No More Excuses

The way that I was raised was, “Nobody’s better than you, and anything that you want, you set your mind to it and you go get it. Period.” I believed that it was possible, but I didn’t know if I really believed. The history of African-Americans is such that you want to be a part of America, but we’ve been rejected so much it’s hard to take the ownership and take responsibility for ourselves and this country. It was like, at that second, at that moment, all of our excuses were gone. – Will Smith on the election of Barack Obama.

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What We Learned in 2008

In case you missed it, there was an historic election on Tuesday. By 8:00 PST, we had a new president. And in the moments that followed, we learned some interesting things about our country.

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America is not racist.
I’ve been arguing this for quite some time now. I remember several years ago I was sitting in a parking lot waiting for the wife to come out of a store. I saw a well dressed black man step out of a $100,000 Mercedes. I thought to myself, in a racist country, that would not be possible. The top two of the richest entertainers in the world are black Americans. This would not be possible in a racist country. Sure there are some people who are racist... there always will be. But it is obvious now that those people do not come close to representing the whole.

America is purple.
Mark Newman, from the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan, created some interesting maps of the country based on how we voted. What Mark did was display the country, each county by color based on how they voted. He didn’t just use red and blue, he used shades of red and blue based on percentages. Then to make the map even more accurate, he created a cartogram, which stretches and shrinks areas of the map according to the population. In the end you end up with a swirls of red and pockets blue mixed in with a lot of purple.

Pundits like to say this country is sharply divided. Some even went as far as saying that Obama is going to have to work to unify this divided nation. This country is not divided. This country is full of people who have opinions. And frankly, I do not want to live in a country where everyone feels exactly the same way.

Republicans got fired for spending, not social conservatism.
Liberals like to declare that victory for them means a defeat for social conservatism. However, if you look at the other items that were voted on in this country, social conservatism is still high in the minds of voters. Democrats won major victories over the Republicans, but at the same time three states passed gay marriage bans... one of those states being the hugely liberal state of California. Americans still believe in values. The Republicans got fired, not for having values, but rather not following their own motto of lower government spending.

George W. Bush is a better man than Bill Clinton will ever be.
After the announcement of Obama’s victory, George W. Bush extended his hand to the man who spent the last two years railing against everything Bush has stood for and done. When Bush won in 2000, Clinton only extended a finger.

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Gay Marriage

Tomorrow California decides whether there should be a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, making gay marriages illegal. One thing I find amusing is the opponent of the proposition, claiming proponents are intolerant, and then spray painting that message on the cars and homes of people who have a “Yes on 8” sign in their yard. Regardless, there is a huge difference in the feelings behind each viewpoint.

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A person who supports gay marriage claims it’s an issue of civil rights. Gay people should be allowed the same rights as straight people. Interestingly enough, gay people have the same rights. They can legally marry a person of the opposite sex as I can. There is no longer any right given to a married couple that is not offered to a domestic partner. Bottom line, gay people just do not want to be told no.

A little side note... if you follow their logic, my rights started to be violated the day I got married, because I cannot marry another person. Why, as a married person, can I not marry anyone else? That’s simply not fair. What if I really love that second person... and really love my current wife? I should have that right.

Truly the misunderstood person is the opponent of gay marriage. There is something deeply at stake for a person who believes in the one true God. You see, marriage is something that was created by God and represents His relationship with me. It is intended to be a beautiful thing, not some abomination that it has turned into. So the voter who is for Prop 8 is not out to make a gay people’s lives miserable just to spite them. He is trying to protect something that is sacred to his beliefs. Something that means more than just his own personal situation. And just like divorce, we are watching as gay marriage destroys something beautiful God created. This is as offensive and as disturbing as the man who dipped a statue of Christ in a vat of urine and called it art.

The world sees God through marriage. By asking me to say no on Prop 8, you are asking me to piss on God.

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Apple Opposes Prop 8

Daring Fireball, which might be my favorite blog (usually), responded to that headline by saying, “Good for Apple.” Why is that good for Apple? Because Gruber agrees with it? What a bunch of crap. The fact is, Apple shouldn’t be involved in whether gay people can marry any more than Gruber thinks I should be involved in whether gay people can marry. I reward John with his own “Jackass of the Week” award.

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Tough call on how to tag this article... does it go under Apple, Politics, Religion, or Et Cetera?!

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More on Prop 8

So I’m driving with Justin this evening to get some food. We pull up at a stop light, and on the corner were a half-dozen people standing on the curb with “Say No to California Proposition 8” signs. The loud one had a sign that read, “Love Not Hate... No on Prop 8.” So he’s hollering at our car telling us we need to vote no. I don’t really want to provoke the guy while we’re sitting six inches away. I wait until the light turns green and figure that’s a good opportunity to let him know my view on Prop 8. I give him a thumbs down sign. His response? “F*** you, homo!” Priceless.

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Undecided

I am really puzzled by a person who is only a couple of weeks away from the election and still claims to be undecided. The problem I have with this is simple. You have two competing ideals, you don’t know which one you are? David Sedaris of The New Yorker offered a good analogy...

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To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of s*** [my censorship, not the author’s] with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

That seems a bit harsh. I would argue that neither candidate is a pile of crap with or without shards of glass. And why downgrade crap by comparing it to something as disgusting as chicken?

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Get Over It, Foo

I really hate it when a band makes political statements. I rarely agree with a band or artist on their views, and it just changes the music for me. Foo Fighters decided to bum me out this week by complaining that John McCain’s campaign is using their music at his rallies without asking...

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This isn’t the first time the McCain campaign has used a song without making any attempt to get approval or permission from the artist. It’s frustrating and infuriating that someone who claims to speak for the American people would repeatedly show such little respect for creativity and intellectual property. The saddest thing about this is that ’My Hero’ was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.

First, I don’t know why virtually all popular musical acts are left-leaning. But fact is, they are. So if any Republican asked any popular artist for permission to use a song, he’s not going to get it. So what’s the campaign suppose to play during a rally?

Second, why should John McCain have to ask Foo and his Fighters for permission to play any of their songs? Last I checked, there are rules to keep you from using a song in a commercial, TV show, or movie without asking (paying). But if I’m having a party – or in this case, a rally – and I happen to like a song, screw the artist. I’m playing it.

What’s next, Foo? Am I going to have to get permission to buy your CDs? “You can’t buy our album... you’re a registered Republican.”

By the way, Rush Limbaugh uses a song by The Pretenders for the theme song to his show. And every time he starts his show, he’s paying a licensing fee to the band. And the band doesn’t like it. But that’s just too bad... because the band signed the licensing rights to the label, and the label doesn’t care about Rush’s politics. The label only cares about the money.

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Are You Sure?

Back in June, when a California court determined that gay marriage should be legal, my atheist friend harassed me... “See? We’re all still here. I thought if gay marriage happened, it would be the end of the United States. Guess not!”

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Stocks skidded this afternoon, with the Dow’s nearly 778-point drop being the worst single-day point loss ever, after the House rejected the government’s $700 billion bank bailout plan.

Are you sure about that?

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Regurgitating Idiocy

Blogs have a habit of passing one piece of information around rather than creating their own unique content. So a single quote may hit 30 blogs in the same day. Typically I try to avoid this blogging strategy. But there’s a quote that is making the blog circuit that I cannot avoid any longer.

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For years now, they’ve told us that we can’t afford – that the government providing healthcare to all people is just unimaginable; it can’t be done. We don’t have the money to rebuild our infrastructure. We don’t have the money to wipe out poverty. We can’t do it. But all of a sudden, yeah, we do have $700 billion for a bailout of Wall Street. – Senator Bernie Sanders

This is being posted all over the ’net with a bunch of hell yeahs. But the whole argument is bogus. Sanders is trying to say is that we could take $700 billion and give everyone insurance and wipe out poverty. Forget Wall Street, forget economic collapse.

Honestly, I don’t know for sure what happens if we don’t bail out these corporations. And don’t think for a second that I am happy about bailing out a bunch of ridiculously high paid CEOs who managed their businesses poorly and we have to pay for it. I’m not. I’m pissed. But if all indicators are correct, not bailing these losers out will put us in a similar situation to the collapse of the 30s. That’s no way to wipe out poverty. Keeping us employed is.

Let’s be clear, proposing insurance for all Americans is something far greater than this $700 billion bailout. This is something that once you start it, you’ll never be able to stop it. It will grow and cost Americans a heck of a lot more than $700 billion. And with this bailout plan, the government is planning to get paid back with interest. There won’t be one dollar that is ever recovered from a national health plan.

Sanders is either stupid or he is assuming that we are. He seems to think that we can’t see that he is comparing apples to oranges. Sadly, from the blogs I’ve seen, his assumption is correct.

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Price Point on Independence

It is amazing what happens when the price for a barrel of oil tops $100. Gas prices sky rocket immediately, startup companies pop up and get noticed for creating alternative fuel vehicles, and people march in the streets carrying signs that read, “Get off foreign oil now!” Politicians take notice and announce when they get elected they will help these alternative fuel startups and implement a 12 step plan to get us off foreign oil. Then oil prices drop five bucks. All of the marches and all of the campaigning and all of the startups quietly go away.

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So where is our price point on independence? Is it $95? Or is it $100? At what point to we decide we should be independent regardless of the price... or the cost?

I can’t imagine what it must have been like in 1776. The British pushed those colonies just a little too much and now they want their freedom. George Washington catches wind of the public dissent. “We will have our independence”, he cries. And the people cheer and donate $20 each to his campaign. Unexpectedly the British lower the tax burden by about 5%. “Call off the revolution, what we really need is better healthcare. That whacky ’Dubya’, he is going to alienate all of the colonies from the rest of the world.”

If our founding fathers swayed with the political wind as much as our politicians currently do, we’d still be waving the British flag talking about how we should break free from our tyrannical rulers... just as soon as we fix the welfare system and social security.

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Obama’s Slip

There’s been much to do about a comment Barack Obama made this week regarding the McCain-Palin campaign. The backstory, Palin said in her VP nomination acceptance speech that she was a hockey mom, “They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull... lipstick.” A week later, Obama attacked McCain for his comments about changing Washington...

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That’s not change. That’s... that’s just calling something the same thing, something different. You know, you can’t... you can put, uh, lipstick on a pig... it’s still a pig.

Last night, Bill O’Reilly made a decent point about Obama’s comment. He says that Obama is not a “bomb thrower”, he never has been, and he really doesn’t like confrontation. O’Reilly implies that this was a bit of a slip and both campaigns can make matters worse depending on how it is handled. While I agree that this seems to be the case, what I heard in Obama’s comment was something new from his campaign.

First (I recommend you find the audio, by the way), Obama is known for his ability to speak. He’s amazing. He looks, and he moves, and he sounds... Presidential. But this section of the speech, and it’s the only part I’ve heard, he sounds like he has no idea what he’s trying to say. He’s stumbling over his own words. He put words in the wrong places, he said “uh” way too many times, and there were uncomfortable silences. He sounds shaken.

Second, Obama doesn’t slip. Obama went through a vicious battle with Hillary Clinton. No matter what she threw at him, he would turn it around and make her look foolish. So assuming this pig and lipstick comment was simply a slip that looks/sounds bad, it’s a slip we’ve not seen him make before.

What I see is a man who was not expecting what was thrown at him. And he’s not sure what to do with it. He was expecting the same-ol’, same-ol’ for McCain’s VP. He was not expecting McCain to be on top in the polls, even if, as I have argued, it’s only for a short period of time. I think we just witnessed the first time Obama has been caught off guard, and I don’t think he reacted very well.

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Let the Game Begin

As I stated in an earlier entry, the big race between McCain and Obama won’t really heat up until after the two conventions. Slight correction, now that Mac has revealed his pick for VP the fun can start. But I also said McCain is only going to lose points when he announces his running mate. That remains to be seen. Sarah Palin has potential to bring him some voters (women and conservatives). However, we’ve seen VP candidates fail miserably when they get thrown into the national spotlight. Either way, this should be fun.

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McCain, by the way, did a much better job at keeping his pick a secret. Obama was suppose to get a text out to all of his supporters before the news could announce it. At 9:00pm, CNN was calling Biden as the pick. I got my text at midnight. Conversely, on my way in to work this morning, Lieberman was still Mac’s expected VP pick.

It obviously surprised a lot of liberals, judging by their reactions. “Hail Mary pass” and “heartbeat away” were obviously key phrases immediately sent out to anyone who might be in front of a microphone or camera today. Think before you speak, I was always told.

The vice president is a heartbeat away from becoming president. So to choose someone with not one hour’s worth of experience on national issues is a dangerous choice. – Senator Barbara Boxer

In choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate he is not thinking “outside the box,” as some have said. More like out of his mind. – Paul Begala, CNN

Begala’s piece on CNN.com had me wondering if he was out of his mind. He finishes the article with this choice statement...

John McCain has shown he is willing to endanger his country, potentially leaving it in the hands of someone who simply has no business being a heartbeat away from the most powerful, complicated, difficult job in human history.

Has he forgotten that the person he supports hasn’t any foreign policy experience or a single major contribution or commitee action in his 143 days in the Senate? And he’s not putting him a heartbeat away from the most powerful, complicated, difficult job in human history. He wants him in that position.

Look, I have previously argued that experience doesn’t matter. So has Obama. And today we are suddenly told you can’t have a VP with no experience.

Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling. – Senator Chuck Schumer

You’re putting someone within a heartbeat of the presidency with the thinnest foreign policy experience in history. – Bill Burton, Obama campaign spokesman

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. – Adrianne Marsh, Obama campaign spokeswoman

(Actually, that last comment sounds like Ms. Marsh is calling McCain the winner.)

So Obama has spent the last nine months arguing that his lack of experience does not mean he can’t be an effective leader. And now his own campaign is telling us experience is really important for the Vice President.

Let’s not forget...

I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002. – Hillary Clinton

I think [Obama] can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training. – Senator Joe Biden

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McCain’s False Lead

There’s been a lot of talk about some polling data that puts McCain five points ahead of Obama. Other polls listed McCain in a statistical dead heat... which means that he’s lower in points but the margin of error means he could be tied. The problem here, this is not a real lead for McCain. It’s a temporary showing, that will be completely meaningless in a few weeks.

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First, this race is not yet started. The real fight between the two candidates will not fully begin until after the two conventions. Right now, neither candidate are even spending money or actively campaigning. In fact, Obama is just wrapping up a vacation. If you can’t gain ground against a guy on vacation, you shouldn’t even be in the race.

Second, until a VP has been announced, neither candidate can rest on it’s current polling position. Unless he chooses Clinton, Obama can only go up from here by announcing his running mate. McCain in in the opposite position. He is going to lose some supporters regardless of which way he goes.

McCain’s problem is that he’s trying to do the impossible task of appearing middle-of-the-road. That strategy has never worked, and it’s not likely to work for this guy. Currently the left leaning and the right leaning republicans are waiting him out, hoping Mac shows he’s really on their side. But when he chooses his VP, it will clearly define which side of the fence he’s really on. If McCain goes with a conservative pick, he loses support from the guys who are really looking for a liberal candidate. They’ll easily jump ship for Obama. If he picks a lefty, McCain will lose any of the religious right voters he currently has.

Let’s not forget how ridiculous these polls are anyway. A pollster calls up a random individual, and he says, “Would you vote for McCain?” The person on the other end of the line might say yes, but they aren’t actually standing in the booth pulling the lever now, are they? What you are going to do and what you actually do, are not always the same thing.

I hope McCain enjoys this lead – or dead heat – because it’ll be the last one he sees. Obama is going to wipe the floor with McCain come November.

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Obama’s Call to Renewal

As I mentioned in a previous entry, a 2006 speech made by Barack Obama has become a current topic thanks to James Dobson. Obama has the speech available on his own web site, so while writing the earlier entry I decided to pour through the rest of the speech, not just the pull quotes CNN gave us. This speech has so many talking points, I can hardly stand it. This ends up being by far the longest entry I have written so far. It was a long speech, and has a lot that requires responses.

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Obama starts off discussing the connection between religion and politics. As he explains why he wants to talk about this issue, he says this:

We can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America.

Why is it okay to use the Bible to create government programs that take money from one group of people and hand it to others, but it’s not okay to use it to argue for creationism, or against abortion and gay marriage?

Later on Obama is commenting on his reaction to something Alan Keyes said against him in the 2004 Senate election. Keyes accused Obama of not being a real Christian because he supports “a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination,” and he supports “the destruction of innocent and sacred life.” Obama replied...

I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates – namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can’t impose my own religious views on another.

I find this comment hard to swallow from any Christian. Fact is, Christ believed in imposing his “religious views” on others. As much as they like to use the Bible to support their government programs for the poor, people also like to suggest that Jesus as a tolerant person. Jesus did not tolerate people’s sin. Jesus even said that all sinners, not just homosexuals or people who have abortions, will be put in an unquenchable fire for eternity.

Something to think about... if Jesus hadn’t told people they were sinners and were going to hell without Him, He would have died of old age.

Muslims don’t hesitate to impose their religious views on others. Atheists don’t hesitate to impose their religious views (or lack of) on others. Evolutionist don’t hesitate to impose their views on others. Even vegetarians don’t hesitate to impose their views on others.

But according to Obama, we live in a pluralistic society, so it would be better for me to let people perish in an eternal unquenchable fire than to impose my views on someone.

Obama goes on to discuss how there is a gap between people who attend church regularly and those who don’t.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church... Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that – regardless of our personal beliefs – constitutional principles tie our hands.

Constitutional principals do not tie your hands. It’s very convenient that some laws can fall under your constitutional rights, while others blatantly ignore these same rights.

Abortion advocates argue that a woman should be able to choose what she wants to do with her body. Using this argument, marijuana – while I think it should absolutely be illegal – would have to be legal. It’s my body, no one else’s. But smoking pot is illegal. Why is that? And why is the State of California allowed to tell me that I have to wear a seatbelt? If I am suppose to be able to do as I wish with my own body, what harm is it if I choose to risk death by driving with no seatbelt? Lastly, Obama is a fan of raising taxes on the “rich” in America. Why isn’t it a constitutional right to keep your money, and everyone to pay the same tax?

Obama goes on to discuss how religion is important to many people in the country.

I think it’s time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy. And if we’re going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

And he explains why so many Americans are religious...

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

Unfortunately, I fear he is right on the mark here. It is unfortunate because people looking for a god in order to gain purpose or relieve chronic loneliness are going to miss the real reason they need Christ... salvation. Obama does seem to recognize this, however.

You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away.

He moves on...

What I am suggesting is this – secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Exactly. Now it sounds like he’s okay with religious arguments being brought to the public forum. Do I sense a “but” coming?

Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.

Once again, it’s okay to use the Bible to support government programs.

Then he makes a quick comment on separation of church and state...

It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

There’s a huge difference in government interfering with church, and the nation’s laws being based on God’s laws. Plus his argument is false, which anyone who does a real study of the foundation of this country quickly realizes.

Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

So our laws that were based on the Bible now dictate that we can’t make laws based on the Bible. I get it now.

Now we come to the part of his speech that launched a thousand blogs.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s?

I’m going to assume his first sentence is to make the point, and he’s not suggesting that anyone wants to expel non-Christians. When the country was founded, and Christianity was taught in the schools, lawmakers obviously found a way to resolve whose Christianity was taught.

Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.

For the first 100 years if a law was made, not only was it okay to base it on the Bible, it was required. And there wasn’t an issue of which passages. Why? Because people then didn’t just read the Bible, they knew the Bible. They knew that verses in Leviticus about shellfish were not intended for us today. They knew where in the New Testament the Old Testament rules were invalidated.

I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

People have made those arguments with a number of issues, including abortion. Pro-abortion advocates don’t want to hear it.

I have to ask, why is anyone opposed to any specific thing? What is it in your mind that makes you recognize that child pornography, for example, is wrong? Is it only immoral, therefore a law, if enough people feel the same way? Who determines how many people are required for something to be moral?

In the end I feel the summary of the speech is, “I am a Bible believing Christian who thinks just like the religious right. However, I have realized that I cannot argue anything based on my beliefs, and neither should you.”

I don’t want to hide my religious feelings in slick words that skirt around the real reason something should be right or wrong.

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Polling Data

Political polls are absolutely absurd. When Mike Huckabee determined that he couldn’t beat McCain in the Republican primary, polls were published stating that social conservatives will not vote for McCain. When Obama and Clinton were battling it out, polls showed that women would rather vote for McCain than Obama if Clinton lost the nomination. The problem is that polls ask, “What would you do if...” There is no true way to find the answer to a hypothetical question, except to make the question... well... not hypothetical.

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If you asked me what I would do with my money if I made twice my current annual salary, I would likely give you some speech about all the good I would do. But if you look at my financial history, you’ll see I now have a nice house with more room for the kids. I drive a nice car that everything on it works. My wife has a big SUV that fits all of our kids. I got a new bike that’s more powerful than my “starter bike.”

The question of women voting for Obama is ludicrous. A strong democrat that was opting for Clinton may not be happy about Obama getting the nomination. However, they are not going to vote for “the enemy” out of spite. For starters, McCain is pro-life, which is a huge hot-button issue for most women voters. If Clinton went third party, a fair number of them would likely vote for her, giving McCain the victory. But no self respecting, pro-choice Democrat would ever throw a vote at an old-school, white, male, pro-life Republican.

Whether the religious right will vote for Obama to spite McCain is slightly different, in that McCain is the most non-Republican Republican ever! McCain is notorious for angering and alienating the Christian Right. Some of those voters may actually sit out, but they are not likely to be able to stomach actually flipping the switch (or depressing the chad) for Obama.

What may help McCain is same-sex marriage. The timing of the California Court’s decision to allow gay marriages may convince the Christians to vote for the only guy denouncing it.

But since pollsters are asking people “what if” questions, we won’t know the real answer until the election actually happens.

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Mourning the Clintons

Trying to remind everyone that CNN stands for “Clinton News Network”, CNN Political writer, Alan Silverleib wrote a piece on Saturday declaring shock that Bill Clinton wasn’t able to do more to help Hillary’s campaign. He starts with, “What a long, strange, unhappy trip it’s been for Bill Clinton”, and continues to be perplexed through the article with questions like, “How did this happen? How did it all go so wrong for the man who almost single-handedly led the Democrats out of the political wilderness 16 years ago?”

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It’s actually pretty simple, Alan. Unfortunately, you are too wrapped up in your Clinton-lust to recognize some basic truths about the Clinton years.

To start, Bill Clinton did not lead the Democrats out of any political wilderness. Quite contrary, after electing Clinton the American voters handed more Democrats pink slips than any time in history. It’s taken 16 years to regain part of the ground the Democrats used to hold. The only leading Clinton did was lead them off of a political cliff.

A second basic truth that Clinton apologists seem to conveniently forget, is that Bill Clinton never won 50% of the vote in either election.

In 1992 we had a sitting Republican President with a strong lack of confidence in the current economy. To make things worse, Bush lost a lot of Republican support to the first real third-party threat since 1968. Despite this, Clinton only managed to eek out a win with less than 6% majority. In 1996 Clinton defeated the uninspiring Bob Dole, only by 9%, once again failing to get 50% of the vote.

Clinton kool-aid drinkers have spent way too long with the false premise that Clinton was an amazing campaigner. While no one can deny he won (twice), it’s hard to see how one can argue he was any good on the campaign trail. Now that this “Clinton Machine” – that is so widely touted as the ultimate campaign machine – has to face a real contender, they fall flat on their faces.

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When is it Time to Quit?

I was really bothered by the stories that I heard and read in mid-May when Ted Kennedy announced he had a tumor in his brain. One report suggested he has only weeks left to live. Even some of the best news puts Kennedy with roughly a year left. It doesn’t bother me because I’m a major Kennedy fan, but rather it’s a weird and disturbing thought to know you only have a specific – and very finite – amount of time left here on earth.

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Today Kennedy underwent brian surgery, which was reported to have been a success. The surgery will be followed by “targeted radiation” and chemotherapy treatment.

So I have to ask... why is Kennedy not resigning his position as a U.S. Senator? Not unlike Senators that hold office until they are 102, what is the benefit to hanging on to your seat past the time you can perform the duties of the job?

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Competing Political Gaffs

Last week Clinton made a poorly worded statement regarding Robert Kennedy. This week Obama got nailed by yet another whacky video clip of someone in his church.

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While Clinton’s comment did lack in tact, a lot of people over-analyzed what she might have meant. Believe me, I am the last person to be a Clinton apologizer, but it never occurred to me when I first heard the statement that she might be suggesting there is still a chance Obama will get assassinated before the primaries are over. I don’t feel she had that thought in her mind when she made the comment.

I’ve heard her make similar comments before, specifically that Bill didn’t wrap up his nomination until June. I think she misses the fact that during that election, the California primary wasn’t until June. When Bill won California, the contest was over. However, in this case, she already won California and is still losing the contest.

As for Obama’s troubles, once again he is in trouble for something he didn’t say. This church he’s a member of is starting to be a problem for his campaign. No doubt it will have little effect on his battle against Clinton, but it will likely have a bigger impact when he’s running his national campaign against McCain.

There are some disconcerting statements that are made by the church...

We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. – About Us page from the web site

My concern here is that the church refers to Africa as the native land and the mother continent. I want my next president to be true to this land, and consider this his mother continent.

Combine these published statements with divisive speakers who receive warm welcomes from the church and the church body – including none other than Louis Farrakhan. This is his church. And this is the attitude that has been prevalent throughout the 20 years Obama has attended the church. These are important factors that will undoubtedly enter the voters minds come November.

I defended Obama and Wright previously. I stand by that. This entry is not a condemnation of Obama, Wright, or anyone at Trinity United Church of Christ. Having been a member of some churches that some people might not understand, I know that a few random clips pulled from a few years of services would likely present a bad example of what the church is about. What I also know is perception is reality. When the voter perceives Obama is tightly associated with racist and divisive people, he might as well be the racist, divisive person.

What I don’t know is what Obama is going to be able to do to distance himself from a 20 year relationship with an organization that is harming his reputation. But then again, I’m not the one running for office.

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How Our Candidates Communicate

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Clinton Campaign on the Oregon Trail

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Primary Nonsense

With a big win yesterday in North Carolina, and a virtual tie in Indiana, Obama is less than 200 delegates away from the number he needs to lock in the nomination. Clinton insists she will press on. She is still fighting to get the uncontested votes she snagged in Michigan and Florida, hoping to win the nomination with the equivalent of a bad call on the final out in baseball.

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One interesting note on Clinton’s inability to make ground against Obama... Rush Limbaugh has been encouraging his listeners to vote for Clinton in what he calls “Operation Chaos”. If his web site and other news sources are to be believed, there was a large number of voters doing just that. If Clinton is getting false votes from the Republicans, and Obama is still beating her, it’s obvious who the Democrat nominee should be.

There are three so-called advantages with this “Chaos” strategy. One, Obama wastes money fighting for the nomination, which could be used against McCain. Two, dragging out the Democratic primary gives McCain more time to work on the national campaign. Three, Clinton will be easier for McCain to win against. All three are wrong.

The Obama campaign has a lot more money than the McCain campaign. And he has a better chance of raising more. McCain has not done very well in raising funds, and isn’t likely to get better at it now.

And while McCain can indeed focus his energy on the national campaign, he is struggling to keep his name in the spotlight. The Republican primary is no longer being covered because it’s over. Obama, on the other hand, is getting a lot of press time.

Finally, McCain is not going to beat Clinton or Obama. There’s just no way he stands a chance. If the Republicans want to vote in the Democratic primary, they should go out and pick the candidate they would rather have beat McCain.

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Obama’s Comment

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. – Barack Obama, April 6th Fundraiser in San Fransisco

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John Farr of The Huffington Post asked, “is there not some truth in what Obama said?” Some truth?

In the 1930s, German citizens were beat down, jobless, and saw no hope. The Nazi party used guns, religion, and antipathy to people who weren’t like them as a way to explain their situation. It worked then, and it would still work today.

I can’t believe people are making a big deal out of this. At least Obama isn’t a habitual liar. If you want to take issue with this statement, you should take issue with the fact Obama is implying it’s the government’s role to fix these people’s problems.

It sucks being misplaced in society. I get that. But it’s your job to assure you don’t.

I knew a successful business owner in the early ’90s who ran a typewriter service company. Back then everyone needed a typewriter. He had contracts with law firms, big news studios, car companies, and a ton of smaller shops as well. It’s a fairly specialized field, not unlike the auto industry. You have to have the right tools and the right training to do it right.

Hindsight is 20-20, but this guy never saw the changes coming. Despite the increased dependance on computers over typewriters, he kept plugging away at his repair business. “There will always be a need for typewriters.”

Apparently not.

I’m not suppose to say this. I’m not suppose to say that he failed to see the coming trends and got over-run by change. But if you’re still making shovels for miners in 1856... or if you’re still selling horses in 1903... or if you’re selling slaves at the start of the Civil War... who’s fault is it when you’re out of work five years later? The world changes, and you didn’t see them coming.

No one wants to be told it is their fault they are in a bad situation. And no one wants to tell someone this either. But let’s be realistic for a moment. What kind of society are we going to have when our government is in the business of making up for our bad decisions?

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More Cops on the Streets

Have you ever read a statement or heard a quote by a person and realize, “I completely disagree with everything this person says?” Friday, Hillary Clinton was in Philadelphia claiming that if she is elected President, she will bring 100,000 more new police offices on the streets of America. This is one of those things that looks good on the surface, but as you dig deeper, it’s really is not.

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Our problem is not that we don’t have enough cops. It’s that we don’t have enough cops in the right places. Been down a freeway lately? There are plenty of cops sitting there waiting to catch “accidental speeders”. Why do we pay cops to sit on the freeway hoping to catch somebody going 10 MPH too fast trying to get home from work? If speed is your thing, you could sit in my neighborhood and make sure people aren’t going too fast where my kids play. My kids don’t play on the freeway. How many cops do we send out to try to catch would-be johns and hookers? Why don’t we pay cops to be sneaky and try to catch people stealing, raping, or killing?

This is just more typical political garbage.

I promise to throw good money after bad at a problem. Don’t worry, I won’t waste any time investigating the problem to see if there is a real solution that might help. Vote for me and maybe some of this money will fall your direction.

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Side note: an “accidental speeder” is someone who is just moving with the flow and happens to hit the magical number of 11 MPH over the posted speed limit. The driver is not being dangerous or reckless. He’s just there to generate some more revenue for the local area. He also ends up being a “cop blocker” for the guy who’s really driving dangerously.

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Clinton’s Not Funny

Hillary Clinton was in L.A. last night raising money and making an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She attempted to make a joke about her “sniper-fire” flap from last week...

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It is so great to be here, I was so worried I wasn’t going to make it. I was pinned down by sniper fire.

Obama making this comment: funny. McCain making the comment: funny. Leno making the comment: kinda funny. Clinton making the comment: not funny.

That’s just sad.

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If you missed the whole flap, Clinton made a comment last week saying she landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996. News stations all over quickly showed the actual video of her visit to Bosnia, as she calmly stepped off the plane and even accepted flowers from a small child. Clinton then blew off the blatant lie by saying, “for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke.”

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Clinton’s Wright

Nearly two weeks after Barack Obama spoke about the now infamous comments from his former pastor, Hillary Clinton finally responds to questions about the “flap”...

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And, you know, I’m just speaking for myself. And I was answering a question that was posed to me. But I think, given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor.

Interestingly enough, Bill Clinton invited Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the White House in September 1998 when the Starr report outlining his affair with Monica Lewinsky was about to come out. Wright was also received a thank you note a few weeks later, thanking him for his expressions of support.

Hillary Clinton also added...

You know, we don’t have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend. Everyone will have to decide these matters for themselves. They are obviously very personal matters. But I was asked what I would do if he were my pastor. And I said I think the choice would be clear for me.

That is a bold statement. Switching churches, abandoning a friend, a pastor, over a few poorly made comments. A bold statement from someone who is still married to a man that cheated on her.

This is obviously a personal matter, something everyone would have to decide for themselves. But if my spouse was banging an intern at work, and I was asked what I would do, I know the choice would be clear for me.

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After Five Years In Iraq

A number of journalists have been hammering the Iraq war this week as we hit the five year anniversary. The quote that really bothers me comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, “It was supposed to be a quick war and a cheap one.” Only the journalists that regurgitate this rubbish ever stated the war was going to be quick and cheap.

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President Bush stated, virtually every time he spoke about the war, that it would be a lengthy and costly war. In 2003 Bush said...

This will take time and require sacrifice. Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure.

He did not say this will be quick or cheap. Continuing...

America has done this kind of work before. Following World War II, we lifted up the defeated nations of Japan and Germany and stood with them as they built representative governments.

We committed years and resources to this cause. And that effort has been repaid many times over in three generations of friendship and peace.

America today accepts the challenge of helping Iraq in the same spirit, for their sake and our own.

In Japan, we did something that would be unthinkable in today’s culture. We clearly and concisely ended the war. In 1945, the American people were not as fickle as we are today. When we made a resolve to accomplish something, we accomplished it. I shudder to think what would have happened had our resolve in 1945 been as weak as it is today.

In July of 2003, Bush gave a speech, notoriously known now as the “Mission Accomplished” speech. Nowhere in the speech did Bush ever utter the words, “mission accomplished.” But he did say, “We have difficult work to do in Iraq.” And 70% of this country approved and applauded and said we were willing to go the long haul.

Apparently the “long haul” was only 12 months. More from the speech...

We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength.

They are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans.

We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.

We are still fighting the enemy in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them on our own soil. And don’t fool yourself into believing we don’t have an enemy to fight. The militant Muslims want us dead, they want our country to lie in ruins. They won’t stop just because we are no longer in Iraq.

Schools are fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students. – DawaNet

Even as I write this, I recognize it sounds like fear mongering... but it’s happening. Muslims are attempting to indoctrinate our children using our own public school systems and our goal of “tolerance”. If you don’t believe it, pick up a current seventh grade history textbook. (If you’d like, I can send you copies of my daughter’s.)

Now we are counting the costs, literally. How much per day is this war costing? And what can we do with that money? One fantastic comparison is, we can enroll 58,000 children in Head Start. How many Iraqi children will get no start if we leave now? It sounds rather selfish to say I would rather my country pay for my kid to go to preschool, than for me to give the opportunity for a child in Iraq to live in freedom. If that’s the trade off, I’ll pay for my kid’s preschool myself (which, by the way, is something I’ve already done... three times).

Stop kidding yourself. We all agreed to enter the war in Iraq. Statistically speaking, almost everyone who now says we should have never gone in, originally supported it. And unless I know everyone who made up the small percentage that did not support the war initially, you agreed to it. If you think Iraq is now a mess... good. We started it, we should end it.

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Obama’s Race Speech

After a days worth of media coverage over comments made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama delivered a speech to address the issue. Once again Obama proved why he will be the next President. He delivered an amazing speech, and as always, the people who thought they had a way to stop him, got a slap in the face. Obama got more publicity and positive press from this one speech than any commercial blitz could have gotten him.

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Most of the comments made by Wright were not all that egregious. I am sick and tired of any person who speaks their mind ending up publicly condemned. To be fair, Wright made a lot of comments that I do not agree with, but he’s made a lot I do agree with. You cannot have interaction with any other human in this world and agree with 100% of everything they think, say, or do. There are times I completely disagree with my own brother. But As Obama pointed out in his speech, just because you don’t agree, you certainly don’t disown him.

Obama also described church life at Trinity United Church in his speech...

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

In that one paragraph, Obama described not just black churches, but every alive church I have ever attended. He explained something I have struggled to explain most of my life – church is “full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seems jarring to the untrained ear.” It’s awesome and exciting, and makes you glad to be a Christian.

My predominately white church embraces the community in its entirety as well. We reach out to the rich, the poor, the clean-cut, the rough and unkempt, and even illegals from across the border (which has proven to be an unpopular decision). They all need Christ.

Continuing with his speech...

We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.”

Jeremiah Wright is not running for office. Barack Obama is. I am disturbed that we are being told what Obama may or may not have heard in a Sunday sermon somehow makes him unable to be an effective leader. Most of what is played on our televisions is far worse than anything Wright has ever said. Should we never vote for anyone who owns a TV?

There’s only one way to defeat Obama. You have got to attack him on where he stands. Attack him for his stance on raising the minimum wage, giving the rest of us a pay cut. Hit him on his inaccuracies on global warming. Go after his ridiculous national healthcare plan.

Attack his personal life, religion, and made-up race issues, you hand him more votes on a silver platter via the news outlets as they continue to give him free airtime.

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Losing Your Job for Sex

Yesterday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer held a press conference to respond to the allegations of paying thousands of dollars for prostitutes. Spitzer apologized to his family and the public, but never acknowledged any involvement. Being a Democrat, a number of Republicans called for his immediate resignation. It didn’t take long for the water cooler conversation to be all about this scandal. And since it involves a politician and inappropriate sexual relations, it’s being compared to the Clinton - Lewinsky scandal. Once again, the question of what is private – what is between a man and his wife versus what is something the public should be involved in – becomes the focus. The problem is, a man’s position dictates what becomes public and what stays private.

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Spitzer’s case is unique to Clinton’s, in that he faces legal issues, not just personal problems. Having an extra-marital affair may be a private issue between a man and his wife. But when that affair involves potential criminal charges, it can no longer stay private. And being a Governor, his job should be in jeopardy. Any position in which you are intimately involved in the creation or enforcing of laws, from a cop to the President, your job is at risk when you get caught breaking them.

Going back a number of years, many people felt that Bill Clinton having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky did not justify him losing his job. “It’s a personal and private matter between Bill and Hillary”, they would argue. If tomorrow, I get caught by my boss having sex in my office with the new intern at work, what are the odds that I will be immediately dismissed? Isn’t this something that is between me and my wife? Why is my boss getting involved in my personal life?

For the record, wife... we don’t have any interns at work. Just so you know.

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Finally A State That Matters

Through much of the primaries, Clinton has been arguing every state she lost in really didn’t matter. Wisconsin has a lot of independent voters, so it doesn’t really matter. And Hawaii is practically Obama’s home state, so it obviously doesn’t matter. Nebraska, Idaho and Utah didn’t matter because they were deep-red states. South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia didn’t matter because they had large percentages of black voters. Maine and Washington didn’t matter because caucuses aren’t truly representative. Maryland and Virginia didn’t matter because Obama was expected to win there. Illinois was Obama’s real home state, so it doesn’t count. Well today, a state finally mattered. Rhode Island.

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Rhode Island has 21 delegates. Clinton needs about 100 to catch up to Obama. 21 delegates. She needs almost 700 to lock in the nomination.

But it’s not the delegates that matter this time. This one would have been of great significance to the Clinton campaign even if it was only one delegate. After 11 straight losses to the Obama train, Clinton finally has a win.

Congratulations to Rhode Island for finally being significant.

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3am Phone Calls

In a much talked about commercial (video below), Hillary Clinton suggests she is the person you want answering the important calls when there is trouble in the world. The dialog, “someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world”, it sounds as if she’s endorsing McCain. But after watching the commercial, I have two questions. Why is the “mom” up and fully dressed, like she just got home from work, at 3:00 in the morning? And why won’t someone answer the stinking phone?!

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Understanding Barack Obama’s Appeal

Barack Obama quickly adopted the word “Change” as his campaign slogan. The word that better describes his appeal, however, is “Hope”. Not necessarily hope in what he can do, but hope in something new.

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Everyone knows what to expect from Hillary Clinton and John McCain. We’ve seen a lot of them for the past 16 years. They haven’t offered anything unique or exciting in all of that time. They’ve complained about a lot of stuff. Told us we were bad for wanting certain things. Said we were greedy, selfish, and uncaring. And after 16 years, they both want us to get fired up over their same ol’, same ol’.

Obama is appealing to voters because there is hope he won’t tell us we’re wrong. Hope he won’t tell us we’re uncaring. Hope he’ll give us something positive to think about, something positive to think about America.

There’s a good chance that Barack Obama will push forward agendas and bills that you don’t agree with, some you will flat out not like. There’s an equally good chance he won’t be any different than the same old thing. But we know that McCain and Clinton won’t offer anything new. With Obama, there’s this chance, even if only a really slim chance, that he will be different. Voters are left looking at hope versus no hope, and they are voting for hope.

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Gridlock

During the Democratic debate last night, Barack Obama made a statement regarding pushing forward policies, “But if we can’t inspire people” Washington will still be stuck with “gridlock and nonperformance.” What Obama missed is that Washington serves us best when it is mired in gridlock.

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In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords. – Thomas Jefferson, 1798

Our system of government was designed to move slowly, if at all. Lack of gridlock allows public knee jerk reactions to sway the policy of a government.

After the 1933 general election, Hitler proposed an Enabling Bill that would give him dictatorial powers. The formal name of the Enabling Act was “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation”. This bill required 75% of the members of the Reichstag (Germany’s parliament) to vote for it. Without any gridlock in the parliament, the final vote was 441 supporting to 94 opposed.

In October, 2001, the U.S. Congress approved a bill, signed by President Bush, known as the “USA PATRIOT Act”. The acronym stands for: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.

We don’t really read most of the bills. Do you know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed? – Senator John Conyers

Conyers later answers his own rhetorical question, stating that if they did it would “slow down the legislative process”. No gridlock.

In October, 2002, The U.S. Senate approved the Joint Resolution, 77 to 23, providing the Bush Administration legal basis for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The House approved an identical resolution, 296 to 133. Regardless of your feelings towards the war, no gridlock.

No matter which side of the aisle you are on, you want gridlock. You want gridlock to prevent an emotion driven public from pushing for government “remedies” and “appropriate tools”. You want gridlock to prevent wars. You want gridlock to prevent excessive spending. You want gridlock to make sure your party is creating bills that best serve the interest of this nation, and you certainly want gridlock to prevent your opponents from passing bad legislation. Gridlock, Mr. Obama, is exactly what this country needs.

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Experience

Hillary Clinton is trying to say she has more experience than Barack Obama. John McCain is saying he has more experience than Clinton. Obama is saying that Clinton and McCain are “the same old thing”, and Clinton is saying McCain is the “same older thing”. But all of this talk about lack of real experience, who really is the most qualified to run this country? How can we know?

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I designed an experience point system to help out. The point system awards each candidate with points for the number of years in a political position. All positions have a maximum number of years where you would actually be able to gain experience. For example, state level jobs are only good for four years, as is being a First Lady, federal level jobs have a maximum of eight years, and war heros have no maximum to their potential experience points. Candidates can also gain one point for every election they win. No points were awarded (or deducted) for age.

Below is the points table I used...

     Vice-President      5/yr         max 40
     Governor            5/yr         max 40
     US Senator          4/yr         max 32
     US Representative   3/yr         max 24
     State Congress      2/yr         max 8
     War Hero            1/yr         no max
     First Lady          1/yr         max 4
     Election Won        1/election   no max

Using this formula, I calculated each of the four Presidential hopefuls.

In fourth place, Barack Obama, 47 years old, only managed to snag 23 experience points. Obama spent seven years in the Illinois State Senate, three years as a U.S. Senator, and won a total of three elections.

In third, Hillary Clinton, 61 years of age, grabbed 34 total experience points. Clinton has four more years as a U.S. Senator than Obama (but no state level experience), her experience as a First Lady under Bill Clinton, and won a total of two elections.

Surprisingly, Mike Huckabee, age 53, came in a decent second place with 47 points. Huckabee was a Lieutenant Governor in Arkansas for three years, before becoming Governor for 10. He won a total of three elections.

In first place, John McCain, who will be the oldest President ever elected at the age of 72, pulled in 55.5 experience points. McCain has been a U.S. Senator for a whopping 21 years, and was a U.S. Representative before that for a total of four years. McCain has won a total of six elections. In addition, McCain was the only one of the four to gain “war hero” points.

To really grasp the relevancy – or lack of – experience actually makes, I also tallied up some of our previous Presidents.

     George W. Bush,    age 55    27 points
     Bill Clinton,      age 47    44 points
     George Bush,       age 65    58 points
     Ronald Reagan,     age 70    42 points
     Jimmy Carter,      age 53    33 points
     Richard Nixon,     age 56    71 points
     Lyndon Johnson,    age 55    74 points
     John F. Kennedy,   age 44    63 points
     Dwight Eisenhower, age 63     4 points

Looking over the list, it becomes apparent that what can be determined as “experience” doesn’t actually matter. The greatness of the President was not at all proportionate to his actual and measurable experience.

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Only Promises

Hillary Clinton says Barack Obama is leading a campaign with little to show for his eloquence and promises. Obama only offers words, whereas Clinton offers... what does she offer again?

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Spun Dry

Have you ever read an article that was so well writeen you wanted to quote the entire thing?! Clinton’s Spin Machine: Spun Dry

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Another Exciting Election Night

Today is another primary for the Democrats and Republicans in Wisconsin (and Washington for the Republicans). The primaries for me are not a lot different than the playoffs in various sporting events. Every state’s primary is another exciting game in the playoff leading up to the big game. I haven’t really figured out what I will discuss once the election is over!

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Hey Look At Me, I’m Off Limits

The Clinton campaign has been sending Chelsea out to stump, hoping to reach the younger votes Hillary is not likely to get on her own. That’s fair. If I was running for office, Jonas would be in every photo op I could manage! But what doesn’t seem right, is how she is off limits to the press.

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To date, Chelsea has visited 20 states to help her mother get votes. She’s covered almost half of the United States to tell us how we should vote. But no one is allowed to talk to her or about her.

Fourth-grader, Sydney Rieckhoff, attempted to ask Chelsea whether her dad would be a good “first man” in the White House. According the the Associated Press, she told the boy she won’t talk to the press.

In a different incident, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster made a now infamous comment that Chelsea was being “pimped out” by the Clinton campaign. Clinton said she would not debate on the network because of it. Shuster apologized, presumably to get his job back, which apparently was not enough for the Clinton camp. And Shuster’s suspension by MSNBC sent a signal that the Clinton’s can pressure news outlets.

Leaving a candidate’s offspring alone is a well respected and widely accepted ideal by the media. However, if you choose to throw your child into the limelight in order to gain votes, don’t whine when the press does their job.

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McCain’s Running Mate

Now that it looks pretty obvious that John McCain is going to win the Republican nomination, the focus is now shifting on who he will choose as his veep. McCain has two options. He can choose a lefty, which would go along with his theory that he can reach across the aisle better than the other candidates. Or he can choose a righty to try to get back the conservative base.

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McCain could choose, say, Huckabee as his pick in an attempt to garner votes back from the religious right. (You could also substitute Mitt Romney for Huckebee.) Huckabee would be smart to accept. Short of becoming President, this is his best chance to influence the White House.

But this won’t sway enough of the religious right. As I mentioned previously, the religious right is likely to sit out since neither candidate will be for any of the issues that are important to them. A move like this by McCain might convince some to change their minds, but not all. At best, I would suggest he would gain half of the religious group.

The real question is, would this move hurt his ability to reach to the left? McCain has long argued that he is the only Republican that can get Democrats on his side. Rightly so, considering McCain is closer to a Democrat than most Democrats are. So if he makes this sudden and obvious shift towards the right, it would do two things. First, he would lose his lefty appearance. Suddenly he is no different than the typical conservative Republican candidate we’ve seen for the past 16 years. Two, he would look more like a calculating politician who makes decisions based on what gets votes. Considering he is likely to be running against Obama, he can’t afford to look like the typical politician.

The better option for McCain is an actual Democrat. Forget the rhetoric, let’s see him actually reach across the aisle and show us he means it. Considering he already has the support of one, McCain could do much better with Joe Lieberman as his running mate than any Republican he knows.

Lieberman is to Democrats what McCain is to Republicans. He doesn’t always tow the party line, which almost cost him his job. But when he lost his DNC backing, he ran as an independent and managed to keep his seat in the Senate. That shows that his support goes beyond just party politics. He convinced the voters he was the best man for the job regardless of party affiliation.

While Lieberman wouldn’t pull any of the religious right towards the McCain camp, I think he would actually pull Democrats. Possibly the Clinton Democrats who are angry with Obama for costing Hillary her shot at becoming the first woman President. The retribution vote.

McCain isn’t going to get the religious votes. But to his benefit, neither is anyone else. McCain simply needs to hang on to his kool-aid drinking Republican base and pull votes away from Obama. The only way he can do that is to become even more left than he already is.

Besides, on a less serious note, this election is all about making history. First woman, first black man, first senator to win in 50 years... why not be the first split party Presidency since the 12th amendment was ratified.

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Fading Icons of the ’90s

There are two icons of the ’90s that I would love to see just slowly fade away only to ever be revisited on a future VH-1 episode of “I Love the ’90s”, Macromedia Adobe Flash and the Clintons.

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When Flash emerged on the scene it really fired up the whole Internet. Exciting things were finally available on the web never seen before. Buttons reacted to your actions with both sounds and movement. The dead silence of the web was replaced by noisy page intros with hard to find skip buttons and music players hidden on the page somewhere. Youth oriented sites like MTV.com began to build entire 100% Flash web sites, with all the bells and whistles you could stand – and a lot you couldn’t.

But for all it offered, Flash sites were more annoying than fun after the second visit. Designers, in all their zest and zeal to make these crazy, flashy sites, forgot about User Interface conventions. The browser’s back button became useless, history was lost, and there was no way to bookmark or link to a specific page. On top of all that, the more complex your site, the longer the boring countdown loading screen.

Corporate web sites never really adopted Flash much, aside from animated intro pages, that were all later removed because visitors found them annoying. Bands, who heavily used Flash, quit building their own sites entirely, allowing mySpace to host their music and tour dates for free. Now, with (iPhone) Mobile Safari’s lack of Flash support, many users are starting to realize how useless the whole plug-in really is. Virtually every worthwhile web site functions fine without it, and the load times are so significantly better. Even MTV realized Flash made for unusable sites and reverted back to a more practical HTML structure.

Flash is fighting the inevitable, and has managed to last seven years too long. Much like the Clintons.

Bill had his day... winning his first term with only 43% support of the country. By the next election, he single handedly cost the jobs of dozens of Democrat congressmen and gave the GOP control of Congress, which they held for the next 12 years. Investigations into Clinton scandals cost the taxpayers $52 million. And 47 people associated with the Clintons were convicted of, or plead guilty to, crimes – 33 during his presidency.

But like Flash, for all the fun and excitement they brought, the Clintons were simply just more annoying than practical. And they insisted on dragging on too far into the 2000s. Buying a home in Chappaqua so she could run for the vacant seat left by the retiring Senator Moynihan, Hillary Clinton secured a seat in the Senate. And fighting the inevitable, she’s been around seven years too long.

The excitement has faded, the rhetoric has grown old and tired, and we’ve realized we can do just fine without them. It was fun while it lasted. Now it’s time, icons of the ’90s, time to fade off into the sunset.

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Who’s Disenfranchising Who?

From a story in the Associated Press, NAACP chairman Julian Bond is requesting the Democratic National Committee to count the votes in Michigan and Florida primaries. Bond expressed concerned that millions of voters could have their votes completely discounted, and went on to say it would remind voters of the “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries.”

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Bond said...

It struck me as making the voters, including minority voters in Florida particularly, victims of the Republican legislature in Florida. I wanted to get Chairman Dean to find some way to rectify the situation.

Considering that Barack Obama was not on the ballot at all in Michigan, and Clinton was the only one to campaign in Florida, wouldn’t counting those votes disenfranchise the only African-American in the race? Looking at the black votes in favor of Obama across the other states so far, it also would appear to disenfranchise the “minority voter” by only counting Clinton’s votes.

As for Bond’s comment on the “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries”, I think the real racial discrimination here was the fact that only a white woman appears on Michigan’s ballot, stealing the entire state from the first real black contender for the Presidency.

Who is Bond really trying to protect here?

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Why the Christian Right Will Let a Democrat Win

Last week Mitt Romney announced he was suspending his campaign for the Republican Nomination. His suggestion was that if he was no longer pulling votes away from John McCain, the Republicans would have a clear leader and be able to focus on defeating Obama (or Clinton if she cheats). But there are a few non-negotiables for the religious right, which Romney seems to have underestimated and McCain seems to be entirely missing. If McCain does not recognize – and address – these core values, the religious right may just sit out of the election, handing the White House to the Democrats.

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This concept does not make much sense to an outsider, someone who does not share these same convictions. But it’s actually quite simple.

The religious right, which in the current primaries has made up about 48% of the Republican voters, believe that not only is there a higher being, but there is one true God. That same God created us – we did not come from monkeys. God has blessed this country because we were a nation who believed in Him and founded it upon His values. Those values are clearly defined in the Bible. They believe that taking the life of an unborn child is murder. They believe that God defines marriage as a man and a woman, and this definition is of great importance to God. Most importantly, they believe that to ignore these principals is to remove God’s divine hand of providence on this nation.

It doesn’t matter if you believe the same or not. This is what is important to a specific, and very dedicated, block of voters.

Of the four current candidates, only one shares in these beliefs. For someone who feels that losing God’s blessing is the most important thing in this world, it doesn’t matter if the candidates believe in more welfare programs or less. It doesn’t matter if the candidates believe in getting out of Iraq or staying in longer. It doesn’t matter if we have a graduated tax or a flat tax.

In America, the vote is the one symbol we have as citizens to show our representatives how we feel. In order to send a statement to the Republicans, the Christian right almost has to sit out the election. If McCain doesn’t sincerely recognize the importance of the values they hang on to so tightly, he is the same as Obama or Clinton. McCain will lose a large chunk of voters... as well as the White House.

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Long-time Politicians

[Huckabee] didn’t name McCain, but said long-time Washington politicians have failed to solve the problems that Americans care about.

“If they could have fixed it, they should have fixed it,” he told a rally in Wichita. – Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor, Boston.com

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He also didn’t mention Hillary Clinton... but he should have. Co-President for eight years, Senator for eight years. Now she wants at least four more years. To do what? The same old thing?

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Vote Watch ’08 Update (Again)

With Romney bowing out of the race, I had to make yet another adjustment to the VoteWatch08.com scorecard. The last update was adding Huckabee onto the scorecard, since he wasn’t as far out of the race as I thought. I added him on with an easily removable perforated tab, figuring he’d be the next one to drop. Who knew it would be Romney to drop out?!

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Non-Biased Headlines

Without interjecting any of my own feelings or opinions, below are some headlines for the exact same story.

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GOP Senators Block Democrats’ Stimulus Plan – New York Times

Republicans block Senate plan to boost economy – Reuters

Senate Republicans Block Addition to Stimulus – 7online.com (ABC Local)

Senate Fails to Support Broad Stimulus Package in Procedural Vote – Forbes

Senate GOP blocks Democrats’ Bid to Add $44 Billion to Economic Stimulus Package – FOXNews

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Vote Watch ’08 Update

Like a lot of people, I thought Huckabee was done for. While Super Tuesday did not put him in the front running, he’s keeping up with Romney (while spending significantly less). So to be fair, I have added him on to the scorecard at VoteWatch08.com. If he drops out in the next few weeks, he’s on an easily removable perforated tab!

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Universal Healthcare

Being able to provide healthcare for all people... sounds great doesn’t it? Just like being able to provide education for all people. Not many people would dare say having a public education system is a bad idea. But would you really want your health system to function like our public schools? What if your doctor’s office worked like the DMV? Is there any reason to think it would be different?

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As an example, I want to offer a true story (names changed, of course).

Jennifer has an adopted son, Dylan. Dylan was born with drugs in his system, and while he is healthy, he is starting to show some issues with being able to retain certain things. Dylan went to preschool, and moved on to kindergarten. At the end of kindergarten the school determined that he should be held back because he just doesn’t know some of the things he should at this point. Dylan can’t recognize certain “sight words”, and struggles getting through the alphabet.

Jennifer expressed her concern that if he has some learning issues, Dylan won’t be any better off after a second year of kindergarten. After all, he went through preschool and kindergarten without being able to learn the alphabet. Is one more year going to help? Or will Dylan just be another year behind and still struggling with the exact same retention problems?

But it’s a public school, and they really don’t want to do much to find learning problems. See, if they diagnose that Dylan has some special education needs, they will then need to do more work. Now they need to make sure the school has an appropriate system for Dylan. It’s easier for the school to hold Dylan back than to look into any possible learning problems he might have.

Jennifer really can’t do much. Her only option is to talk to school board members and hope they are sympathetic. And all of this takes time. If the board is not helpful, she can raise a campaign and try to get them voted off the board. But each month is passing by, and Dylan is not getting any better.

Dylan is now nearing the end of his second year in kindergarten, and his teachers still don’t think he will be ready for first grade. Almost an entire year has gone by and he hasn’t gotten the help he needs.

Now imagine this system for your healthcare. What if your child is really sick, not just unable to learn. Days, weeks, and months are passing you by. Your child is not getting any better.

Currently you can buy the best insurance you can afford. And while no one is saying this system is perfect, you have options. If you doctors are not doing a good job, you find different doctors, you go to the insurance company and get them to work with the doctors.

But what if you have $500 taken out of your check to pay for Universal Healthcare? You can no longer afford to pay for your own healthcare plan. Now you have no options. Now you are like Jennifer, just hoping someone in the large bureaucracy will care enough to look into her situation before it’s too late.

Is this really the system we want?

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