Huckabee, Coffee, and Obama
Hot damn! I just loved this story:
By Associated PressEmphasis mine. Good for you, Joe Legay!
January 08, 2008 7:47 AM
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Mike Huckabee gave it his all this morning to sway one voter — even pouring coffee for him — to no avail.
Outside the Brookside Congregational Church, Huckabee waded into crowd to greet voters on their way into the polling place.
He ran into Joe Legay, 70, and asked who Legay who was voting for.
"I'm independent," Legay said, ducking the question.
"So I have one more chance, what can I do? Can I pour you coffee?" Huckabee asked,then poured him a cup of coffee from a doughnut shop coffee container. "Where else than in New Hampshire does a candidate come out and personally pour coffee?"
Then again, he asked Legay how he would vote.
"I'm independent so I have to be quiet," Legay said, apparently not wanting to hurt Huckabee's feelings, because as Huckabee moved on, he told a reporter he was voting for Democrat Barack Obama.
"My suggestion is that if he makes it, then Edwards should be his vice president," Legay said.
Posts
5 comments:
You know, as much as I'm unimpressed by Obama, I think I'd take him over Huckabee too. If you're looking for somebody who thinks the federal government is the answer to the problems of society, a Democrat is always going to enact that policy better than a Republican.
Heh! So there are some efficiencies you will concede to Democrats. What this means is that if you think that the federal government has to be, by default, the answer at least to some, if not all, of the problems of society, then it just goes to reason that it's better to have a Democrat in there than a Republican.
I will concede that when it comes to designing new programs for the federal government to implement, the Democrats are generally much better architects than the Republicans. Look at what FDR did with our military during WWII. I have no doubt that 2003's Medicare Rx plan would have been much better implemented under a Democratic government. I also think it likely that Bill Clinton could devise a better way to privatize Social Security than could George W. Bush, if he set his mind to it.
Of course, in most cases my argument is that these programs shouldn't exist at all, and that is what I look to the Republican party for, because there are at leat a few Republicans who agree with me on this, but no Democrats.
I know what you're saying, P_F; and I'm just having a little bit of fun with you. But, seriously, what is the purpose of government if not to provide some kind of service in support of society -- including services in support of helping society resolve some of its "problems"? As I am sure you will agree, government is necessary for some purposes and not others. And I'll even go so far as to contend that many, many Democrats agree with this. The difference between conservatives of your disposition and liberals of my disposition, though, is what these purposes are. Take Defense Spending. Sure the Constitution requires the government to provide for the common defense; but that doesn't mean we need a Star Wars program and the production of so many weapons that can destroy the world numbers of times over. There are lots of "efficiencies" to be gained by slashing the military budget as there might in eliminating the entire Department of Education. But there are costs as well. On the one hand, we may not be as muscular in our defense capabilities, though we would be muscular enough; and we might not be as literate on the other hand.
Yes, government does has some jobs it is expected to do for society, but I tend to break those down between federal, state, and local responsibilities, and vote accordingly. When it comes to the federal government, I expect three things:
1) Protect my body and possessions from foreign invaders.
2) Enforce my constitutional rights.
3) Enforce contracts that cross state lines.
After that, I'd be perfectly happy if the federal government did nothing. There are some things they do that, even though I believe they fall outside of federal jurisdiction, I don't make much of a fuss about, like maintaining the Interstate Highway system (which was originally a military project anyway), running the Post Office, the Federal Resere, administering FEMA, etc... If the federal government was limited to these things, I'd probably vote for Democrats to administer them.
Then there are a ton of things they do that I think they have no business being involved in, such as entitlement programs, being involved in public education, bailing out failing industries, providing foreign aid to other countries, etc...
When it comes to those programs, I don't care the least about making the federal government more efficient. That doesn't mean issues like education aren't important to me, they are. I sometimes vote for Democrats in state elections for that very reason. I voted to keep our Democratic governer in 06, and that decision strongly influenced by the money he poured into education (without raising my taxes or running a deficit to do it, I might add).
But federally, I will always vote for the guy who wants to reduce the size of government, or failing that, the guy who wants to make it grow the slowest. Almost every time, that means I will be voting for a Republican (although I did make a protest vote against my worthless Republican Congressional Representative Tom Cole in '06, but the lousy bastard kept his seat anyway)
Post a Comment