If the nation's Democratic machine were anything like Columbia's, they probably wouldn't even bother holding midterms. In a good way! CU Dems have campus on such lockdown that even the College Republicans are supporting Lieberman.

This weekend, Columbia Dems ferried the usual busloads of students out to the battleground state of Ohio, where Democratic challenger and golden boy Sherrod Brown (also father of Columbia senior and poll-tested cutie Liz Brown) leads in the polls. Blog-happy Spec reporter Jimmy Vielkind embedded himself with the caravan and continues to file dispatches from the road.

Our favorite moment comes on the bus ride when a volunteer decides to ditch the group and go hiking instead:

"We stopped in Paterson, N.J., where someone defected," Lamata said. "I guess the phone call was something like, 'Hey, are you in New Jersey at a gas station? I'm like 20 minutes away. Do you want to go hiking?'"

Maybe we take back that part about the machine.

The moment a political race turns ad hominem, that's when we tune in. Our ears perked up when we heard one candidate in a New York State Assembly race has accused the other of -- cover your ears, children -- not graduating from Penn.

Well, it's slightly more complicated. Greg Ball, a Republican running in the 99th district, accused his opponent Ken Harper of falsely claiming he received a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania, the Journal News reports. Sounds more like Harper fudged it by designating himself "English, 1978-82, University of Pennsylvania," which some political groups misinterpreted and replaced with "B.A."

So Harper attended Penn for four years and didn't graduate. Judging from our experience, that's actually a huge accomplishment. Once you've been admitted to an Ivy, it takes nothing short of murder to get kicked out -- and sometimes even that might not do it. Our advice to Ken: Accuse Ball of graduating!

Dan Savage is a favorite of ours for editing Seattle's The Stranger alt-weekly and for writing "Savage Love," a bludgeoning sex advice column that runs in papers like The Onion and the Village Voice. And he's a hero for re-defining the word "Santorum" after the frothy Pennsylvania senator gave a despicable interview linking gays and bestiality.

But this video interview Savage gave the Daily Pennsylvanian on Keystone State politics seems a little -- what's the word? -- crazy. Everything's cruising along until he says Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli should be "dragged behind a pickup truck until there's nothing left of but the rope." Notes the DP's Stephen Morse, "This was by far the most insane interview that I've ever conducted."