Campaign Announcement

My fellow free-thinking, freedom-loving Americans, our democracy has turned into an idiocracy. Because of what seems to be our ardent cultural anti-intellectualism, our republic has degenerated into a nation eerily similar to the vision “King of the Hill” and “Office Space” creator Mike Judge layed out in his brilliant 2006 film “Idiocracy.”
In that movie, set 500 years in the future, America has become a nation of stupids, governed by President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, a tough-talking professional wrestler type. Unfortunately, if recent events are a sign of the path we’re on as a nation, we may not have 500 years. Have you seen that we now need the mountains to turn blue on the label to tell us when our beer is cold?
Dirty Language Alert


I guess what we’ve learned from the latest reality show disguised as our presidential election process, and specifically John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate and the ensuing hysteria, is that we have devolved into a society that believes it’s better to have one of us leading the country rather than the best of us.
My advisors and I have studied this stupefying phenomenon, and after prayerful consideration, today I would like to announce my intention to run for President of the United States of America in the year of our Barbara Walters, 2020.
We studied how both political parties went to great lengths during their respective conventions to prove just how regular their candidates are.
At the Democratic convention, there was very little promotion of Barack Obama’s success at some of the best universities in the country. I know I’m in the minority, but I want a smart guy in office.
We heard about how Sen. Joe Biden rides the train to Washington, D.C., every day. That’s wonderful. Does he have a plan for all of us to ride trains to work so we can save the environment and forget about foreign oil?
Watching the Republican convention, it seemed Sarah Palin’s only qualification is her ordinariness. Fred Thompson gurgled that Palin was the only candidate who knows how to “field dress” a moose. That’s fantastic, because I want somebody who can fit those antlers through a cashmere sweater.
We also met Palin’s son Track. Could a President named Mountain Dew really be that far off?
We seldom heard anything about how McCain was a POW for more than five years in Vietnam. Actually, we heard a lot about that.
It’s a great and heroic story, and not very relevant to the problems we face today. Just like the number of houses the very rich McCains own, unless they have the answers to our current economic troubles buried somewhere under all that real estate.
The campaigns push the average Joe-ness qualities of their candidates on us because they know the tactic works. You voted George W. Bush into the most powerful position in the world because he seemed like the guy you’d most want to drink a beer with. Not like those smart, but boring, eggheads Al Gore and John Kerry.
I will run for President on my resume of regularness, which I have lazily worked to maintain for the first 32 years of my life, and which I pledge not to improve upon for the next 12 years.
I promise, my fellow Americans, I will drink some beers with you. I can also watch some football.
It may be a little early to announce this aspect of my campaign – my surrogates and supporters say I should wait until the opportune moment in the media cycle, or at least until 2016 – but I’m selecting Clinton Mayor Randy Randall as my vice presidential running mate.
What kind of experience does our fair mayor have to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?
First of all, you already know he’s a guru on the economy, or do I need to remind you of his bald turn as Daddy Warbucks in the Laurens County Community Theatre’s production of “Annie” a couple years back?
But in 2020, as we and our three-member Coalition of the Coal Burners wage wars with every nation that refused to buy the icy oil we drill-baby-drilled through the hearts of baby seals to discover in Alaska, you’re going to ask about Mayor Randall’s foreign policy experience. Might I just offer that as PA announcer at Presbyterian College Blue Hose football games, he knows in detail the plight of the Scottish.
And on national security, there’s no one better. He’s been to Newberry.

Confirmation

"You ever had a knuckle sandwich, old man?"

photo provided by Weinstein News Service

Confirmation today from a story on Politico.com about Sen. McCain's sudden switch from respectable politician to nasty liar.
As we suspected, the campaign's message of more of the same wasn't inspiring media attention or love from the Republican base, so McCain sold his soul and his reputation to go nasty and grab some headlines.
Let's hope getting browbeat by Joy Behar on The View isn't his only penance.

Take 45 and watch our next President

Now watch my highlight of the night, Barney Smith.

It's 3 a.m.

Remember those Hillary ads that tried to scare us into thinking only she would be up to answer the Oval Office's red rotary phone and save our little white families?

Well, now we know what Barack's doing at 3 a.m.

He's texting us.

That's right. Woke up this morning to find a text sent at 3:29 a.m. that said Sen. Joe Biden is the pick for vice president.

I'm sure it won't be long before we see our first Republican ad featuring some criticism Biden made of Obama while they were still opponents in the primaries.

Remember the hub-bub about Biden saying Barack was "clean" and "articulate"?

I'm sure Obama's people saw that coming.

I like the pick. Biden's experienced, smart, tough-talking and clean.

Let's get it on.

My Endorsement

Eleven months ago – Feb. 21, 2007, to be exact – I used this space to announce my intention to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for President of the United States of America.
I was getting a little ahead of myself.
What I meant to announce was my intention to vote for Sen. Obama in the Jan. 26 South Carolina Democratic Primary as the Democratic nominee for President.
Although the stage is a little smaller, the stakes are not. And nothing has changed my mind about who is the best candidate to lead our country out of these terribly divisive times domestically and horribly troubled times worldwide.
Not John McCain being charming, funny and smart on Face the Nation with Bob Scheiffer.
Not Mike Huckabee playing bass and being charming, funny and smart on Meet the Press with Tim Russert.
Not actor Fred Thompson doing the folksy “I’m Just a Regular Guy Sitting at the Counter of a Small Town Diner Talkin’ Straight Talk” routine in his commercial.
Not John Edwards pulling his campaign up by the bootstraps and promising to do battle with the evil American corporations that are running and ruining this country.
Not Hillary Clinton crying on cue in New Hampshire.
Not Bill Clinton reverting to Hillary Clinton’s former role as paranoid conspiracy theorist on the campaign trail, whining after his wife’s defeat in Iowa that New Hampshire party officials were to blame for what he saw as her impending doom there because the state scheduled its primary too soon after Iowa. Then it was the media’s fault because they conspired against Hillary by giving Sen. Obama “a free ride” and calling his campaign “a fairy tale.”
No, only one candidate has inspired me to believe that America can be great again and moved me to give up by long-held ban on bumper stickers. And that candidate is Barack Obama.
But as a longtime Clinton family supporter/apologist, it saddens me that things have gotten so negative from their camp. Politics is a dirty business, I know, but this is how the other side is supposed to act. Not us.
Last week, on Jan. 8 at 7:58 pm, I received a phone call from an area code I didn’t recognize. I answered it and the person on the other end told me I had been selected to participate in a public opinion poll on the upcoming primary in South Carolina. I agreed to take part because it sounded like fun and I like it when people take the time to hear what I think.
First the guy asked me a couple questions about who I was supporting. I told the gentleman about my unwavering support for Obama, rating my opinion of Barack as “extremely favorable” and telling him it was “very likely” I would vote for him Jan. 26.
Then our conversation soured.
The inquisitor on the other end of the line asked me to rate how the following statements influenced my opinion of Sen. Obama. I knew something was up when an early statement said something about Sen. Obama supporting the issuance of driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants “who are stealing jobs from hardworking Americans.”
I recognized the tactic from an article I read in Vanity Fair a couple years back about how our current unforgivably inept President and his campaign managers, led by legendary leech Karl Rove, smeared American hero John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary by using, among many other dirty tricks, what they call a “push poll.”
A push poll is an old trick campaigns employ to plant misinformation about candidates and spread rumors using telemarketers disguised as researchers. But their goal is to shape, not measure, opinions.
In 2000, South Carolina voters reported receiving similar calls where they were asked, “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” I guess I would say “more likely,” but let’s get back to my personal anecdote.
The final straw of my phone call was when I was asked how I felt about Sen. Obama belonging to a black supremacist church on the Southside of Chicago. I laughed out loud, and actually, so did the guy asking the question. We both recognized it as ridiculous.
I traced the call to a telemarketing firm, Parker Consulting in Tucson, Ariz., but I know they were just paid hatchet men. I’m just depressed about who my gut tells me did the paying. As they say in the business, it’s “very likely.”

Barack in My World

Today, on the 21st of February, 2007, 622 days before the 2008 election, I would like to formally announce my intentions to vote for Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.
Now, before the distinguished Senator from Illinois and his wranglers get a hold of this week’s Chronicle and plaster this endorsement all over their campaign materials, they may want to take a look at my voting track record.
The first Presidential election I was eligible to vote in was way back in the Golden Age of 1996. I was a junior in college and fairly apathetic about the process. On Election Day, I think I pounded a couple of Icehouses and stumbled to the elementary school a couple of blocks from campus to cast my ballot for incumbent Bill Clinton. It was a great day for democracy.
Four years, a sweet little sex scandal, and a nasty impeachment later, I was living with my 80-year-old aunty Betty in Chicago while trying to make a way for myself in the Windy City. There was just no way the privileged son of a failed president was going to beat the all-powerful and extremely charismatic Al Gore, so I couldn’t be bothered to take the steps to vote absentee back home in Indiana.
I did manage to drive downtown to catch Mr. Gore at a massive rally at Daley Plaza a day or two before the election, but that was because Stevie Wonder and John Cusack were going to be there. After the rally, I had three large cups of coffee and tried to drive back to Aunt Betty’s house in rush hour traffic. It was a bad scene.
By the next election cycle, we were attacked by terrorists and fighting in two wars abroad. It was time to take politics seriously again. I was reporting for this newspaper when I heard retired General Wesley Clark (not to be confused with Laurens County Transportation Committee Chairman Niles Clark, who I would also vote for if given the chance) speak at Presbyterian College. He had not yet entered his name in the ring, but I decided he would be my guy if he ever did. He did, I voted for him in the first-in-the-South Democratic Primary, he lost to John Edwards and John Edwards eventually lost to John Kerry for the Democratic nomination.
A few months later, I voted for Kerry and Edwards in the big dance. I was inspired by neither, but was so passionate about the failures of Bush and Cheney that I felt called to my duty in the voting booth that day. It turned out to be just a prank call, though, because the greater of two evils won again.
After a decade of dispassionate voting, something exciting is happening. I’m enthusiastic about a candidate.
A couple of years ago I read Senator Obama’s book “Dreams of My Father.” It’s an insightful memoir about race, culture and identity. He wrote it long before he was considered a viable candidate for the Illinois state legislature, let alone the White House. He talks about drug use and even today he admits he inhaled. “That was the point,” he has said.
I recently started reading Senator Obama’s latest book, “The Audacity of Hope,” which is much more a carefully orchestrated political manifesto than “Dreams of My Father,” but no less insightful, entertaining or important. Lots of politicians have written or had ghost writers write books where they describe how they feel about the issues of the day. There’s just something different about Obama’s words. I can’t explain it. I actually believe him.
Now, being a good writer doesn’t qualify you to be President, but having a leader who knows how to express himself would be a pleasant change and extremely valuable if we’re going to solve new global issues with diplomacy.
Cynics will say he doesn’t have enough Washington experience for the job. I think that’s an attribute.
Some people will say, in fact have already said, “He’s not black enough” and “he’s too black.” How about that?
Curmudgeons will find any number of reasons to try to rain on Barack-o-Mania. Maybe they’re Republicans, Hillary Clintonites, John Edwardsians or Tom Vilsackiacks. Or maybe they’re just too old and jaded to feel inspired by a politician.
I’m not sure if Obama actually has a chance to win, I’m just happy I haven’t grown too old and cynical to feel inspired and hopeful. It’s a nice change.