Stephen Colbert, host of the The Colbert Report, has paved the way for a presidential bid by transferring control of his political fundraising organisation to his former boss Jon Stewart.
Lampooning the campaign finance rules that permit such fundraising groups, known as super pacs, Colbert announced it would be renamed the "Definitely Not Coordinated with Stephen Colbert Super Pac."
The move potentially paves the way for Colbert to enter the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, his home state. Campaigning politicians are prohibited from simultaneously running super pacs, or political action committees.
Colbert merely hinted at such a decision, which he had hyped ahead of Thursday's show. He announced the formation of "an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the president of the United States of South Carolina"
Stewart and Colbert discussed the peculiar legalities of their arrangement. With Colbert's lawyer, Trevor Potter, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, they spelled out that while Colbert was legally forbidden from participating in strategy and advertising with the super pac, he could still talk about his plans on his TV show and even volunteer for the group.
Stewart declared Colbert vice-president of youth outreach for the super pac. Along with Potter, the three joined hands like a sports team and, with thick irony, cheered in unison: "Non-co-ordination!
Colbert has been using his super pac, launched in May 2011, to parody the electoral system's contradictions and potential conflicts of interest.
A Public Policy Polling survey released on Tuesday found Colbert is polling ahead of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman in South Carolina. According to the survey, Colbert has 5% of the vote and Huntsman has 4%.
Reading out the figures on his Wednesday show, Colbert said: "This just got real."
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Indecision 2012 - Colbert Super PAC - Coordination Resolution with Jon Stewart | ||||
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And the winners are :
Best Comedy
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)
Modern Family (ABC)
Nurse Jackie (Showtime)
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
United States of Tara (Showtime)
Weeds (Showtime)
Very tight category down to the wire between Nurse Jackie and Parks & Recreation. It's certainly unfair that the awards are being given out in the middle of Nurse Jackie's season but at this point it hasn't quite been good enough to defend the overall title from one year ago. Plus, Parks & Recreation has both been consistently good this season and has reached heights no other program came close to approximating, particularly in the hilarious, touching, and warmly satisfying surprise wedding episode of Andy and April. If I were ranking these, Modern Family would be a strong third and then it gets kind of muddied after that.
The great Stephen Colbert and Late Night's Jimmy Fallon have been BFFSM for a couple weeks now -- Jimmy appeared on Colbert's show for reasons I can't quite remember and Colbert bestowed the title upon him (because he wasn't sure it would last longer), and it was a funny little bit but the two of them have continued their friendship/feud in hilarious fashion ever since. Colbert had his self-portrait auctioned off in an absolutely wonderful 3-part series on his show that ended with the painting going for $26K to the charity DonorsChoose -- a great charity that I've donated to frequently in the past since it helps to buy school supplies for classrooms that can't afford them (because Republican governors hate kids... seriously, they hate them). Anyway, on his show following the auction, Colbert announced that his BFFSM Jimmy Fallon had pledged to match the $26K for the children. Of course, as it turns out, Fallon... um... never said that. So instead, on his show he vowed to raise the $26K for the kids and if his viewers were able to reach that goal, Mr. Colbert would perform the teen pop song "Friday" on his show that Friday (April 1st). On Colbert's show, he responded much like Fallon and admitted he never said that. But the viewers responded, the money was raised, and on April Fool's Day, two fools performed "Friday" along with Fallon's house band The Roots, American Idolist Taylor Hicks, and the Knicks City Dancers. It's a pretty horrid song but a really fun performance and I gotta admit that over the past several months, Jimmy Fallon has become just about my favorite late night talk show host not named Colbert, Stewart, or Letterman. He really is a trooper, and goes with every joke in a wonderful way, trying real hard to be funny when I don't think he's naturally as whip-smart funny as a Colbert or Letterman. Bravo for him. And he always has great bands playing great songs on as well, Friday night notwithstanding. By the way, NBC matched the donations, which had grown to $86,000 as of Friday. Bravo indeed.
By the way, my favorite blogger Tomato Nation is trying to raise $250,000 for Donors Choose this month, so if you are inspired by the video below or her wonderful blog or just helping children... go on over to her site, read a little, and then go to Donors Choose. Thanks!
Showtime's Shameless ended its 12 episode inaugural season on Sunday, just in time for the start of the 3rd seasons of Nurse Jackie and United States of Tara, some of the best shows on television on what has clearly to me become the best channel on television, even if so much of the country doesn't actually get its programming. Shameless was a bit of a mess at the start of the season -- with mostly despicable characters and just ridiculously unbelievable plots, but it has more than grown on me throughout the season's run. It's definitely in the running for Vague Space program of the year, and really, the only competition might be the as-yet unseen season of defending champion Nurse Jackie, which could squeak past it at the deadline for the TV awards in May. The plots of Shameless haven't really gotten any less ridiculous, but the despicable characters aren't so one-sidedly hateful anymore and there are definitely characters to root for, I almost find myself rooting for all the characters now, even the alcoholic patriarch of this mixed/messed-up family unit, Frank Gallagher. William H. Macy has gone places with the character that no one really expected (or in some cases wanted to see -- way, way too much nudity of certain characters on this show) but it's worked, it's worked really well, and in the final episode this season he finally showed a little human compassion to both his oldest son and his current girlfriend, another character I have grown to love -- the shuttered, sheltered, messed up but cheery Joan Cusack.
Sunday was the series finale of the 5 year old HBO series Big Love, a series that came in with a bang and left with a wimper, as the once controversial and highly acclaimed show kind of faded into the background in subsequent years and disappeared from HBO's marketing efforts. I didn't watch for the first 2 years but I got hooked in Season 3 and have watched it ever since. I haven't loved it, not every episode, but I've been watching, still watching, and this season things picked up to the point that I really got excited about the ending, which turned out to be very satisfying, in a warped kind of way. For those who haven't seen the show or stopped watching at some point, it was basically a story about polygamy, focusing on the Henrickson family in Sandy, Utah -- father Bill (Bill Paxton), wife Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), 2nd wife Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) and third wife Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin). Plus they have a bunch of kids and Bill's parents (also polygamists) and Nicki's parents (crazy, evil polygamists) and Barb's family (sanctimonious Mormons) and all kinds of other crazies (Mormons, polygamists, Mormon polygamists, and others). The show always treated Bill and his family as the "good side" of polygamy, but also sort of condemned their lifestyle half the time and openly mocked Bill's stupidity more often than not. I've long thought the program was written as a screed against all religion and viewed from that lens, it's quite hilarious and brilliant, but it probably works just as well if it were actually supportive of Bill's religion -- the one he created in his own name last season, because regular Mormons aren't crazy enough to openly promote polygamy anymore. The whole religion angle played a bit of a backseat this season (as much as it can in a show about polygamy) as Bill got elected to the state senate in Utah at the end of last season and then openly admitted to having multiple wives, which became the focus of this season's plot. But there were also the subplots about Nicki's teenage daughter's affair with her much older math teacher, which rivaled the revelation that Marge was only sixteen when she married Bill; the continued attempts by Albie to take down Bill; crazy Wanda's crazy return including sex with Ben; Ben's sudden relationship with his sister's best friend; Marge's latest obsession -- this time selling cheap juice as part of a pyramid scheme and then becoming obsessed with saving the world; Barb's existential crisis with woman-power and wanting to be a "priesthood holder" within Bill's church, which drives her back to Mormonism; Barb's "alcoholism", as Nicki called out, which consisted of like 2 glasses of wine, forbidden in the ordinary (no, not "crazy") Mormonism; Bill's mother's Alzheimer's (handled quite nicely but dragging on and on); and of course, Bill's thousand pyrrhic victories to try to justify his bizarro beliefs and his conviction that his beliefs are somehow holier or better than ordinary Mormons who only have one wife. In the end, it was another rollicking wonderful season that came to a satisfying ending (spoilers ahead...)
