Politics--The first shot

Well, tomorrow we should find out if Senator Clinton can beat Senator Obama to face Senator McCain for President.

In history, it was in March that the Romans discovered that Senator Julius couldn't beat Senator Brutus or Senator Cassius for Emperor. (ok, Caesar was a proconsul). It is interesting that Senators tend towards dictators?

Anyway, has anyone noticed the latest problem for the Obama campaign? Supposedly one of his advisers met with a Canadian somebody, and assured them that all of his talk about protectionism and trade was just to get elected.
(Protectionism means placing restrictions or taxes called tariffs on imported goods. The idea is that you tax goods that could be made cheaper outside the home country, to keep local jobs competitive. Figure that the clothes you are wearing were probably made by someone who makes 1/10 what an American worker would make. Add a tax to raise the wholesale costs by a factor of 10, now you can choose to buy American or foreign at the same price.)

Back to the story: Of course, given the jobs that Ohio and other Midwestern states have lost overseas, Senator Obama's campaign has denied saying any such things. However, if it's not just talk, why don't we hear from Senator Obama a definite statement. Something like, "As President, I will withdraw the US from all treaties that prohibit protecting American jobs with tariffs or regulations, including NAFTA"? At least Senator Clinton has, whether foolish or not, stated she supports free trade. Senator Obama seems to be for it some of the time and against it other times.

Side note: It's not NAFTA's fault these jobs went overseas. Remember the runaway earnings and stock values of the late 1990s? Where so many people in America got rich in the stock market? It wasn't just new technology companies that exploded in value, it was old-school businesses. And how? By cutting labor costs to increase their profits. By putting Americans out of work and out of insurance to build factories overseas or across borders without environmental regulations. Who profited? Any of us with mutual funds. All of us who shop at Wal-mart. We did this to ourselves, demanding higher returns from companies we never worked for, for work we never did.

So, now Senator Obama is in the unenviable position of having to be either for or against something. We'll see what he does. And we'll look at him more in later politics posts.

To be fair, Senator McCain isn't having the easiest time right now. Someone has questioned the Constitutionality of him as president, since he wasn't born in the US. However, the US Constitution, Article II, Section 1 states that the president must be either a "Natural-born Citizen," which, by law, children born to US citizen parents are, or have been "a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution." Either way, I think he's covered.

And now, to make sure she isn't left out, Senator Clinton still thinks she should be President. And why not? Well, it could be because she's scary or because after 20 years of Bush-Clinton-Bush, tacking at least 4 more Clinton seems very unlike a representative democracy. Personally, I think she is falling to the secret ballot. That's right, the secret ballot is killing her candidacy. Poll many Americans, and they'll say they don't doubt that a woman can be president. Poll 100 Texans in line tomorrow, and you would not get one to go on camera saying that the President should be male. Then count the votes, and realize that a good 75% of them may think so, but won't vote so.

Aside: Given that the majority of countries that are hostile to the United States are run by extremely sexist regimes or religions (Iran, China, North Korea, Syria, Fundamental Islamic Terror), I don't think that our country would be taken seriously with a female president without fighting more wars than we do now. She'd have to show that she was just as tough as any man, and just as willing to throw you down and kick you. That is one thing, having grown up in Arkansas when Bill was the Gov, I believe Hillary Clinton could do. Which I was I doubt that all of these women who supposedly had affairs with Bill actually did. Either he or they would not have survived.

I almost forgot my fellow Ouachita grad (read it Wash-it-aw), Governor Mike Huckabee. True, he's probably not going to win, but at least he's no quitter like that Mitt Romney fellow! Would Mike have been a good Pres? I don't know. I do know him, and have generally found him to be an honest and reasonable person. Some folks have said that being governor of Arkansas doesn't qualify one to be president, and it would have been interesting to see Huckabee vs. Clinton this fall. She would have been hard-pressed to play that card.

Anyway, whoever wins, it's just a holding pattern. Check back here for updates on:

Doug for President, 2012!!!!!