Funny moment on the campaign trail…really.
On the way back from the grocery store this morning at about nine thirty:
I saw a big motorcoach…looked like a tour bus to me.
Why in the world is a tour bus here? I thought….to see the well known Subway shop? The long lost CVS pharmacy….?
Oh, wait…It’s not a tour bus…is it. No. (That’ll teach me to go out without my glasses.)
Of course it was the campaign bus of the presidential candidate I did not vote for.
Just for a brief moment, I considered the trajectory of my power wheelchair a collision course, and the back bumper of the bus. I wouldn’t have done it. Really, really wouldn’t have done it.
So I just kept rolling by on the sidewalk.
I couldn’t resist a glance inside the phone banking center the bus was obviously visiting though. A lot of Very Important Special People were inside. Couldn’t really see them but by their clothes and the working TV cameras someone was being interviewed or waiting to be so…there were rally signs outside that didnt relate to the Presidential campaign…there was obviously going to be a rally someplace where supporters were going to chant about one candidate being “Their guy for the Senate” and the other being a job killing loser, etc.
The cameras were facing me as I rolled by. I just hope they weren’t on. I don’t want the rumpled early morning shot of me looking both stupid and astonished to be my fifteen minutes of fame.
Up or Down Vote
In my Ohio apartment complex, a subsidized building for persons with disabilities, many of my neighbors are of a different politics than myself. There are also many who have similar views to my own. I want all my neighbors to be able to vote, and have their votes counted…
I went through the process of requesting a mail in ballot, in case there’s a blizzard on election day or something, that would make me rolling my power wheelchair five minutes to my polling place problematic. Before I decided to do that I got a weird yellow form from the Secretary of State (had his seal and name on the envelope and “Secretary of State” as the sender… advising that my precinct may have moved and I may not be shown as a registered voter or have a different precinct. I checked, by phone, with the Lorain County board of elections. They verified that 1. I showed as registered. and two. my precinct had not changed. They also advised they were sending me a mail in ballot request directly. I provided a copy of my state ID as requested and sent back the mail in ballot request timely. As of yet I have not received my mail in ballot. Others have. I hope we can/have all our votes count.
If I don’t get the mail in ballot…
Mine will have to be a provisional ballot, cast in person at my nearby precinct on election day which will not get counted until after the election.
It also appears that a friend of mine who just moved to Ohio and was able to register at the BMV on time had her registration request “lost” at the BMV.
I don’t like conspiracy theories, so I’m not espousing one.
I also don’t like opportunities to exercise one’s right to vote going missing.
I think it’s coming from an insular place
Connected to Mr. Romney’s belief system. Yep, Mormons do have missionaries that bring new meaning to the word pesky. But once you’re in… (as also true in many other belief systems)
I’m not accusing all Mormons of being insular. That would be patently false…
It’s the construct of the belief system and it’s administration…First, very top down, even though any man can be in the priesthood…the directives leave little room for adapting to “conditions on the ground” in any situation. The “No non-Mormons at weddings”rule…He was heavily involved in that system, and then became a CEO…
A central part of the bio we do know about the candidate makes clear that his church is a huge part of his life…so it’s not unreasonable to infer that some of the character of the belief system is expressed in how he runs his life, his businesses, his campaign.
He’s resistant to most forms of outside inquiry, of pressure to change, is secretive about his tax returns.
There’s a resonance there, to the authority in the Mormon church being worked out behind closed doors.
An argument can be made: What about Harry Reid? He doesn’t have the appearance of a guy who is secretive, most comfortable with behind the curtain power….maybe it just proves that different folks can take completely different things away from the same religion.
After all, more conventional forms of Christianity range from militancy to social-justice heavier versions…
But I really don’t want to think of the guy as intrinsically evil. I had eight years of believing that about a Republican President, and if he gets in, I’d rather he just be a leader I can disagree with on policy, disagree with on social issues…but trust that he doesn’t have bad intent.
But if I believe the secrecy is purely intentional, purely cynical…that the remark about the 47 percent reflects that he really believes nearly half the country are dependent losers…that he really believes the timing and content of his remarks on the Libyan terror attack were fine and dandy…
I don’t want a guy in the White House with open contempt for being examined by the electorate and the media during an election year.
So I hope the “inelegant” speech and the keeping many things close to the vest come from his takeaway from Mormonism. It’s more palatable.
Everybody has predictions…
I say Romney will be the Republican nominee. Regardless that both Romneycare and The Affordable Care Act require an individual mandate. And regardless of how many Evangelicals are still made uncomfortable by Romney’s Mormonism.
Pawlenty will give him a run for his money.
I have no idea who either will choose as VP.
Michelle Bachman might pull off a third party thing. This would have been Sarah Palin’s niche a few months ago…it seems odd to see Michelle Bachman eclipsing her, but that’s what’s happening.
And Ron Paul’s fanbase will be a spoiler in the primaries, as per usual, and then they’ll choose to stand behind one of the remaining front runners.
Rick Santorum
Newt Gingrich
Sarah Palin
not actual contenders, in my opinion.
I would have been vastly entertained by a Palin/Bachmann ticket, but nobody’s playing this for it’s entertainment value.
And more from the land of
I’m as clueless as they come, because I’ve left any of my clues in an alternate universe…
“Oh wow, I’m running for president” Santorum… has said something that I believe is the second dumbest falsehood I’ve heard all month.
From Yahoo news, not some partisan site:
While discussing John McCain’s speech on torture Santorum indicated, “he (McCain) doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works…”
Oh. My. God.
Does Santorum know about the brutal treatment McCain underwent?
Does Santorum know that the recent speech was about info McCain asked for and received from the director of the CIA?
I’ll bet he does and doesn’t give a ****. After all he just came from working on Fox News.
Does Santorum think the present director of the CIA is as credible as “slam-dunk” Tenant was?
You know, the present director involved in the mission to get UBL?
Well, it might have been in the back of Santorum’s head someplace because he did try to walk it back a few minutes later.
“Maybe McCain has better information than I do…”
Ya Think? Really? Personal experience and better information, you barking idiot.
I may have disagreements with McCain on most other policy matters, but I am lost as to how someone in his own party can question his veracity about torture, or his current information request (very reliable IMO.) and how his past experience informs uh, the facts about the “value” of enhanced interrogation.
And I say again, throwing up my hands…not using any bleeding heart arguments…the minute we crossed the line in this series of wars and started torture and rendition, we opened up the way for our enemies to feel they have more room to use this stuff against our troops, the young men and women fighting for us. They might have hesitated before, but sure not since we began using “enhanced interrogation” That’s a win?
I can’t believe the Republican bench is so light that they’ve had Santorum, Newt, and God save us, Trump…in the running for the nod.
Midlife And Treachery 
