J. D. Pendry

J. D. Pendry

Don’t you know me, I’m your native son? –from City of New Orleans, written by Steve Goodman and recorded by Arlo Guthrie

I have been looking for a candidate to support for president. Now that Woody’s boy, Arlo, has endorsed Ron Paul it is becoming clearer to me what I need to do. Take a harder look the least endorsed candidate.

Mike Huckabee is endorsed by Chuck Norris. His odds of surviving this contest as the nominee are about as good as a fried chicken leg’s chances of surviving a Baptist Church dinner. He is running to stop Romney and hoping to be rewarded for it as McCain’s VP choice.

John McCain has Sylvester Stallone’s and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s endorsements. Listening to Fox news on the satellite radio in my truck the other morning, I also became convinced that Geraldo Rivera has a serious man crush on the Senator. It got gushy. I was waiting for a parental guidance warning. He is also endorsed by the Lindsey Graham, gang of 14 liberal Republican types. It is difficult to go against the seasoned wisdom of Rambo, the Terminator, liberal Geraldo, and Lindsey Graham, but I am trying hard to contain myself.

I know the Senator, not personally, but I know him. Anyone who has served in the Armed Forces of our great country for any length of time knows the Senator. He is the occasionally encountered mediocre commander who firmly believes he is a better First Sergeant than the actual First Sergeant is and sets about daily to prove it concurrently neglecting his own role and responsibilities. Senator McCain believes he is a better Commander in Chief than the serving one and has spent 8 years trying to prove that as well. He believed he was a better Secretary of Defense than was Donald Rumsfeld. His actions showed that he believed he was a better Senate majority leader than Bill Frist was. The pattern will not change. I promise you that he also believes he is a better General than those now serving. As Commander in Chief, John McCain, who always knows better, will be way down in the weeds making decisions that should be made on the ground and in real time. That is how we fought and lost the war in Vietnam. Being allied with John Kerry though, he probably is not too clear on how all of that happened. Setting aside his liberal leanings on amnesty for illegal immigrants, taxes, environment and energy, I believe that he is also a military disaster in waiting. The failure he may deliver will only be slower and more painful to Soldiers than the failure Obama or Clinton will bring about. What he and the media tout as his strongest attribute is his most dangerous one for our country. For conservative talk radio, how far away can the Fairness Doctrine be for the man who helped write the legislation that already limits our rights to free speech?

Only one Republican candidate stands without a major celebrity or political endorsement, unless you count a few radio talkers leaning toward him and some ex-politicians. I have grown quite cynical of politicians over the years. People endorse political candidates for different reasons. When I see media celebrities and liberal leaning politicians contorting themselves to laude an alleged opposition candidate such as McCain, it causes me to wonder why. For the politicians, the most obvious reason is that they do not want someone who is not a member of their club. That might upset the Washington status quo. For the celebrities, who actually cares what their motives are. They do, however, bring along with them a percentage of mushy headed people who will actually vote for the politician because of the celebrity. Politicians simply hedge their bets. Those publicly endorsing McCain are members of the Washington country club and the conventional wisdom tells them he is going to win the nomination. Maybe he will win. Gerald Ford won and we got 4 years of Jimmy Carter because of it.

There is no longer a major political party in America than can claim conservatism as its mantle. Both parties are tilting left toward liberal socialism and are beholden to special interest groups. One is only slightly to the left of the other and you and I are not the groups in which they appear interested. If my choices on Election Day are McCain and either Obama or Clinton, I don’t see that there is a dime’s worth of difference. I will not go as far as Ann Coulter has declared she will and vote for Hillary Clinton, but maybe I will write in a name. Arlo, Chuck or Rambo maybe. When it is all done, a meaningless write-in is going to make about as much sense to me as a vote for John McCain or another member of the club will.

Maybe I’ll just forget it all and go hang out with Arlo. After all, “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. Excepting Alice.” Or a President.

Copyright © 2008 J D Pendry All Rights Reserved

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 12:19 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.