Did Jose Canseco name Ned Lamont?

Does this election not feel like spring training?

I won't claim Mr. Lamont's run has been uninspiring. His success gives the lie to those who claim the world's doors are closed to tall, handsome, Harvard- and Yale- educated multimillionaires. Instead I would like to draw your attention to words uttered by a perhaps sleep-deprived and tense Ned earlier today:

“I started out this race as an asterisk,’’ he said. “Here we are seven or eight months later and we’re leading the senator. We’re going to win today.’’

In reverse chronological order, the would-be senator asserts:

(3) "We’re going to win today.’’

• confident, crisp, succinct


• excellent diction


• Grade: A-

(2) “Here we are seven or eight months later and we’re leading the senator.’’

• reminder of the hard work the campaign has required


• perhaps a noningratiating thank-you to volunteers


• Grade: A

(1) “I started out this race as an asterisk.’’

• What?

I tried to make sense of this use of “asterisk.’’ Then I tried again. But it seems “dark horse’’ (or maybe “underdog’’) and “asterisk,’’ like most pairs of words, have different meanings. While “dark horse’’ is marked with an asterisk on its thesaurus.com page, that asterisk appears to mean “informal or slang,’’ not “this symbol has the same meaning as the word it is presently decorating.’’
There is a deeper problem with the sentence (1). Ned does not claim that he started out the race with an asterisk next to his name. Then we might charitably interpret his remark as intending to evoke a table of this type:

Candidate	Vote
Joe Lieberman (D)	55%
Alan Schlesinger (R)	30%
Ned Lamont* (D)	10%

*has no fucking chance, though is tall, handsome, Ivy-educated, spectacularly wealthy

Or a similar one, much studied by liberals in preparation for the 2004 election:

Candidate	Vote
George Bush (R)	47.9%
Al Gore (D)	48.4%
Ralph Nader* (G)	2.7%

*is gigantic douchebag

But Mr. Lamont didn't say his name came with an asterisk; he said he started out the race as an asterisk. In other words, he was himself the piece of ink chiefly used to indicate an omission or to refer to a footnote. This is a startling revelation and is clearly more significant than the Lieberman camp blaming Lamont supporters for crashing its server. Here's hoping Barry Bonds' head doesn't explode and Bud Selig neither makes him pee into a cup nor imprisons him:

Player	HR	Notes
Barry Bonds	772
Hank Aaron	755	never hit 50
Steve Balboni	181	LOL

I suppose Ned never said which asterisk he was. I call the one next to Barry.