Blather, Banality, and Pablum V.1.0

I am late to be blogging about the campaign. I realize there are hundreds if not tens of thousands of blog posts already out there that have said much the same things I am writing here tonight, but these are my words and it is my blog, so that makes it original. I needed some time to get fed up with the whole lot of them. My friends at NPR have to take some of the credit for that, they fill the airwaves with endless prattle about the Primaries, all day, every day. Here are my thoughts about the candidates.

Hillary Clinton
I can hardly stand to listen to this woman speak. She reminds me of a stereotypical nagging wife or mother when she speaks. This may be because she is likely both. I can overlook how she sounds in the radio speakers or on T.V. if her message makes sense, and it doesn't.

I have a long standing negative bias against Hillary, because of her history in the White House with Bill. I didn't share the joy for the eight years she and her husband were in office. I worked hard, had good times and bad, and lived my life. I did not get rich, I didn't suddenly get subsidized health care, I didn't buy an SUV with all the abundance that the Clinton's supposedly brought our nation. I just hung in there and lived, much the same way I did when George the 41 was in office. It just doesn't matter that much. I never thought a couple from Arkansas were terribly qualified to be the President and First lady, I mean have you ever been to Arkansas? I remember thinking she was a parody, trying to legislate by her husbands side. It was novel for awhile but became very annoying. I don't know anyone who voted for Hillary. Now is our chance apparently.

I could go on about her husbands bad traits but he is not running again (ostensibly anyway), no, this is about Hillary Clinton, and there is no way I could support her. Besides being way too liberal for my tastes she seldom has a good idea in her head, at least based on what I hear her say. What I hear her say is whatever the voters want to hear. Today she was in Ohio, speaking to a group of Union workers. The sound byte went something like this "This election isn't about words alone, but work, lots of hard work to get America working!" (sic) This brought the obligatory waves of adulation and cheers from the assembled group. I just rolled my eyes, how can you fight platitudes with another platitude. I would also like to point out that unemployed auto workers in Youngstown notwithstanding, America stands at around 5% unemployment. Every freshman economics student knows that is easily considered full employment. She also went on to say she had a plan to help our sub prime mortgage foreclosure stricken state. Hillary wishes to put a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days. Well that is fine Hillary, how exactly do you plan on forcing a private institution to not reclaim it's property. I am sorry for the families that got into trouble with mortgages way over their head, but I fail to see how the government can interfere like that. I doubt it is legal to step in and say.. "bank you cant get your money back on a bad loan because Hillary passed a law that says you cant". The only government solution I can think of is a huge subsidy so the bank doesn't go out of business waiting to get it's money back. I almost hope she is the nominee, just to see how far out in left field the Democratic party can get.

John McCain
I have a conservative attitude regarding many issues, not all of them as you know from previous blogs, but typically a conservative makes more sense to me. I do not like John McCain much, it would seem he is the only choice left for the other side of the aisle. Old John doesn't know what he is, he has frequently said whatever needed saying at the time to garner favor, even throwing his supposed conservative values under the buss in an effort to seem more moderate and appeal to the vaunted "swing voter" or Independent. Maybe John was trying to seem more palatable to liberals, so they would save some mud for each other and not sling it all at him. Then there is the way he speaks, John McCain sounds like an Episcopal minister. He sounds exactly like a dottering ederly clergyman, explaining how the love of God can save my soul. Either that or Mr. Rogers, "..I can fix the economy, can you say economy? We will win the war in Iraq. Now, are you ready to go to the land of make believe?.." Once again not a good choice.

What about a leader? What about someone who gives Americans some credit and chooses not to say any old thing that seems right at the moment. Is it really so hard to carefully think out a platform, believe in your mission, then LEAD people to think the way you do? What about giving us real choices and ideas instead of pablum and noise.

Tomorrow I will pick on Obama and Huckabee, and yes W. even though he isn't running, he finally deserves some barbs from me.

This is day 6 of my ongoing attempt to write a blog every day for 30 days.