Thursday, January 24, 2008

Fickle Finger of Fate - Political Update


The Clintons are wearing out their welcome with the Worldview. I was a buyer when Hillary was selling competence and toughness, with a communitarian theme. But the dynamic Yalie duo has turned to nastiness and blatant distortion in trying to avoid defeat at the hands of nice-guy Barack Obama. This only makes the Clintons look like chickens, squawking in fear so loudly that it is giving me a headache.

Bill should be a little more careful about waving that finger at people. We've seen that act before, and seeing it again only makes people wonder where that finger has been recently. He's so shrill about Obama that he seems to have gone a little crazy.

Obama's latest act of indiscreet honesty was to reflect that Ronald Reagan was a "transformative" President. Well, duh. Of course he was. Reagan rebuilt the American military after it's post-VietNam decline, instituting a zero tolerance drug policy that turned out to be a huge morale builder, and giving us the military that we have today. Along with Paul Volcker, he helped to turn around our terribly stagflated economy, by stabilizing the money supply and letting interest rates float instead, cutting taxes and completely overhauling the tax code. Not everyone remembers, but America was feeling pretty low before Reagan got elected. We thought the Japanese were going to outperform us economically and were prepared to accept the Soviets (look it up if you don't know who they are) as our military equals. Reagan turned all that around.

Reagan also had big faults. He ran up a huge federal budget deficit, ignored people dying of AIDS, pandered to racist politics, and took a big dump on the environment. Bad stuff, but no different than a lot of other politicians today.

Hillary is twisting Obama's words intentionally. That is a smear. It's wrong. I'm not going to vote for her because of it.

I might vote for Obama, or I might not. I might vote for McCain. McCain is the only Republican I've ever voted for. If it's Hillary vs. McCain, I'm going with McCain. Edwards - I just can't figure out why he's qualified. If it's Obama vs. McCain, I'd have to think about it.

Huckabee has a sneaky mean streak that is starting to show. He's also pandering to religious bigots to undermine Romney, and to racists in South Carolina, where he defended the Confederate battle flag. As a Southerner, I'm sick of people assuming that all of the white people here are racists. We are not!

Giuliani has a blatant mean streak that is so out there I cannot believe the press hasn't ID'd him as an obvious sociopath. And he brings a psycho wife to boot. Hopefully he'll tank so badly in Florida that we'll never have to see his ugly, nasty mug again.

Romney, of course, has the best mug. But everyone says people don't like him. Who doesn't like him? I like him fine. He's smart, accomplished, faithful to his wife, and doesn't drink, smoke, or swear. I wish he had some national political experience, but I'd feel fine if he won.

There is something about Obama, though. He might just have the magic. You know, like Reagan, only better.

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