Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that endoresment season has begun… In fact it might actually nearly be over…

National Review has endorsed Mitt Romney for President. (Excursus: Did you know your Maximum Leader has subscribed to NR since he was 16 years old? He is now 38 - in case you cared.) The Lt Governor of Virginia endorsed Mitt Romney a few months ago. Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain earlier this week. Frankly, your Maximum Leader hasn’t paid too much attention to endorsements… They don’t mean too much to him.

While endorsements of one politician by an interest group or another politican might not mean too much to your Maximum Leader; they must matter to someone because they get lots of press. Now your Maximum Leader knows that the press is out there looking for stories to report (that is their job afterall), but at some point there must be something newsworthy about an endorsement.

This year the most newsworthy aspect of endorsements - at least to your Maximum Leader - is how friggin early they are all coming. Your Maximum Leader was, at first, perplexed by why the endoresment were falling left and right. Of course, a moment’s reflection caused your Maximum Leader to remember that we are only a few weeks (three?) away from the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primaries. Once again, your Maximum Leader is disgusted by just how long the election cycle is. He supposes if it is important to get and endorsement it is important to get it early.

He wonders if endorsements are helping the ebb and flow of the election contest? Really now… Just a few weeks ago your Maximum Leader would have assumed that the election next year would be a Hilary Clinton v. Rudy Guiliani contest; today he would assume it is a Barack Obama v. Mike Huckabee contest. This will all change again in a few days…

Who does your Maximum Leader endorse? No one of either part right now. Eventually he’ll have to throw his support one way or another. He finds all the candidates undesirable. At one point he was leaning towards Fred Thompson. Thompson is a great candidate on paper, but seems to fall flat in real life. Now your Maximum Leader doesn’t know who he’d want to vote for. At some level he wants to see John McCain get a shot at surmounting the greasy pole. It is McCain’s turn afterall. This afternoon your Maximum Leader thought that Barack Obama might be a refreshing change in the Oval Office, but quickly he thought that Obama has all the potential to be a sort of 21st Century Jimmy Carter - a choice that might have seemed good at the time but turned out to be a wreck.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure who he will vote for right now…

He will vote of course…

He always votes…

Lucky for him there is a whole year to make up his mind…

Carry on.