bad: I'll stir up a little controversy here and say the sturm and drang over Bill Clinton's comments after South Carolina has been bad for everyone. To reash: leading up to South Carolina, every commenter in the country was predicting a big Obama victory because of the state's large African American population. When it happened, as expected, Bill sought to explain away his wife's defeat with his off-handed, unfortunate reference. This is what he said: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ‘84 and ‘88. And he ran a good campaign, and Senator Obama's run a good campaign here. He’s run a good campaign everywhere, he’s got a, he is a good candidate, with a good organization." Somehow, this statement became the "Willie Horton" of this campaign, a "calculated" effort by the Clinton machine to "ghettoize" Obama and "play the race card." Can we please get over this?

Good: It's almost over and now we can channel our vitriol against a candidate whom we really disagree with.

Weird, maybe Worst: It's personal. Arguing in December with a friend who said he'd vote for Giuliani before he'd vote for Clinton. We were so convinced that those would be our choices. Idiots!

Best: Obama's speech on race.

Sorry for clogging up the thread, but I can't stop thinking about some of the bad things.

Really, really, really bad has been being finally exposed to the nominating process of the Democratic party. There's gotta be a better way.

And on a related bad bad bad bad bad note: Allowing a silly dispute between the state and national party to get to the point that two critical states will end up being left out of the nominating process. (And no, I don't agree with Hillary that the delegations should be seated; it's bad any way you look at it.)

Worst---Bill Clinton's efforts, all of them. Involving hinself at all undercut Hillary's strengths as an independent person.

Best---winning in November.

I don't count anything on the GOP side, that's shooting fish in a barrel. Those that dropped away were all nuts, and we're left with Grampy Mac Attack.

Scariest moment is from Mike Huckabee:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”

I fear as Americans find out that their lifestyle is dropping (as a result of the end of cheap energy), they will turn to more and more politicians who say exactly this sort of thing. There is historical precedent for populations turning more and more to religion when political institutions fail them.

This is the most surreal campaign.

Operation chaos is like something out of a comic book. Arch villain Rush Limbaugh hatches plan to wreak havoc in Metropolis.

Giant cigar poked in plump face of a round-shaped man. Just add large bold-faced word balloon and you have the makings of a sinister comic book character.

Full disclosure, I'm in the process of creating a comic book version of this election.

Best: Hands down, Obama's speech on race. My son's teachers showed it to his class, a mixed (race/class) group of 12 year old kids in Los Angeles who will remember those words, who will take something from what was said that afternoon.

Worst: I think "you're likable enough, Hillary."
And the sexism.
And the racism.

Weirdest: The Republicans. One after the other, they are all really weird dudes: Paul - Guiliani - Thompson - McCain - Romney - Huckabee - shiver me timbers!

Oh! And I forgot - my absolutely most favorite funniest moment was when a blogger (sorry, I forget who!) wrote about Cindy McCain: Cool! I always wanted a transvestite for first lady. Cracks me up.

My personal bests are the brushing off the shoulder moment in NC during the PA loss and the moment on 60 Minutes when he categorically declared that his campaign was not going to dig up dirt and use it.

One of my favorites, from a photo I found online somewhere last week, is of Barack doing a chin-up on a steel bar in one of the gym waiting areas somewhere in PA or IN. The bar is at least 8 feet in the air and he's hanging there, terribly thin in his suit and shiny shoes, with his hands on the outside of the bar, not on the inside. I think I found the shot on Time's site...

Weirdest: HRC supporters failing to notice her ever constant personallity changes--what's up with that??

Best: Wacthing Obama's process of growth as a candidate before our eyes--how refreshing is that???

Worst: A tie between the painful awareness that HRC has no shame and the Main Steam Media coverage of the election in the Jerry Springer format of hyping salacious details in exchange for truthful journalism.

Great job PJ!

Most mysterious: the ongoing Women's Voices Women's Vote saga.

Weirdest: Turn on my liberal AirAmerica radio talk show, or reading my favorite liberal blogs, and discovering as a Clinton supporter that I was now the enemy.

And vice versa

Until his "fairy tale" comment, the mere sound of his voice or glimpse of him on TV truly comforted me.

Has anyone who criticizes Bill for the "fairy tale" comment actually send it?> there's nothing racial at all in the remark in any way you interpret it. The comment was about Obama's position on the Iraq War. When did everyone decide that a spouse can't campaign for their spouse to win? this rule seems to have been made up just for Bill C.

Biden on Guilianni: a noun, a verb and 911

Biggest Letdown: In the debate where Obama was asked about Farrakhan's endorsement and said that he denounced Farrakhan's positions. Then Hillary jumped in and started talking about how she had been endorsed by some extremist group in her race for Senator.

I thought she was going to graciously point out that no one can control what some whackos want to do, but no! Hillary doesn't do gracious. She had to say that she not only denounced the support, but rejected it, and that Obama's denouncing of Farrakhan's positions was inadequate.

To me, that's been the key to Hillary's whole campaign. She simply can't admit the virtues of anyone else running (except McCain, apparently).

Under worsts, I would also like to belatedly add this column by Pat Buchanan in which he wrote, among other things:

"[N]o people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans."

http://www.theamericancause.org/032108.htm

(General observation: Hunting down Pat Buchanan columns on the Internet can be a disturbing journey.)

Awesome thread.

My vote for weirdest:
The 2/26 debate and right out of the gate Clinton says, quote: “Well, could I just point out that, in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time? And I don’t mind, you know, I’ll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious. And if anybody saw Saturday Night Live, you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”

I don't know if Clinton's "Shame on You, Barack Obama, Meet Me In Ohio" was one of my best, worst or weirdest. I laugh my ass off every time: "enough with the speeches and the big rallies" and corresponding arm levels. If you care to relive the moment start at about 3:11 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_X-RoRghAY

So many bests, but another best is when Obama clean clocked Hillary during the Potomac Primaries. That was sweet, sweet victory.

Weirdest: "We're going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get to gether once every couple of months" at a hotel in "some plush place in the world" to set prices, she told a crowd a volunteer fire house in Merillville.

Worst? How do I choose?