With the atrocious farm bill (more here and here) moving through Congress with minimal GOP opposition - kudos to Dave Reichert for opposing it - my aspirations for this election season may have been crystallized:
1) Hope John McCain, the notably lesser of two evils (think judges, national defense, and government spending) defeats Barack Obama.
2) Hope Dino Rossi pulls out a win in the Governor's race to jolt the tired, stale status quo Establishment in this state.
3) Expect Rob McKenna, Sam Reed, and Doug Sutherland hold on to their statewide seats...maybe even get this guy in too.
4) Hope some new-and-improved GOP legislative candidates (more on them at a later date) win seats in the Legislature to start the long-term process of injecting new blood into the often unimpressive aggregate collection of Republican legislators.
5) Along the way, hope some new Democratic blood might likewise make it to Olympia thanks to the Top Two primary system playing out in safe seats.
And, significantly...
6) Hope the cleansing of deadwood continues in Congress. 2006 cleaned out a number of undesirable Republican members who had become too comfortable in the majority. The rudderless activity of recent months, the Johnny-come-lately approach to building a forward-looking agenda, and the limp response to legislation like the farm bill all indicates more house cleaning is needed. With some luck, by January 2009 younger leaders like Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan will have a greater role on the GOP team.
Posted by Eric Earling at May 15, 2008 08:14 PM | Email ThisThere is a country song that should be dedicated to Democrats!
Take every single thing we have
Every thing we make each day
Just take it away
You just take it away
I loose every single thing that I make
going to work each day
They just give it away
They can't stop giving it away
Time for new leadership in this state
So we can still look at the bay
Before they take it away
They just can't stop taking it away
To all of our soldiers we appreciate you today
Despite the democrats not funding your pay
They want to give it away
They just want to give it away
So in the end I'd just like to say
To all of you democrats giving everything away
We'll stop working soon I say
If you don't stop giving it away
We would learn a valuable lesson (serve the people) and study our relationship with the Libertarian Party more closely.
Also, with McCain in the White House we would have a Republican who can work effectively with a Dem congress and still push conservative issues through.
Posted by: Bob on May 15, 2008 09:15 PMThe liberals just gave McCain a gift today in the form of a gay marriage. Cali is now in play, the marriage amendment will fire everyone up to get out and vote for the amendment and for John McCain. If McCain wins Cali, its over. Even if it is competitive and Obama has to spend a massive amount of time and money there, its over. Thank you liberals!
Posted by: jk on May 15, 2008 09:55 PMAt least, it seems to me, Washington is able to field Republican candidates that make sense.
(And, until Gregoire, Murray and Cantwell, usually good statewide and national reps. Seattle was always a cesspool.)
In my humble opinion.
Posted by: OregonGuy on May 15, 2008 10:22 PMOn everything from felon voters to encouraging fraudulant voting and registration, he's carried the democrat's water like Gunga Din.
I'm definately voting against him.
Posted by: Hinton on May 15, 2008 10:51 PMBut I would also like to point out to those of you who have never driven a modern tractor in the field, that the impact of some of the stats in both of the pieces that Eric linked to is more than a little misleading, if you are not familiar with modern high-tech farming:
Prices have gone way up (for now), but costs have also shot thru the roof:
Commuters complain about cost of gas; when they spend maybe 30 minutes each way each day running their cars.
How would you like to buy diesel at today's prices for a 400 hp 4WD tractor that during season runs maybe 12+ hours a day and burns HUNDREDS of gallons of fuel EACH DAY ??
Ditto costs for anhydrous fertilizer, which needs to be applied in massive quantities to allow continuous cropping (you think commodity prices are high now ??.. take away fertilizer and force return to leaving fields fallow every other or at least every 3rd year, and see where prices go).
Need to buy a new combine for a big farm ??
Haven't checked exact price lately, but believe the very biggest, latest, greatest John Deere combine with multiple header attachments and other common options will push the price close to $500K. That's right: Clost to HALF A MILLION.
Bying a big new tractor ??
Bring a quarter-million or so.
And finally: The line in the ''Crop the Crap'' piece that said that average farm household income was a record $89,434, and net worth was $838,875. Remember that most of farmer's net worth is tied up in the value of their LAND (and most of the rest in machinery).
Using my part of ND as an example (where it's all dry-land farming, and land is MUCH cheaper than many other places; especially irrigated land):
Going price for good dry-land around our old homestead is probably $1000 per acre.
Average farm size in that part of ND is probably 2000+ acres.
If farmers inherited their land or at least most of it, a 2000-acre farm could be worth $2 MILLION. But if you sell your land you're done farming.
So even if a farmer's net worth might give the illusion that s/he is wealthy, they may just barely be able to scrape up the money needed to put in next year's crop (just direct expenses without ANY capital costs to get the crop to harvest may be several 100 thousand dollars).
SUMMARY: Don't throw out the baby (what remains of smaller (not necessarily small) family farms); while trying to clean up the bathwater (corporate pork).
One thing for sure: We do NOT want to ''offshore'' our agricultural production: We have more than enough trouble because we have mortgaged our energy future to OPEC, et. al.
As for the rest of your aspirations:
I'm for Obama, for precisely the reasons you list; judges, national defense, and the federal budget. We need wisdom on the bench, not ideology. Our national defense is stronger when we practice diplomacy rather than pre-emptive invasions. And there is no bigger budget buster out there than the war in Iraq. We simply can't afford it. It has already hurt us badly and will destroy us in the long run.
Maybe Dino would be a breath of fresh air in State Govt. It's difficult to rebut the arguments that the Dem's are playing it just a little too cautiously and providing very little dynamic leadership toward the future (gosh, and is that ever true at the national congressional level as well). Let's hear more about his strategic initiatives for growth and how he will preserve the environment.
McKenna, Reed, and Sutherland are your stars right now. I voted for all of them and would suggest you support them as well. The Republican label is not too shiny this year and you need to at least preserve the few strong players you have.
Bottom line is there really is a lot of "dead wood" at both the state and national level. We need a new political paradigm. One that emphasizes the common good rather than ideology and preservation of political control.
Thanks for listening.
P.S. I won't be holding my nose voting for McCain and he is not the lesser of two 'evils'. He is a good man trying to do the best job he can. That is a lot more than the 'empty suit' running against him.
Posted by: swatter on May 16, 2008 07:25 AMBut, you like Obama because of the way he is going to pick judges. He says the easy cases are the black and white, but, it is the gray areas that we are talking about. Obama wants the judges to "divine" what the legislature intended rather than throwing it back to the legislature to write a good law. If that is wisdom and the other is ideology, then give me ideology. Judges judge, legislators legislate. You shouldn't be mixing them up.
Posted by: swatter on May 16, 2008 08:25 AMI guess I'm a little surprised by your thoughts on judges. After all the complaining about Congress and legislatures in general, it doesn't strike me as necessarily a good thing to make folks do exactly what they tell us to do. I certainly don't get the impression the Bush administration feels that way.
The real problem is that the legislatures tells us to do a lot of conflicting things, or things that just don't make sense, or things that we can't do even if we wanted to. And they tell us to do them in enormous quantity, using thousand of pages of typed documents that even rooms full of highly educated and well-intentioned lawyers can't even make sense of .
I've often thought that the real purpose of legislatures was to make sure there were plenty of jobs for lawyers. Which makes sense since a large fraction of legislators were lawyers at one time and often return to the profession when they leave office.
So Unkl Witz, your solution is to elect another Harvard lawyer to be president? Well, no. But I would vote to elect a very savvy, intelligent leader who has the ability to inspire both the common folk like you and me, and attract other intelligent folks to advise him on how to run the administration.
Then I would go on to vote against pretty much anyone for any legislative position that has every been a lawyer.
Ordinarily, I'd say that this is a recipie to invite a democrat to run wild. But at this point, Reed has done absolutely nothing worthy of his job. He's been 100% of what a rabidly partisan democrat would be in office, so why have the pale copy's silly actions reflect poorly on the GOP? Might as well put the real thing in there and at least give Dino a foil to play off of.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on May 16, 2008 09:35 AMTherefore, from an evangelical standpoint, Obama would probably appoint someone who left of center on key issues like abortion and possibly gay rights issues (e.g., California type judges), which does concern me. On the other hand, when it comes to other issues like crime-related issues (death penalty, police-rights vs citizen-rights), and especially with Internet related issues (copyrights, privacy rights, etc.), I think an Obama appointed judge that rules from the center is necessary.
To me, it comes down to some simple facts. One, I feel, given the current court makeup, the most likely to retire will be the extreme left side of the court. Therefore, Obama would be, in essence, moving the court slightly to the center, but pretty much keeping status quo of the current court. Secondly, I fear the current court's "activism" in reverse with regards to Internet and privacy issues (e.g., restricting freedom on the Internet and allowing media/communication companies to dictate the Internet instead of it being open to everyone--like Movie Studios and Record companies restricting content--Free Mickey Mouse!). Finally, I don't view that the abortion issue is soley a court related issue. Even if the courts overturned Roe vs Wade, it still doesn't get one to the end goal of zero abortions. It just throws the issue back into the States' hands. It also doesn't resolve one of the main sticking points -- when does "personhood" begin?
All that being said, yesterday's California ruling does give me pause to consider. My concern isn't so much for the ruling, but the slippery slope it potentially opens up because it is in fact based on a slippery slope already (e.g., the court's rulings were based on previous rulings that opened up areas and the state already changing positions on domestic partnerships and therefore, the law as in fact contrary to the other actions that had been taken). The Left wants to ignore the slippery slope argument. The Right is up in arms about the specific issue and also ignoring the real unintended consequences of the issue. I see unintended consequences in three areas: (1) opening up avenue for poligamy and other marriage laws to be challenged, (2) opening up equal rights versus freedom of religion issues (i.e., states requiring religious institutions to perform weddings contrary to their religious beliefs, and (3) opening up a broader state versus religious issue outside of marriage alone (e.g., like my denonmination is dealing with with regards to ordination of homosexuals). The slippery slope I see is the state dictating equal rights requirements to religious institutions that run contrary to the institutions religious beliefs. The left will say I am ridiculous. I would counter with why is the word "marriage," which is a religious term (in my mind), in addition to a legal term, so important vice "civil unions." My contention is instead of fighting for marriage, why doesn't this group raise the question of why is the state invovled with religious ceremony. Other countries have a separation between state legal issues and religious ceremonies. I say let the state issue whatever it wants to issue to grant/revoke legal rights, and let the churches have the freedom to decide its ceremonies. Don't coop a religious ceremony, just because it is convienient.
I am not sure if I made total sense with that last part. The bottom line is yesterday's California Court decision does raise concerns for me.
Posted by: tc on May 16, 2008 10:26 AMObama does talk about the 'gray' area, but he did say he wants those judges to have 'wisdom' to decide law (actually, that is code for interpret and make law).
Obama, to me, is an 'empty suit'. To you, he is an intelligent, well-reasoned, successful human being disguised as an 'empty suit'.
Posted by: swatter on May 16, 2008 01:37 PMI have to admit I did get weary of the constant promotion of their only professional sports franchise (Husker Football). And Kimball County was no fountain of progressive thought. But they had a great school district with top notch teachers and funding. So I came away relatively unscathed.
I think the most sobering aspect of growing up there was the knowledge that we were ground zero for both the first and second generation of ICBM launchers starting in the late 50's. We realized we would likely be among the very first casualties of a nuclear exchange. We studied those white contrails in the sky carefully. We also learned to live with a large number of men carrying automatic weapons around out little town.
In short, it was sobering experience.
It's also amusing that you should mention Scottsbluff. It was the big city for us. They actually started a college there (Hiram Scott College) in the late 60's. It quickly became a very popular school to attend to obtain that all important "student draft deferment". Academic requirements were pretty much anyone with a pulse.
That must have been either a very early morning shadow or one cast in the late evening. There just isn't a lot going on around Chimney Rock and it doesn't cast much of a shadow.
Frankly though, if you attended Hiram Scott College, I'd keep it to yourself. You'll get a better reaction if you say something more along the lines of "I've been to Terrytown" or "I climbed Scott's Bluff."
Sounds like you may have missed the thrill of visiting Kimball. Excellent judgment on your part.
For the condition of the Republican Party and what they ought to be considering doing leading up to November, Peggy Noonan's analysis seems spot on.
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
Posted by: KS on May 16, 2008 07:34 PMReplace "democrats" in your song with "politicians" and it is pretty accurate. I don't see too many republicans any more (think McCain) who fit the refrain less than democrats.
Posted by: deadwood on May 17, 2008 03:36 PM