I am not sure there is anyone more enthusiastic about this presidential election than Chris Cillizza, WaPo's prolific "The Fix" blogger, politics columnist, prolific TV talking head and cheerful videoblogger via his "FixCam." If you are signed up on his email list, then you receive numerous missives every day recapping and analyzing every step of this history electoral process. (I just did a quick search in my Gmail, and the page showed "1-20 of hundreds" — and I am pretty sure there've been a few recent purges.)
Cillizza has been going to town on the Veepstakes, dissecting each potential candidate in not one but TWO posts, making "The Case For" and "The Case Against" everyone from Joe Biden, Charlie Crist, Evan Bayh, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Tim Pawlenty, Jim Webb, Kathleen Sebelius and Rob Portman. Please don't make me link them — oh, fine, here and here and here and here and here. And here. I mean, he really, really, really likes the Veepstakes.
So it shouldn't really be a surprise that he went with a classic final-stretch pump-up song for his "Final Countdown" to the Democratic National Convention — that song being "The Final Countdown" by Europe, which has accompanied many a sports montage in the past. Today, it accompanies smiling headshots of Biden, Kaine, Sebelius et al, which is not quite as exciting as watching 250 lb. hockey players slam each other into the boards, but whatever. (Oh! Is there a Phelps "Final Countdown" montage on YouTube yet? Not sure, but there is this guy wishing him "A Heart Phelt Congratulations." Heh.)
Back to Cillizza: Not only does he fearlessly lead in with Europe (perhaps inspired by John McCain's rehash of his "we now have a pro-American president in France, which shows if you live long enough, anything is possible" joke at Saddleback this weekend) but he has been out front on the marriage of pop music and politics via FixCam for a while now, memorably in his report on the Elton John concert for Hillary Clinton delivered in oversized shades and riffing on Elton song titles (even though the absence of any glitter whatsoever suggested that he could have worked a little harder. Come on now, Chris). He's also randomly dropped R.E.M., Bob Dylan, The Doors, Fountains of Wayne and "The Fix is In" by Ok Go (Aww, cute! The closest thing we have is "Eat The Rich" by Aerosmith. Or "Eat It" by Weird Al Yankovic.)
All of this is by way of saying, we appreciate the Europe reference — looking forward to seeing what you can do next time with Asia! (No, seriously. It's a challenge.)
p.s. He also has a Twitter feed, obvs.
p.p.s. This is a cello/orchestral rendition of "The Final Countdown" by the Symphonic Orchestra of Liepaja in Latvia. It. Is. Awesome.
ALL HAIL THE HEADBANGING CELLIST! Actually, that cellist headbangs like Cillizza sends out emails, no? Evan Bayh could learn from that kind of gusto.