That’s Elbert With An E

One of the Democrats running for Delaware governor, Jack Markell, has been running ads on TV recently which strike me funny. Instead of pointing out Delaware’s problems are the current leadership’s fault, it would seem that Delaware’s problems are President Bush’s fault. Uh, Jack, Minner/Carney (Democrats) run the state, not Bush. Delaware’s problems are clearly laid at their feet, not Bush.

Although with a second thought, Markell is trying to win the Democrat primary, so a little BDS works well with his party.

His ad, which has been on TV for a while, is finally on YouTube here.

There’s something very nice about political parties in Delaware. In general, it is fairly easy to get your political party on the ballot. This means that many choices are available to each voter. And for the most part, the minor party candidates are treated as candidates and not the red-headed step child of the election.

Today I thought I would be reading something about the Democrats when I saw this headline: Socialists register for Delaware ballot. Instead, it was an article about the Socialist Workers Party getting their Presidential nominee on the ballot here in Delaware. Yes, I should be able to tell the difference between the two parties, but explain the difference after you read this:

[The Socialist Workers Party candidates] represent a platform that includes active support for unions and labor groups, withdrawal of all American troops from foreign nations and citizen status for all residents of other countries now in America illegally. The group has branded American forces as “imperialist” representatives of wealthy American interests.

Well, I’ll give you this. The Socialist Workers apparently want to remove all troops on foreign soil, whereas the Democrats only want to remove troops fighting the war on terror.

Hube tells us about “thought showers“.

Brian talks about his adventures delivering pizzas.

Howard always has interesting posts on local history. This post about the old Benjamin’s Department Store reminds you of the rich treasure of local stores once dominating the our cities and towns.

Oh yeah, Howard found another blogger from his neck of the woods: What A Smell.

Average Girl writes about her gas experiment.

IMAO reports that since this week’s Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment guns have been out shooting people.

Paul provides a link to a site where you, yes you, can create your own Obama poster. Some of my ideas:

In all the discussion regarding McCain’s choice for Vice President, the names Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin come up again and again. Bobby Jindal is the current governor of Louisiana. Sarah Palin is the current governor of Alaska. Both got into office promising real reform and real change for their respective states. Both governors are conservatives. Both would be an asset to McCain, who could use all the help he can get. While it would be very cool to have either one in that position, I think it would be very bad for them.

Personally, I think both Jindal and Palin need time to make the needed changes in their own states. They need to build their resumes. It would even be good if they would encourage other like-minded candidates in other states. While the nation as a whole needs their kind in high office, we would be better served by them at a later date.

So for Vice President, I will say no to Jindal and Palin… for now (actually, doesn’t Jindal/Palin or Palin/Jindal look like a good ticket?).

On a side note, Jindal is facing some trouble with change in his own state. During his campaign, Jindal promised to veto pay increases for legislators. Now it looks like he will sign a bill allowing those raises. In this post at Hot Air, it appears that the taxpayers are revolting. So Jindal is facing the difficult choice of angering the taxpayers that voted him in or angering the legislators that will help him get his reforms through. It is one of the tests of leadership. Hopefully he will do well.

The News Journal is reporting that Republican Dave Graham is suspending his campaign for governor. As the News Journal reported:

Graham has been unable to win the favor of Republican Party leaders in both of his gubernatorial campaigns. In 2004, he was nominated at the state convention, but the nomination was not seconded. He got 6 percent of the primary vote that year, losing to Lee in a three-way race. Protack finished second. At the GOP convention in May, none of the more than 300 delegates nominated Graham for the race. The day the convention started, Graham told a live radio audience and The News Journal that he believed Lee was an alcoholic and not fit to be governor. His claims were vehemently denied by Lee and others, and the incident put Graham’s name on many Republicans’ black list.

For Graham, it’s a good move. I can’t say that it will take him off any black lists, but it may help. Mike Protack is the only other candidate that may make a primary fight for Bill Lee. Protack needs to back out considering he will loose the primary and still end up on the ballot in November for the Independent Party of Delaware. Protack is going to get what he wants because any registered voter can cast their vote for him in November. He can save that $5000 filing fee and spend it on something else.

The News Journal story is here.

Recently publisher Steven Strang wrote about a meeting with Barack Obama he and many other Christian leaders attended by invitation. Strang expresses that he was not comfortable with the meeting but curiosity drove him to attend. The “off the record” meeting included 43 leaders covering the spectrum of theological and political backgrounds. Prominent minister T.D. Jakes noted that in this AP article. Strang says that Obama took the time to meet with each one and shake their hand. Strang said that he was “warm and personable — obviously one of the reasons why people like him.”

The questions were mostly “softball” questions in my opinion. I was concerned after three or four general questions that we wouldn’t ask the most important questions. So I raised my hand and he called on me. I said, “Senator, I want to ask a question I’m sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith and why you think we should vote for you.”

Since his response was “off-the-record,” I can say that the time he took to answer was probably 15 minutes. He came across as thoughtful and much more of a “centrist” than what I would have expected. He did not appear to be the crazy leftist that is being supported by George Soros and his radical leftist friends. Sen. Obama looked me in the eye as he answered my question, almost as if it were a one-on-one interview. I had already read the chapter on “faith” in his book the “Audacity of Hope.” If you want to know how he answered the question, read that chapter. In other words, other than his demeanor and obvious attempt to win over the Christian leaders in the room, he didn’t say anything new.

If Obama seems to have an attachment to a teleprompter then his answer to the abortion question isn’t really much of a surprise. Then again, it could speak to consistency in his beliefs. I’m more suspicious myself.

It’s certainly something worth watching. Obama wishes to at least include more conservative Christians in his outreach to the church in general. McCain seems to desire to push conservative Christians aside when it’s not convenient anymore. As Strang notes in another post:

When McCain wanted and needed to win both the Texas and Ohio primaries, he was happy to get these endorsements from Hagee in Texas and Parsley in Ohio. But then when Barack Obama’s radical former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright became a controversial figure in the election, some liberals looked for controversial clergymen who backed McCain to use to blast him. They latched on to Hagee and Parsley.

Either way, if I were McCain I would be making sure that I got the Evangelical vote come November, unless he just assumes that we’ll vote for him because of our fear of the damage someone as left-leaning as Obama will inflict upon this country. Personally I wouldn’t bank on that. It’s more likely that they will stay home which to me is crazy. McCain isn’t going to make me stay home. He’s not that important. There are local issues much greater than McCain, like making sure the the Democrats don’t get more control over this state, and those will drive me to the ballot box.

Steven Strang’s blog entries are here and here.

To some friends I made this prediction about this upcoming election, and it’s worth saying here. I believe that our next president will be Jimmy Carter’s second term. For me this means whoever takes the reigns, even if it’s a minor party candidate, will royally screw up this country, guaranteeing a new president in 2012. Why is this? I look over each of the major party candidates and see many policies that are not universally popular and potentially hurtful to our economy. In addition, the two major candidates are very weak on immigration. The only candidate that is even interested in our war on terror is McCain, which might be his only strength. It would be more likely that under anyone else’s policies we would have another terrorist attack on our own soil because most act as though there is no need to fight terrorism.

I think more than likely we will be worse off in four years than we are now. One can only hope that there is a Reagan-like person somewhere out there to fix America much like in the 1980’s.