KEEP YER MITTS ON...

Saturday morning: H-E-B Plus for some Mother's Day cooking ingredients. Wearing one of the weekend t-shirts with jeans, this one the "Mitt Romney for President" shirt (if you were listening during the abbreviated GOP primary campaign, Mitt was my man).

A fortyish lady in sunglasses accosts me: "Mitt! Mitt!"

For the record, you couldn't confuse me with the ex-gov. no matter how dark your shades were.

I think the shirt so excited her, it was as if she was encountering the candidate. "You're my first Mitt", she kept saying. "I was for him, I don't want McCain, but I never see the stickers or the shirt. Isn't he great? Do you think McCain will pick him? It would be so great? McCain should pick him. Do you think he will run again..." And on and on, to my amusement and that of the small knot of curious shopping cart-drivers we attracted in front of the milk cooler.

It was funny, but also a bit telling. The smart folks tell us running mates don't help you win elections, and that's probably true. But can McCain afford to take a pass on the kind of t-shirt-fueled excitement I saw in the dairy aisle?