Education: You Know, For Kids!

The revved-up primary season has meant an early start for fundraising, for ad-buys, for talk of campaign romances and for large mini-bar bills, but one wonders, when will start to see demands from extraneous bi-partisan interest groups, hoping to attract publicity and attention by hopping on the vaguely topical idea of an election that's over a year away?

My friends, that time has come: "ED in '08" is a "sweeping public awareness and action campaign that will mobilize the public and presidential candidates around solutions for the country's education crisis." And they're partnering with MTV! To teach the kids to read! (They might consider just paying each kid per book out of pocket; the campaign is funded by kajillionaires Bill Gates and Eli Broad.)

Actually, I'm curious to see how the group does -- as well as what the future holds for the health-care/environmental/puppies-and-ice cream advocacy groups that will follow. Americans (or, perhaps, the media) seem to have decided that the election, such as it stands, is about the war, but issues like health care and education obviously touch more people's lives on a daily basis. I'm sure John McCain would like a chance to talk about almost anything else. Hillary, too.