Tough situation: You’ve just been busted for calling hookers and it’s not just a pal calling to razz you. It’s the New York Times, oh and you’re Governor of New York. Did I mention you’re Governor? And not the usual kind of Governor that people expect to fool around on their wives and take money from dubious sources. No, you are the white knight, Mr. Clean, beyond question. You’ve even prosecuted prostitution rings. Is the hardest part resigning from office? I don’t think so. The hardest part is asking your wife to show up for the press conference. I can’t even ask my wife to pick up the dry cleaning. (Suddenly, I become in her eyes a 1950s male chauvinist pig.) If I asked her to stand next to me during this humiliation she’d kick me, then leave me, then come back and break my favorite things then kick me and leave again.

Which leads me to Ralph Nader. Nader is once again running for President of the United States, which creates in the left a mixture of indifference, boredom and anger. While I think Ralph Nader running again is inconsequential, I have always had great respect for the guy. He’s been clean and has stayed clean for 50 years. People used to try and dig up the dirt on him, but they stopped because there’s nothing there. He spent his life fighting greed and protecting consumers from companies that were willing to kill us to make a buck. In the late 1970s, his type of crusading was made impotent by the companies who set up their own “advocate” groups to counteract any true good advocates could do. They had more money and more influence as lobbies bought into more campaigns of various congressmen and senators. There was no other way to shape the future than to try and make a difference politically—and that’s why Nader ran.

I supported and voted for Ralph in 2000 and I’m not sure how I feel about that now, knowing what a massively horrible job George W. Bush did. Who could have guessed what a giant mess that would be? In 2000, he just seemed like a happy moderate Republican looking to be fair and nice… Turns out he was as moderate as Ghengis Khan. Read the rest of this entry »

Boy this is hard one.

I’m a Democrat. Big D. I like most things Democrats like. I like less guns in the hands of lunatics (and if you’re not a policeman or a soldier and you want a gun, then I consider you a lunatic). I’d like people dumb enough to want to ruin their sex lives to be able to get married, even if they are gay. And I’d like public schools to actually educate the kids, even if the kids are not mine. And yes, I’d like idiots who have unprotected sex in this day and age to get pregnant and have the right to not have idiot kids. I like government to handle big things like law enforcement, health care for people who can’t afford it, building roads and bridges, making sure there is a safety net for the old and poor. And yes, shock of all shocks, I’m willing to pay taxes so that stuff is paid for. But to be a true Democrat, I have to make sure my dreams are never fulfilled by picking a candidate for president who will lose to a nightmarish Republican. This year it’s a nail-biter. Read the rest of this entry »