Campaign Droppings XVIII

Doing My Part(y)

In the last iteration of this blog, I suggested reasons why John McCain could win the election. Here are two more:

1) Thanks to the cockroach McCain would succeed as cowboy-in-chief, the voting public is irreparably divided, such that there is no chance that even if Obama wins would it be by a landslide – a landslide in presidential politics anything 55 percent or more. Because of the Reconstruction-like division of the people, the worst Republican anyone could imagine has a chance of becoming vice president.

2) Feeling like a political free-rider content to write an occasional check, I was cajoled by a sweet voice on the phone to actually do something; so on Tuesday morning I will drive a couple of hours to Pennsylvania and either drive people to the polls, make calls or knock on doors. If I am required to actually come face to face with a voter, this could add a fraction of a point to McCain’s total.

Dumb as a Refundable Coke Bottle

Sarah the Numbskull has been saying that Obama’s plan to offer a refundable tax credit to low-income workers is proof he is a socialist, or at best a redistributors of the wealth, “refundable” meaning you get it all even if you don’t have to pay taxes.

For all her talents, she has the consistency of school cafeteria jello. Psst, Sarah? The McCain-Palin “health care” plan is based on a refundable tax credit.

Hey, McCain? You wanted a maverick? Now live with her!

Like you did with your first wife.

Is She Good for the Jews?

Another Reaganite, former presidential chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein, has come out for Obama. Last week, neocon warmonger Ken Adelman did so. Earlier, former Reagan Solicitor General (and until recently McCain legal adviser) Charles Fried flipped to Obama. As did former Republican Rep. Claudine Schneider, and the libertarian son of right-wing economist Miltion Friedman. As did former Reagan intelligence adviser Rita Hauser.

They claim any number of reasons, but I am certain they, like other Jewish Republicans, are terrified of Sarah Palin, her witch-doctor pastor and the anti-Semitism hovering around her like the ghost of Hamlet's father.

Maybe Joe the Traitor of Connecticut eventually will see the light, as the others have, and remember there may well be an afterlife. If he doesn't, one can hope he will feel the heat. For the rest of eternity.

Let ‘Em Eat Grits

In its final days, the Bush administration is recklessly rewriting regulations that even a more heavily Democratic Congress will be hard pressed to overturn. Among them is tightening the requirements for using the “Family Leave” Act.

As with so many other Democratic-inspired pieces of legislation – the eight-hour day, child labor laws, food and drug safety, Social Security, the GI Bill, Medicare, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, the child-care credit, Pell grants – many middle-class Americans with lower-class minds live better lives and then persistently vote for Republican tax-cutters.

If I had my way, I would refuse any federal service to people who earn less than $50,000 a year ($100,000 per couple) and vote Republican on economic grounds. Let ‘em eat grits.

Undecided

I remain undecided on how to vote on a state constitutional question on my ballot next Tuesday.

It would allow for early voting and “no-excuse” absentee ballots. Democrats love these rules, now in effect in a majority of states, because it presumably allows more low-income people and/or people concerned about election thievery to exercise their rights.

But I don’t like it. Rules are rules. It’s like when one of my football heroes, Boomer Esiason, said after losing a close game, “If we had five more minutes we would have won.”

I had thought the voting day was set by the Constitution. Actually it is set by Congress, although every state must have the same day for voting, presently the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. Voting is one of the last communal events in our culture. If you are going to be out of town, or are an invalid, absentee ballots sent out on a certain date and returned by a certain date, are required.

But why let people vote before the “game” is over? What you have in Ohio now is, instead of post-election vote theft and court cases, is a floating judicial crap game that lends itself to perhaps more chicanery than the stealing of votes on a single day when bipartisan poll judges can blow the whistle.

If you can vote early, how early is good? If you can vote early, why not be able to vote late, on grounds something could happen on the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday after the first Monday that could change your mind?

Rules are rules. Everybody who is in town and healthy should have to vote on one day (with times extended in case of bad weather or long lines) and anyone caught tally tampering should be executed. All on the same day.