I’m off to Chicago, but my original plan for this week was to hit Washington D.C. with a pit stop in Scranton. Even though the latter is a cliché reporter destination this election season, it’s as good a snap shot of the dummy belt that one can get without venturing too far off the coast.

But then I thought: who cares about Capitol Hill aides, Republicans, and foolish undecided voters? Sure, if newsroom budgets were what they were 30 years ago, every alt weekly in the country would even dispatch writers to Arizona just to watch John McCain’s presidential hopes dry up once and for all.