A Funny Thing Happened Tonight At Target.

As I was heading towards the registers at Target, a book in the children's section caught my eye, so I picked it up and flipped through it.

The book was: Barack by Jonah Winter and A. G. Ford

I make no illusions about being a fan of Obama's - in that, I am not one - but the books written by or about him I generally have no problem with. There are a ton of political books every year, about everyone in politics, and Obama will be no different. Republicans will generally not like him, Democrats will generally like him, and the books will probably move towards further and further ends of the spectrum as his time in office draws out. There's nothing terribly surprising or alarming about that.

This book is different somehow, though. The tone of the book, for one thing, is just... odd. It very much reads like hero worship, which is weird already for a guy that hasn't even taken office or performed a single official act as President yet, but to have it in a children's book is actually sort of unsettling.

Upon first seeing the book I said it was propaganda, and at the time I meant it partially as a joke, but as I thinking about it more I think that's more accurate than I realized at the time. Why do we need books for children telling them that our new President is "lovable" (and yes, that is a direct quote from the book)? Why are we trying to influence the views children will have about a President, instead of reading them books about talking trains or brothers that solve mysteries with their detective father?

Putting the propaganda aspect of it aside for a moment, I have to wonder why we can't just let them be kids? Understand that, were I to come across a book called "W." that was about how "lovable" Bush is, I'd feel the same way, simply because I think a political figure, and especially one who has done literally nothing as President yet, is not someone kids should be looking up to.

But then you add in the fact that is, it seems, making Obama out to be the best guy that ever there was, and itends this message to be presented, without argument to the contrary, to children along side books telling them to always share and never hit and such, and propaganda seems like a really good word for it.

I may have never been more proud to be a Conservative.

A crazy thing was happening today, Friday, August 1, 2008, on the floor of the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided to end this session of Congress so they could begin their 5-week vacation... Republicans decided they weren't quite done yet. Instead of leaving for their vacation, Republican members of the House stayed on the floor to talk about gas prices.

Pelosi, other Democrats, and their aides all took this in stride, of course:

Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker's Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers.

"You're not covering this, are you?" complained one senior Democratic aide. Another called the Republicans "morons" for staying on the floor.

At times both the lights and microphones were turned off, and the cameras, which C-SPAN doesn't control, were also turned off, so no one could see what was happening. The Capitol Police even tried to kick out reports, so Missouri Republican and Minority Whip Roy Blunt came out to talk to them, thus holding off the Capitol Police.

The lights and microphones were turned back on for a short time, then back off again, at which point the Republicans cheered. They began inviting in anyone and everyone, with visitors even being down on the House floor, and members are walking up and down the isles, talking directly to visitors (which include "Boy Scouts, members of the German army, stray tourists and even members in shorts and t-shirts"), and the visitors are cheering loudly and interacting directly with the members of Congress. It's not often I wish I was sitting in the House right now listening to debates, but this is absolutely one of those times.

This is one of those times I actually feel proud of the party I belong to. This isn't something that is likely to be all over the news, since there isn't any real footage of it, and it's not something that is going to eat much of the news cycle with McCain and The Anointed One still running around out there, but I heard about it today, and a bunch of others have heard about it today, and word is slowly spreading... and now you've heard about it, too.


Edit: You can read about it in more detail, all journalist-like, here:

Clicky the linky!

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

So, Romney is out. My voting choices for November have basically come down to the worst possible outcomes: McCain, Clinton, Obama, write-in, or third party. This is seriously what it's come down to? Ugh.

Of the choices, McCain falls in the category of "lesser evil," in that he's not going to give us national health care, pull us out of Iraq "within 60 days," as Hillary said, and has a fair chance of sticking a halfway decent judge on the Supreme Court. That said, I think he may actually do more damage to the Conservative cause than Clinton or Obama would. Simply put, I think they will both be disasters, and as the most recent mid-term elections showed us, a disaster by the party in power leads to a win-fall for the minority party. McCain, on the other hand, would be like a virus working on the inside. He could really mess things up (immigration, Law of the Sea Treaty, and potentially taxes for starters), and in doing so make Conservatives even more of a minority in the next mid-term elections.

Basically, he could turn out to be George W. Bush version 2.0, a man who ran as a Conservative and turned out to be a quasi-Socialist. Thanks, Georgie.

So, as for what I'm going to do come November, I have no idea. There's a good possibility that I'm going to write-in for Fred Thompson, simply because he's the person I wanted from the beginning, and I don't know that I can vote for any of these other ass-clowns. If not the write-in, I'll probably go with Joe Smith or whatever dude-without-a-chance-in-hell gets nominated for the Constitution party. I may even vote for Ron Paul if he runs as a Libertarian, but I'm not hanging any bedsheets from highway overpasses. Sorry, Ron, I'm just not that into you.

But, let's go back to Romney for a minute. I don't know whether his being a Mormon played into his defeat to any significant degree, but I don't think it helped him much (unless you happen to live in Utah, where I believe he carried 126% of the vote). I've had conversations with people that said they would not vote for him because he was a Mormon, which simply boggles my mind. If I was voting for a Preacher-in-Chief it'd be a different story, but I don't really see what economic policy, foreign policy, or most any of the other things a President really deals with have to do with the guy being a Mormon.

And let me just take a minute to say this... have any of us actually met a bad Mormon? Sure, we've met the annoying ones at our doorstep, but even they're always nice and respectful. But they're BIG on family (because they think they're going to spend eternity with these people, so they'd better like them!), and last I checked there was nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying, though, that Mormons are not generally blowing up abortion clinics, burning crosses on front lawns, or flying planes into buildings, all of it "in the name of God." They're pretty much knocking on doors in the name of God. Ooo, scary.

Anyway.

As I've listened and watched all this stuff happen during the primary, culminating in Romney dropping out and giving the nomination to McCain (sorry, Huckabee, but you've got no chance... and you're annoying), and I've come to a conclusion:

Our primary process is effin' ridiculous. Entire states, like Texas and Pennsylvania haven't even voted yet, and won't for some time. How do you narrow the field down to 3 candidates, combined, when millions of people in cities like Philly and Dallas and Pittsburgh and Houston haven't even cast a vote yet? And why on earth do Iowa and New Hampshire have some raised level of importance? Ridiculous.

I thought at first that having a national primary vote, like we do with the national election, would be a good idea. The more I thought about this, however, the more I realized it would only make it so those with a lot of money before any voting happened would be able to really run an effective campaign. So then I thought we should do it in regions. However, there should be no more than two weeks between primary votes.

This would give candidates a chance to win a region and use that momentum for fund raising and getting their name out, like they do with Iowa and New Hampshire and other early states, but it would also ensure that far more people get to vote before people are dropping out. It would also mean the candidates couldn't focus on just one group of voters and talk about the corn problems Iowa is having or how New Hampshire isn't exporting as many widgets as they used to (seriously, does New Hampshire do anything? I can't think of a single thing that comes from there), and they'd have to focus on regional problems in their campaigning.

Mostly, though, I'd like to be able to vote for who I want, and not who is left over once Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida are done sifting through things. Is that really too much to ask?

P.S. Bonus points to the people who know what the title of this post is from. Think TV shows.

Vote for Hillary!

COMRADES!

I Won't Vote For John McCain

This is the part where being a Conservative, but not necessarily a Republican, comes into play. Fred Thompson was my candidate. Thompson had two very important things going for him:

1. He was the most truly Conservative candidate that

2. Had the best chance of being elected.

Was he perfect? No. He supported, for the most part, the McCain-Feingold Act, which I completely disagree with and believe is Unconstitutional, for example. But he was the closest to what I believe, and the man I would've voted for in the Primary, given the chance. Sadly, I wasn't.

Of the people that were left after that, it'd have to be Romney next, with perhaps Guliani after that. McCain does not appear on the list, and that is not an accident. It is because I will not vote for John McCain.

John McCain is, yes, a Republican. And the way you become a Republican is... you call yourself one. That's it. It's a very rigorous process of doing absolutely nothing but saying, "I am a Republican!" The problem with this is that it does not make him a Conservative, and that's who I'm looking to vote for.