8 posts tagged “political stuff”
Dear Barack Obama,
You did it man. Tonight I sleep in a hopeful and optimistic country. Thank you and God bless you.
Your bff,
America
I have ranted about Fox News before and poked fun at them. But I seriously believe all evidence shows that they are more of a propaganda arm for the Republican Party more than a legitimate news organization. Just take a gander at this fair-use screen capture from Fox News Politics website today:
This year's Presidential election is all about change. Remember four years ago when the election theme was "stay the course". Apparently that didn't work for very long.
Just recently I have changed my support from John Edwards to Barack Obama. Edwards was great, but he is no longer running for President. And what better candidate to change allegiances to than Mr. Change himself, Barack Obama. What about Hillary Clinton? She's great, wasn't there already a Clinton in the White House? What about that moderate Republican who appeals to moderates and independents? As a conservative, McCain by definition tends to oppose change, and thus logically cannot be the change candidate. Hence, Obama is the ultimate change candidates of all remaining candidates with a chance of winning.
In the interest of change, I am now "fired up, ready to go!"
January 2nd, 2007, the phone rings. And ring, and rings, and rings. Political staffers and recorded messages bombard us with political advertising. I tell my wife, only one more day, and the madness will be over. It is in these final hours before the caucus that we bemoan Iowa's first in the nation status.
January 3rd, 2007, a half hour before caucus, my wife is getting the diaper bag ready and I start prepping little man. The final hour is nigh!
January 3rd, 2007, 10 minutes before caucus, we walk 1/2 block to the local junior high school, site of our caucus. The streets are lined with the cars of caucus goers. I should have pulled my car off the street and into my driveway to make room for one more car. Too late now, it's caucus time.
January 3rd, 2007, 1/2 hour after caucus was supposed to start, we finally get through the loooong line of caucus goers. Joe Biden's niece, Casey, talks to everyone in the line. Everyone is excited to caucus but bummed out by the line. I carry little man half the time and lament wearing my coat.
January 3rd, 2007, 1 hour after caucus was supposed to start, the line is cleared, and everyone is ready for action. We are stuffed to capacity (or likely above capacity) in a Junior High cafeteria. The heat is stifling and now I lament wearing a sweater. Little man dutifully plays with the trucks we brought him. Casey is pumping up the Biden people. Some German guys are taking pictures of caucus goers. My family supports John Edwards, but we invade the Biden people's area because they have so many empty seats. Casey is sitting at the same table as us, pumping up the few Biden folks and running their strategy.
January 3rd, 2007, 1 and 1/2 hours after caucus was supposed to start, the counting of caucus goers goes FUBAR. Everyone counts off one-at-a-time. Edwards does well, enough for 1 delegate. All we need are a few more and he can get 2. Obama and Hillary do about the same. Richardson, Dodd, and Biden do not make the cut. No one supports Kucinich (publicy).
January 3rd, 2007, 2 hours after caucus was supposed to start, Richardson and Dodd are eviscerated. They split their people between Edwards and Obama. Biden is down to a final stand of 10 people. Casey gives a great yet futile speech for support. Edwards and Obama are nearly tied with 2 and a 1/2 delegates each. Hillary doesn't quite make it to two delegates.
January 3rd, 2007, 2 and 1/4 hours after caucus was supposed to start, it comes down to a coin toss. The large haired man in charge of the caucus reads the arcane rule that if two candidates are split for support below 0.5 for the extra delegate, it shall be decided by coin toss. The coin is tossed and Edwards wins it! All cheers in the Edwards zone and then everyone starts putting on their coats. Out goes a call to stay put, there is still the boring business of picking the actual delegates and other stuff no one cares about.
January 3rd, 2007, 2 and 1/2 hours after caucus was supposed to start, my wife and sneak out the back door with little man nearly asleep in my arms. We quietly creep outside with another early leaver and then hussle the 1/2 block home. I felt bad for Casey. Despite her efforts, her uncle had almost no support in my community. I felt great for me and Edwards!
January 3rd, 2007, 11 pm., with all precincts reporting, Obama is announced the winner. Edwards was second, which is better than third, sorry Hillary. Casey's uncle drops out of the race. Kucinich vows to win even less support in the New Hampshire primary than support he didn't have in the Iowa caucus.
January 4th, 2007, no phone calls. Ahh, the serenity of the quiet. The newspaper has a picture of a defeated Biden with his niece Casey right behind him. This reminds that this presidential candidacy thing is about real people. I'm not supporting the idea of something or the notion of something, I'm supporting an actual person who may lead my country.
Huzaa to Democracy!
My wife was more interested in the speeches than I was. My job was to entertain little man. He has about a 5 minute attention span, and didn't even last through half of Obama's speech. Hillary was next and drew some big cheers. She has a lot of supporters in the crowd. Dodd was O.K., but he's no "ball of fire". After like, forever, Edwards came to the podium. My wife and I have been tentative Edwards supporters for most of the year, and from the sounds of the crowd, he was wide support in our area.
Huzaa to the democratic process!
After much vacillating, I have picked a candidate for the 2008 Presidential Election. Picking a candidate isn't easy, especially a year and a half away from the election. But one man has inspired me, that man is John Edwards. My wife was an Edwards supporter from all the way back in 2004, so she is psyched. Our little guy won't get his vote on until 2024, but he seems enthusiastic. My candidates have had some good luck lately, so I'm pretty jazzed about this.
Last night was our first John Edwards event, a town hall meeting at a local high school gymnasium. We arrived at the advertised time, 5:45 pm. and found some seats in the bleachers.
Mom entertained him with food and a Dr. Seuss book. I tried playing peek-a-boo with his jacket and then resting him on my shoulders. It was 6:30 and all seemed lost.
Then, the crowd cheered. "Whooo-oooo". Little man clapped a little off-cue, but clapped nonetheless. Onto the stage emerged . . . Dennis somebody. I didn't catch his last name.
As if on cue, right after snapping a photo of Dennis somebody, my camera broke, again. Damn you Canon! Look at that sweet view we had. It would have been great to get a few pictures of Edwards and his wife Elizabeth as they blazed the campaign trail.
But, hope was on hand. My resourceful wife had her camera phone. Just check out this beauty photo of the man in action.
Awesome, huh. My wife didn't sign up for the data plan with her wireless carrier, and why should she, they charge a fortune! So we have no way of getting her picture off the phone. This cherry shot was taken of her phone with her Canon Digital SLR. I don't know why we are loyal to that company.
Shortly after taking this picture, we headed down to the gym floor. My wife changed little man's diaper in a girl's locker room. Fortunately, little man hasn't picked up athlete's foot. Then we took turns chasing little man as he ran around the press area. That back part of the stage was full of mom's with tired babies and we all made a few friends. Little guy actually said "baby", which too us is almost more important than getting Edwards elected president.
The best part about bringing the baby is that it gives us an excuse to leave early. My wife would rather have stayed to hear Edwards in action, electrifying the crowd. I was glad that we made it to our car before everyone else left and little man went super nova on us. After we returned home, little man laid down by himself, another first! Good times.
Better pictures of Edwards can be found at his website.
Huzaa to John and Elizabeth Edwards!
Boo to Canon.
You know you have a bad U.S. President when candidates start appearing two years before the next election. It is not like talking about candidates now will get us a new President anytime sooner, but it nice to know what are options are. It is sort of like when you have a crappy car (or computer or camera or house) and start looking for something new even though you aren't ready to buy. Maybe the moral of the story is to buy better products (and elect better presidents) the first time around. Nevertheless, political campaigns have begun, in my back yard no less.
I am an Iowan. This geographic descriptor means the following:
- I like corn
- I can withstand horrific weather
- I have virtually unfettered access to every candidate for President, whether I like it or not
I went one step further in 2004; I volunteered with a campaign. Not just any campaign, the Howard Dean campaign. Thanks to extensive media coverage, we all know how that turned out. Burned by that experience, I have had little motivation to get involved again.
Though there is a huge number of decent candidates who are now running for president, I am still hesitant to get involved. Any candidate could be sunk over a misplaced word, surly veterans, or You Tube. Worse, what if a great looking candidate turns out to be a mere puppet full of rhetoric, bereft of leadership, and incapable of rational thought. This electing a President thing is pretty serious business. Who knows, maybe someone will dazzle me.
Remember that big election last week when the Democratic party broke the Republican hold on the United States government? Well, I did my small part to useat the effete bureaucracy that bungled a war and mispent our tax dollars. I put up signs.
Putting up a few signs might not sound like much, but look at the results. All three of these candidates won.
That guy with the blue sign, Leonard Boswell, was running against a serious money machine to retain his seat in the United States House of Representative. My land-line was deluged with prerecorded messages about how bad a guy Boswell, or the "Boz" as I never say, allegedly was. I also received many, many mailings from the Economic Freedom Fund. Hours upon hours of negative television ads, www.kcci.com/video/10116099/index.htm?taf=des, were even unleashed. They were a tainted blur as I fast forwarded through them on my DVR. Yet, for all the millions spent to unseat Boswell, those efforts were no match for my incredibly persuasive signs.
Credit also goes to my wife. She originally collected the signs and
then helped me design the three tiered placement. She also endured
many a phone call while I was at work.
I didn't just rely on my yard signs. Of course, I also had a window stickie on my car. Apparently the majority here in Boz country have had enough. It sure is nice to be in the majority. Maybe that can be the tag line of my next window sticky, "Be in the majority for a change! Vote Democrat in '08".
The question after the election became how long do I leave up these powerful signs? If I leave them up too long I would be gloating. But if I took them down too soon it would look like I was embarrassed to have them up in the first place. I decided that one week was sufficient to show my continued support of the Boz and his friends without rubbing the victory in the faces of the minority who voted against them.
I am keeping all the signs for the next election; waste not want not. The window sticky might come in handy in the race of 2106. Hopefully, the Democrats will fund research that will allow me to live that long. Otherwise I will have to hope that my grandchildren (or great grandchildren) vote Democrat.
By the way, I have a tip for the Economic Freedom Fund (who I like to call EFF), if you EFFers stop spending your EFFing money on those EFFing fliers, you will have more EFFing money for your own EFFing economic freedom. After receiving the dozenth or so flier, I e-mailed the EFFing group and let them know how much I appreciated their calcifying my support of the Boz. I'm just that kind of rebel.
