Photo of Stephen McConnell

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Once again, the ABA Journal nominated us as one of the best blawgs. Once again, we are in the Torts category – which is a huge relief, since our posts on employment, family, or aviation law have been unimpressive. That is certainly nice. Perhaps we will seem immodest if we report that it is hardly a surprise. Unfortunately, it will also not be a surprise if we fail to win the popular vote to anoint the overall “winner” in our category. Why is that? We cannot completely discount the possibility that there are better blawgs out there. But there is also this: how do you solve a problem called Bexis? He is not just brilliant, hard-working, and committed; he is hideously high-minded. He thinks campaigning for votes is tacky. He always says that such pandering is beneath him. Fine. But is it beneath all of us DDL bloggers? No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not. (What if David Gregory, Rachel Maddow, or Jon Stewart confront us with our post about the 2012 Oscar awards, where we said that just being nominated was enough, and that we did not believe in trolling for votes? We respond by quoting America’s greatest poet: “Do we contradict ourselves? Very well, then, we contradict ourselves. We are vast. We contain multitudes.” And then we’ll change the subject.)
Why should you vote for the Drug and Device Law blog? As an initial matter, we are writing off the 47 percent of you who are the ‘takers’ and not the ‘makers’. (We are not talking about you guys who are holding onto your guns. We definitely want you on our side. Especially when the zombies attack). We expect to win by executing a ground game. That’s you. We will be sending out minivans to the key precincts, from the MDLs in Minnesota to the hellholes in Illinois, from stormy Atlantic City to Conte-crazy California. And we come bearing gifts.
What gifts? Look at our record. What other blog gives you so much so fast that is so useful? Take last week for example. We were one of the first to report the Bartlett cert grant. We ginned up a Lone Pine cheat sheet that many of you will pour into your next brief. Think of our many scorecards that have helped you stave off the forces of plaintiff iniquity and judicial incoherence: on Riegel, Mensing, Conte, and many others. Who else assembles 50 state surveys (like our recent one on hospital strict lability) that save you and your clients valuable time and money? Let’s be honest: without us, you’d have to rely on summer associates to write a 50 state survey, and they’d get at least ten states wrong. Yet you will still make them offers and overpay them. Sure, there are the weekly beatings. Even so, don’t the arrogant, ignorant pismires annoy the heck out of you? But we digress.
2012 was another sparkling year for us. We reported breathlessly on Joe Hollingsworth’s latest Aredia-Zometa triumphs (and we’ll do the same for you if you alert us). We brought you guest posts from some of the brightest defense lawyers in the land. We injected new blood into the DDL blog, with Eric Alexander and Melissa Wojtylak adding fresh perspectives (and giving some of us geezers the occasional day off).  We keep you up to date on TwIqbal developments and which Restatement seems to be in the ascendancy at any particular moment in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  We analyzed the Enbrel saga while also offering the last word (and its sequel) on movie sequels. We even managed to make sense of the Mad Men finale. Finally, we twice thumped a law student Comment for daring to blow kisses at Conte. (We also agreed to let the law student submit a rejoinder. To quote Ted Knight in Caddyshack, “Well … we’re waiting.”)
Just as important in a political campaign are promises of what we WON’T do. We won’t put out bounties on our competitors. We won’t nuke the moon to terrify the folks at Abnormal Use. We won’t cut PBS funding, so we won’t touch Big Bird. (And we won’t let Elmo touch you.) In short, you can count on us not to get into any of the usual political or celebrity scandals. The only pictures of us you’ll see are boring. Okay, maybe Sullivan’s firm website picture has a bit of a come-hither look, but we’re not even close to Anthony Weiner territory. And while we are at ACI in New York this week, no-way no-how will we go clubbing with Lindsay Lohan. Most important of all the things we promise not to do, we will never give any bright ideas to plaintiff lawyers.
To vote for us, go to the ABA Journal site and register here.  Go ahead.  Click on the link.  We’ll wait….
We cannot promise you a night in the Lincoln bedroom.   We cannot promise to avoid the fiscal cliff. But we can promise to maintain our efforts to heave specious plaintiff arguments off the legal cliff.[Note:  In an earlier version of this post, the author had erroneously read the ABA website to include us in a blawg Hall of Fame.  Alas, as the hard copy of the Journal makes clear, no such honor has yet been bestowed upon us.  We hope it has nothing to do with a positive steroids test.]