I am not a fan of W.S. Merwin’s overall body of work. I don’t think that’s a secret.

But when I walked into Capitol Hill Books on C Street SE, made my way up the book cramped stairs and into the back room where poetry is stacked on counters, shelves and two stolen library carts… I saw it. Right near the door, in one of the library carts, in fact. It hadn’t been there the other week. I would have noticed, believe.

The Carrier of Ladders.

Merwin’s 1972 masterwork. A politicized collection of eco-poetry, sprinkled with anti-war sentiment.

What can I say? It’s amazing.

It’s a reminder how, in comparison, virtually everything he’s written in the succeeding thirty-nine years is just so much c–p. Pale, shallow, bloodless, workshopped imitations of his greatest work.

But this here is the stuff. It’s why people will bother reading him in a quarter century. His latest ruminations will be forgotten, but his early elegiac, passionate poems, bursting beyond the limits of his free verse forms to achieve something meaningful and memorable, will be remembered.

I wish I’d had a copy of this when I got his autograph at the Library of Congress.

Jeb recently said he liked Paul Ryan as a potential presidential candidate. I said that was just so much horse hooey.

But I am curious as to what he’ll do over the coming months.

I suspect he’ll keep on doing things to muddy the waters – which is what the whole Ryan thing was all about.

Rick Perry jumps into the race, threatens to turn things into a simple, two man affair (Perry v Mitt) that could resolve itself not long after South Carolina with a de facto nominee in hand.

So what does Jeb do? Why he muddies the waters, of course. Uses his big name clout in Republican circles to suggest that no one currently running is really the right man for the job, neither politically nor ideologically. And he tosses out the name of another savior. If Ryan had jumped into the race, I have no doubt that Jeb would have been touting New Jersey Chris Christie as the kind of candidate the GOP needs. And if Christie were in the race he’d say… well, you get my point.

Apparently, Jeb is advocating on behalf of Congressman Paul “Let’s Privatize Medicare” Ryan (R-Privatizing Medicare) as a 2012 candidate for President.

That can mean only one thing: Paul Ryan would have no chance against Barack Obama. None at all.

‘Cause if you think that Jeb would, this early in the game (eventually, he’ll have to offer support to the nominee), actually support the candidacy of someone he thinks could win in 2012 – thereby making it nearly impossible for Jeb himself to run in 2016 – well, then you’re just plain crazy.

No, I take that back. You’re not crazy. You’re a genius. I think you’re so smart, that you are one of the few people who could appreciate this unique opportunity to make millions helping the deposed Prince of Nigeria move his fortune in oil money to America…

The last poll I saw had Adam Hasner polling at only 6% – half of what George LeMieux was pulling and behind a couple of candidates who might be charitably described as ‘some dudes.’ Granted, the election is a long ways away, we are seeing huge undecideds, and it seems unlikely to me that the folks with a real chance to win the nomination come next year will include ‘some dudes.’ Another caveat, however, would be that ‘some dude’ could transform into a serious challenger with a well-funded, professionally run campaign.

Hasner’s camp tried to spin his falling behind (ret.) Col. Mike McCallister as having been beaten to the punch in terms of attending some Tea Party meetings, but that is pure b.s.

Their campaign just isn’t gaining traction and I suspect that is almost as much a mystery to them as it is to me.

When Mike Haridopolos dropped out, this left a huge opening for, well, everyone else.

I thought that LeMieux would benefit from being able to secure many of Haridopolos’ donors (especially since Haridopolos clearly hates Hasner and could probably be convinced to work his rolodex a little on behalf of someone he thought could beat him) and from not having to share with Haridopolos that percentage of the primary electorate who are not hard care Tea Partiers.

But it also gave Hasner a chance to really establish himself as the conservative, Tea Party, anti-establishment candidate in the race. It didn’t matter that none of it was true. It wasn’t true when Marco Rubio said it either and he still won, despite having been more old school, back slapping, favor trading establishment that Hasner ever was in his wildest dreams.

However, while LeMieux has done a half decent job of getting himself positioned, Hasner, after an initial media bump, is getting close to looking like he’s flailing a little.

If he can’t put together a big showing in an upcoming campaign finance report, when do we start asking if he’s just not going to make it?

Leaving aside what I personally think of Hasner (which is very, very little) – why do you think it hasn’t happened for him?

There’s a new word being used to describe Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos since he gave up his floundering campaign for the U.S. Senate: relaxed.

Obviously, this is intended as a reflection of his demeanor, rather than his hair, which still looks like it was CGI’d on from a late eighties movie about surfers and valley girls.

The Orlando Sentinel wrote that he ‘isn’t afraid of much these days.’

But what’s more interesting is what’s broadly hinted at in-between the lines.

Three people are primarily responsible for the non-stop disaster that was his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Number one was Haridopolos himself. If you haven’t been following this race, I won’t give anything away, but will simply encourage you to google the terms ‘Haridopolos’ and ‘book deal.’ Trust me. You won’t regret it.

The next person is Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon. Ostensibly, Cannon was a supporter of his Senate counterpart, having endorsed him early. But in practice, the Speaker made Mike’s life a living hell. Right at the very end of the legislative session, when most of the work is done and when reporters are paying the most attention, Cannon brought things to crashing halt, refusing to move on items and sending to the Senate right wing legislation that had no chance of passing the more moderate chamber.

The result was that Haridopolos, instead of looking like the big man in Florida and a strong leader, looked like a hapless loser and also saw his reputation as a true conservative damaged by his failure to pass these late arriving bills through the chamber he supposedly controlled.

All of this seemed designed to benefit the third most responsible party, his rival for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate former state house majority leader Adam Hasner.

Hasner is out office and was able to throw Tea Party-esque bombs without fear of actually having to do anything.

Many political watchers saw this all go down feeling pretty certain that Cannon was setting Haridopolos up on behalf of Hasner.

So now that he is out of the race of for the U.S. Senate, what is Haridopolos doing?

He’s making Cannon look bad by showing up at one of the contentious redistricting meetings going on across the state – after Cannon stayed away for fear of being booed and hissed at.

He’s lamenting the absence of principled conservative in the Senate race and name dropping folks like Jeb Bush and Connie Mack IV. Since Hasner had been trying to portray himself as that very figure, Haridopolos’ statements are clearly aimed at denigrating his erstwhile rival.

Finally, Haridopolos is making it clear that he’s not going to run for Congress or any other office in 2012.

Keep in mind, he desperately wants to hold higher office.

My guess – he’s decided that he wants revenge more. So he’s going to spend next year’s legislative session trying to trip up Cannon and turn the whole session into a nonstop cluserf–k just out of spite.

Should be fun.

In 2010, Florida voters overwhelming passed a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to end partisan gerrymandering in the drawing of new legislative districts.

No secret that the Republican leadership in Tallahassee wasn’t going to take this lying down. Will of the voters or no, Constitution or no, they weren’t going to simply roll over while their absolute rule over Florida was marginally weakened.

But most Floridians probably didn’t think that Governor Rick Scott, Senate President Mike ‘the Appeaser’ Haridopolos, and Dean ‘Loose’ Cannon would agree to use those same voters’ tax dollars to fight the constitutional amendment they passed.

Nor did they think that, during the voters’ one chance to have their voice heard by legislators in the redistricting process, that a legislator would ‘Like’ a plastic surgery clinic from his iPad instead of paying attention to what Floridians had to say or that legislators would ignore speakers who spoke in favor of  a obeying the Constitution and give extra time to speakers who supported them.

It seems like even the lowest of Florida’s expectations won’t be met the current ‘leadership.’