The California Report

The February 2008 election campaign started more than two months ago, ushered in by television ads promoting the civic virtues of Indian casinos. Since the first of the year, Ron Paul enthusiasts started appearing on freeway overpasses and on street corners, but no one even bothers to give them a shove.

Last week a California-targeted Hillary Clinton commercial appeared in the local ad slot of a basic cable news channel. And this weekend I saw two Clinton supporters passing out literature in a mall and a lonely Mike Huckabee (!) yard sign posted at the end of an I-680 off ramp.

Of course, the major presidential candidates have all been to the Golden State for many months now, flying in to collect campaign cash from hi-tech crowd or the munitions industry. And bumper stickers -- mainly for Obama -- have been spotted here and there, although you're still more likely to see a Kerry/Edwards from '04 or a Bush bashing sticker than one supporting an '08 hopeful.

Frankly, the election seems like it's taking place in another country. But so has almost everything else for the last seven and a half years.