Alan Simpson for President! NOT AN ENDORSEMENT!

[Quick update — some people have been reading the title and going no further and assuming this post advocates electing this joker.  No!  This is about the phenomenon of the boomlet! So I'm amending the title. Now, back to the post, already in progress....]
No, I'm not a supporter, but I wanted to call your attention to this boomlet.  Thing about Simpson is that he's not slick — and I'm talking about how he comes across, here, not about how he is intrinsically, which I have no way of knowing — and most everybody else except Ron Paul does seem slick.  Too slick. This has nothing to do with his policies, tho, Perot-like, he does have a reputation for being straightforward about the money crisis and pointing out that fixes aren't going to be easy.

There are a lot of people who say the same thing, of course, but they seem stuffy or nerdy, usually, and don't connect with viewers.  Simpson has a Lincolnesque gawkiness, a Trumanesque tendency to say bullsh*t when he means it, and a Will-Rogersesque self-depricating aw-shuckness about him.  He's like  your uncle, the one who kids you and knows a whole lot of stuff and carries a complicated pocketknife.  He could have been a third brother in Secondhand Lions.

This almost certainly won't go anywhere, but it's interesting just how much enthusiasm a politician can collect just for seeming non-phony.

I got this story and video from Mother Jones, of all places.