Monday, October 27, 2008

Being Endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News

You know it's really bad for the McCain/Palin ticket when the largest paper in the state that you govern, The Anchorage Daily News, writes that "despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time."

The paper also writes of the old John McCain, the one that many others seemed to know, has not been present in this campaign, even though his attempts to change his Party from the inside has not been successful. "Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn't show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years."

John McCain, the maverick, must be the one that my very progressive entrepreneurial brother, Ellington, aka Duke, voted for in 2000. When we were speaking about the tone of the campaign lately he bemoaned the fact that the John McCain today is not the John McCain he voted for in 2000. Yes, I've read this many times before, but as Duke said these words I reconsidered how difficult it must be for John McCain to sell his soul. However, I'm not too sure if the same can be said for Cindy McCain. "That cold chill" that ran down her spine bespoke something by far more cynical. She actually scared me. And this is hard to do.

2 comments:

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Hey, the latest thing to get my goat in this election season is the outcry over "voter fraud" because Mickey Mouse is showing up a lot on voter registration lists. (Yes, people get overly zealous when they're paid to register new voters and they DO fabricate names and this should obviously be discouraged.) But that's voter REGISTRATION fraud which only becomes a serious problem - i.e. voter fraud - if people show up at the polls and try to identify themselves as these phony registrants. That's MUCH more difficult to pull off in large numbers - requiring significant organization and management to translate into large numbers of bogus votes - as opposed to the simple steps required to eliminate thousands of names from a voting list. But as a citizen watchdog, I WILL be ready to blow the whistle on anyone I see in a rodent costume on election day.

Judith Ellis said...

That's too funny, John! You're right. The matter with ACORN, who actually brought the discrepancy to light, had more to do with defrauding ACORN and not democracy. Many of the workers turned in improper registration forms because they are tanatamount to larger checks.

I'm looking forward to reading the Anchorage Daily News tomorrow. The real news out of Alaska today, of course, is that Ted Stevens has been found guilty of corruption. I wonder what Sarah Palin will say about this? I'm sure her righteous indignation will come forth.

But what about Palin's own hearings? After she was found to have not been ethical regarding Troppergate she claimed that she had found innocent of all wrongdoing. This was not so!

By the way, I don't even listen to talk radio. It's maddening on both the liberal and conservative side. But I must admit that the conservatives appear by far more negative and self-righteous.