All Posts Tagged With: "election"

Stranahan says, “John McCain can turn the economy around…he’s done it before!”

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Lyrics: Continued

Politico reports that the RNC sent out this bulletin yesterday:

“The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports Barack Obama ate popcorn and watched the 3:40 showing of the Dark Knight in theater 9 yesterday.”

Seriously? This is worthy of a bulletin? It is if you’re desperately grasping for straws for anything to smear your opponent with. Jonathan Martin explains:

Seeing a summer action flick and eating popcorn is hardly elitist, but wait, there is more.

Obama has said, the RNC hastens to note, that Batman and Spiderman are his favorite superheroes, citing their “inner turmoil.”

Ahh, there it is.

Real, red-blooded Americans, evidently, are only supposed to like superheroes because they have nifty outfits and beat up the bad guys. To look beyond the surface or glean some larger meaning from the characters naturally implies Obama has the sort of egghead end effette approach to life that would leaad us to analyze our enemies instead of defeat them.

Or something like that.

It would be easier if he just went wind-surfing.

Let’s forget about the issues. Let’s concentrate all our energy on the innuendo. That’s what helps elect the best person to be the leader of the free world. It’s worked well in the past two election cycles, right?

UN—[CENSORED]—BELIEVABLE!

For the second time this week (that I know about), Oklahoma is again in the spotlight. Earlier this week, it was about a church giving a way an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle at a youth conference. Now, it is one of our own county commissioner’s insane campaign materials garnering attention from those outside the state… again …

Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Commissioner Brent Rinehart is facing a tough reelection campaign.  He’s been accused of abusing his office for personal gain, and will go on trial in the fall on felony campaign finance charges.  But apparently, this is all a conspiracy of homosexuals, liberal do gooders, and good ol’ boys to force Rinehart out of office.  Rinehart lays out his case in a comic book he’s sending out to voters, which—you may be surprised to learn—he wrote and illustrated himself.

Are you ready for this?

For those outside our community who may not have all the background, Jim Roth who is mentioned in the cartoon was one of Rinehart’s fellow county commissioners before he was appointed to the state corporation commission, and he is openly gay. Rinehart, being the close-minded bigot that he is, made this an issue during the time they served together and he is certainly making it a major issue now. Meanwhile, as he points out all the faults of others, he faces felony charges for illegal campaign contribution schemes.

“Let him who is without sign cast the first stone.” Rinehart should definitely drop all those rocks he’s been hurling. You can read more about it here and here.

Unfortunately for the rest of us who call Oklahoma home, there are a sufficient number of idiots, bigots and hatemongers around to make this a regular feature. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Oklahoma, it really is a great place to live and be proud of; we just have more than our fair share of morons crapping on our parade with their idiocy, lunacy and tomfoolery.

Although not really surprising, Tuesday’s election results were encouraging on one hand and perplexing and frustrating on the other hand. This morning, I’ll focus on the positive local results and later I’ll pontificate on the less encouraging national results.

Oklahoma City voted decisively in favor “of becoming a Big League City,” as the proponents declared. By a 62 to 38 margin, voters approved the proposal to extend a 1-cent sales tax through June 2010 to fund major improvements to the Ford Center to bring it up to “NBA standards” as well as to build a new NBA practice facility.

The hope is that such improvements will lure an NBA franchise here, the most likely of which is the Seattle Supersonics who are currently owned by an Oklahoma City-based investor group and who are presently locked in a bitter battle with the city of Seattle to abandon their current lease and move to Oklahoma City. Continued

When I was walking out of the parking garage yesterday morning on my way to my office downtown office, I was greeted by one of the parking garage company’s employees, who gave me this… Continued

Yesterday was a really big day, as you probably already know. Super Tuesday, the most significant primary election date so far this presidential campaign, with almost half of the states voting. In Oklahoma, there was a big turnout, with Oklahomans finally having a say in this race — well, except for those who are shut out of the primary process… like myself.

You see, like many other states, Oklahoma has a closed primary system, which simply means that you have to belong to one of the political parties to have a voice in the primaries, and even then you can only vote for a candidate within your own party. If you are a Democrat, but you happen like John McCain and want to cast your vote for him, the only way to do it is to switch parties. If you are a Republican, but you wanted to vote for Barack Obama as your guy, you couldn’t — unless you switched parties. If you are an independent, like myself, you’re out of luck, persona non grata, your voice has no place in Oklahoma politics — unless you joined the party, whichever has the candidate of your choice.

When I brought this point up in the comment section for one of Okiedoke’s blog posts, I was asked a very common question, “If an independent chooses not to support a particular party, why should that independent be allowed to help choose the candidate who will represent that party in the general election?” As I said there, that’s a fair point. But that’s what I don’t like about our system as it’s set up now. The two-party system is more about self-preservation of power than about who will best run this country. It’s resulted in some of the most bitter partisanship in recent memory.

I would simply like the opportunity to vote for the candidate whom I believe would best lead this country, be it a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent or some other party’s candidate. I like how the local races for mayor and city council are handled, where it’s not party driven, but idea driven. You can vote for any ONE of the candidates in the field. The top two vote-getters face off in a runoff election.

Imagine how much different Washington might look if we applied the same principle to the presidential election. Allow everyone in the country to vote on the same primary election day to choose the candidate they most want to lead this nation. If no one candidate wins a majority (at least 50% plus one vote), then the top two vote-getters run off in the general election.

Take the political party apparatus out of the equation. Let the candidates run on their own ideas, records and organization. Let voters have the opportunity to vote for the best person, regardless of their party identity.

I presently cannot do that without aligning myself with a political party I don’t otherwise support (which includes both parties). It’s a matter of principle… and standing on that principle disenfranchises me from the primary process.

It’s a simple idea. Let the people vote for whom they believe is best, without arbitrary and unnecessary impediments. But that might be too democratic for The Powers That Be of this nation — the purported grand exporter of “democracy” around the world.

(I now step down from my political soap box.)