Category: Politics

I have to say, it’s exciting to be a Texan this week. This is the first time in my life that my vote, a primary vote no less, might actually be significant in a national election.

Continue reading One Texas Primary Vote for Sale

Tonight, Huckabee appeared on SNL, confirming the fact that he (and his campaign) are a total joke.

…And for a minute there I thought we were going to see the very first concession speech on late-night TV.

It’s BARACK – BA’-ROCK – not “Brock”.

It’s Clin-Ton, not Clin-uhn (i’m guilty here)

It’s EAR-rock, not EYE-rack

It’s EAR-ron, not EYE-ran.

(those are easy to remember, think ears not eyes)

Bonus round: it’s Ahk-meh-din-i-jad. All together now… Ahk-meh-din-i-jad. Negative points will be issued for skipping syllables.

If we’re going to be living with these people for the next 8 years, we might as well get it right.

I have restrained my political postings lately, so I figure it was time to give a quick political update.

Mitt is out.  Whaaa… but I know… we, his supporters, saw it coming eventually.  His actual chances were very slim, and I was even more terrified that if he won the nomination, the Democrats would paint him as a republican version of Flip-Flopper John Kerry and discourage his own party’s base.  Which is exactly what they’ll do to McCain, too.  Yes, it appears the Republicans will continue to implode in the years to come, losing more and more power in Washington, until the public gets sick of the Dems and switches back to the Reps.  (Let’s hope it doesn’t take as many years as the last time they were in power)  I don’t really see any way the Republicans win in the fall, even if there is a national security event.

So lets talk about the Dems:

I was reading an article last night about Hillary’s campaign manager stepping aside, and I thought… hmm… you know Hillary is the first candidate (since maybe “Ike”?) to actively campaign with her first name only.  This is actually important on many levels.

In case you didn’t notice, Hillary is a woman.  And in marriage, she took Bill’s name; a name which truly isn’t totally hers.  Using the name Hillary more accurately represents the woman she’s been her whole life, and disassociates her with “Clinton” ties.

Then there’s the personable-ness of it.  For the candidate with the highest negatives, and the one who people largely feel is cold and uncaring, being on a first-name basis actually works to break down those barriers.  Everyone calls her just Hillary.  I’m not sure there’s been a more famous one-word celebrity since “Prince,” and certainly not in Politics.

For Obama and McCain, her chief rivals, they need only keep the image alive as Bill back in the White House.  This is the one image that makes me personally sick.  I could live through a Hillary Presidency, but having bill traipsing around the East Wing of the White House just makes me quite ill.

In contrast, I look at Obama’s family.  They are just cute as buttons.

I kind of hope that Obama wins the Democratic Nomination.  It would make this November SO much more palatable.  The last thing I want is an all out McCain vs Clinton Old School showdown.  Two old school party hands duking it out so (as Romney put it) they can all go back to Washington just to sit in different seats (and I would add) still get nothing done.

I still can’t say that I would support Obama.  I spent a good deal of time on his website, trying to understand his platform and realistically project what he might accomplish in the next 4 years, given the realities in Washington. He doesn’t spend much time stumping on issues.  Instead, he opts to get the electorate fired up, and then those few Americans who actually care about issues have to go do their own research.

Here are the positives:

• He says he will keep the Bush tax cuts for everyone who makes less than $250,000 (that’s me)
• He supports network neutrality and an open internet.

Negative:

• He doesn’t appear to believe in open market solutions for helping our economy.
• Wants to give people federal grants (my tax $) to refinance their sub-prime mortgages.

I’m still on the fence…

• Wants an immediate draw down of troops from Iraq.  This was a deal breaker for me, because his language had seemed too absolutist, and too anti-war.  This is my same problem with President Bush.  He was too absolutist and unable to articulate the nuance of our current world conditions. However, last night on 60 minutes, when Obama was asked, “what if the situation gets dramatically worse” or “what if sectarian violence gets out of control” his response was, “I always reserve the right as commander in chief to make a military change of strategy.”  This was the even-handedness I was looking for.  We need a Commander in Chief who will end our involvement in these conflicts without allowing the collapse of these fragile governments.
• He has an OK education policy, but I would prefer to see a performance based salaries program for our teachers.
• Doesn’t include deportation as part of his immigration policy, and doesn’t explain how he will legitimize the need for foreign workers. A very incomplete platform here.
• Supports a “National Health Plan” which is basically turns the federal government into an insurance company, which subsidizes those who can’t afford the premium.  People can still own their own private insurance, or apply for the ‘government cheese.’ I’m not putting this in a negative column (yet) because I like the idea of private insurance having compete with low-cost government insurance (even though this could put insurance companies out of business since the gov’t is using tax dollars to subsidize its program).  This still doesn’t address the fact that the government IS the problem in health care today, and they are the primary organization (through Medicare, regulations, and beaurocracy) who are driving the cost of health care up.

So I know this blog was a little ramble-y and fragmented, but I think that reflects my current feelings over the political landscape.  I’m a little lost right now, with no one to guide.  I’m like a boat on the water… blah blah blah…

It’s official: the republican base is in a panic.

Those reading the political tea leaves are all calling John McCain the “front runner” now for the GOP nomination heading into Super Tuesday. Rudy bowed out of the race and threw what little support he has behind John McCain (hoping for a VP nod, who knows?)

Real conservatives out there are in a quandary and conniption (both words I spelled wrong… thanks spell checker…). They hate McCain. A lot. In fact, many would rather vote for a Democrat than McCain.

My main problem with McCain is that he trashed my guy, Mitt. Sure Mitt did his share of attack ads, and is seen as cold and unknowable by the others in the republican field, but McCain is an attack dog with a temper. Mitt stuck to the issues, while McCain just lied about him and made personal jabs.

I currently hate McCain because he’s smarmy. I hate his pretend grin. I hate the way that he calls everyone “my friend,” especially in a moment when they aren’t being very friendly. I hate his haughty, glib attitude that can only come from serving for as many years as he has in the US Senate.

In my opinion, Romney is still the best guy for the job, and with the economy continuing on a crash course, he’s the only one on either side I would trust to pull us out of this financial disaster. McCain has admitted his strength is in foreign policy and not on economic matters. Duh… it’s really easy to be the world’s biggest saber rattler! But try being a good economist… not so easy.

So what happens if there’s no Romney Rally on Super Tuesday? What will I do? I have been thinking about this question since Tuesday evening. Could I in good faith support a McCain candidacy? I do claim to be a moderate, and so I shouldn’t have too much to hate McCain over, besides my bruised ego from him beating my guy up.

So the conclusion I came to is: taxes. Whichever candidate I feel like will keep my taxes the lowest, I will end up voting for. As I wrote earlier this week, we’re all pretty much agreed on the problems our nation faces, but I want the government to provide market-based solutions and to tax me as little as possible to make them happen.

And I’m no idiot… no politician would be caught dead saying they would raise taxes in an election year and during this economic uncertainty. So it’s back to the tea leaves and crystal ball, I guess.

So whether that candidate is a republican, democrat, independent, green, libertarian, or even whig, they are getting my vote this fall.

Last night, President Bush gave his last State of the Union speech. The pundits and politicians are abuzz with how it did or didn’t meet what is expected of such a speech in an election year, where much of the public’s attention is turned to candidate promises, and not as much on congressional action.

In short, this whole year will be a basic waste of time for our government.

So what is the real state of our union? Frenetic.

We are all running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We have a serious economic situation, but rather than having a ‘come to jesus’ moment and accepting the losses and bursting of our housing bubble, many just think the government should just fix it.

You don’t fix a leaking bubble by just pumping more air into it. You have to fix the leak.

The most convincing part of the speech for me was somehting he has had a lot of practice with: explaining and reinforcing his unpopular foreign policy stance. He convincingly stated our world role in defeating radical Jihadists and promoting moderate governments in middle eastern and Islamic countries. His rhetoric about the current state of the middle east, with the wind of the successful Iraq surge in his sails, was actually optimistic and forward looking. In a way it was a challenge for the next President, “Don’t screw up the gains we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

But despite our recent success in this area, the frenetics in our country still won’t shut up. “Pull out!” “Pull out!” they scream from their easy chairs, when they have no idea what that even means. America, get used to the idea of us having a large presence in the middle east for a much longer time. Even if we take our military off the streets and take our posture from an offensive one to a defensive one, we will still have thousands of troops in Iraq for many years to come. Get used to that idea.

Strangely, I observed much less partisanship on the basic issues than there has been in the past. I think most everyone agrees we have to do something about the cost of health care, the future bankrupting of social security, illegal immigration, and even global co2 emmissions. Everyone seems to agree that these things need solutions, but the actual solutions are what we can’t seem to agree on.

Part of this is, again, due to frenetics in our politics. People are more concerned with being right than doing right. Some of these problems are so complex and their ramifications are so deep that there is no clear ‘best’ solution, but there are certainly good and better ideas that could be tried.

Making no decision is oftentimes worse than making a less than perfect decision.

With so much focus on the election and primaries, I almost forgot President Bush was there. But last night was a good opportunity to reflect on what he’s done in the last 7 years. While I don’t agree with every policy of his administration, and some of the tactics and secrecy, I still admire him for his strength of character. It is extremely lonely at the top, and he has handled himself gracefully, on principles, despite his abysmal approval rating. You always know what you’re getting with President Bush.

I only hope that our next President is someone with similar principles and integrity. Because mostly, I just want to know exactly what I’m getting into for the next 4-8 years.