The Polar Bear's Newspaper: VOL 2000: Wednesday, February 23, 2000

Realpolitik & Outlook III

The Great Stage Show in America;

Program for Scene 3; Michigan.

That's right friends. At this moment Senator John McCain of Arizona is a viable candidate, after following up his loss to the former President's son in the last scene with his odd win in Michigan in this one. The plot was that some "red league" supporters got to vote in this "blue league" primary and basically elected McCain over the votes of his own "blue league" regulars. How is that possible? Well it's called "cross over voting" and in a lot of states it's perfectly legal. My guess is that it functions as a sort of moderating influence. Let's say some candidate arose who was as popular as Bill Clinton, but whose political agenda was far to the left of Bill Bradley. It's not very likely but, in that case "blue leaguers" get to vote in "red league" primaries to dilute this candidate's appeal to some other milder "red league" candidate. Anyway that's what happened in Michigan. Next scene in a week or two. Meanwhile.....

The Spook at the "red league" Debate

This picture was floating around the internet. Apparently someone thought they saw a ghost, demon or alien likeness in the area between the candidates. Something like this? (picture on right)

There was an acrimonious, entertaining and occasionally funny debate held in the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York City. This is sort of a cultural renaissance center in the most famous black neighborhood in the country. There was going to be a strike that would have prevented the debate but at the last minute they decided to settle their differences so that the most likely champions of organized labor, such as themselves, would have a forum that would get national coverage for expressing their views. The two major "red league" candidates faced off on a bunch of issues constructed mainly of inflated tears, not even their own. The Vice President, Albert Gore, on the left dueled mostly to futility with Bill Bradley, the even taller former basketball player and later Senator from New Jersey on the right. They accused each other of not using the power of the central government to right some wrong, settle some dispute or make some symbolic gesture in areas where the central government had no jurisdiction whatsoever.

One of us who caught the futility of this and found it funny included Rush Limbaugh. And yes, I do, occasionally, not every day by any means, listen to Rush Limbaugh, despite his obvious preference for the former President's son, which is tiresome of him. Limbaugh is occasionally informative at least. Dr. Laura hardly ever is. Of the four major candidates, the President's son is more like a crown prince than any of the others. He is completely the puppet of the string pullers. He's very far from being clean either. I'm not really sure Rush even likes Bush all that much, after all he was mercilessly critical of his father at times, but Rush loves to kiss ass and he's twitting McCain right now.

Now, Senator McCain has claimed his own complicity in a number of special interest deals while he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. OK, so he isn't clean and he thinks regulating it will clean it up, improve it, sure, fine. He is optimistic, and he has another advantage over all the others; he's Irish. LOL! Gee, he might just make it after all. I still think the string pullers will get complete hold of him eventually, but would John McCain do what's right for America? Yeah, as much as anyone does, I think so. Do I feel the same about any of the others? Yeah, but I don't think he's as good as John McCain. McCain ain't perfect, but none of em are.

But at this moment, after the Apollo debate, the "red league" candidates strike me as a couple of kids who don't know what's really important, are stirring up troublesome emotions without offering anything sensible to improve anything, blaming each other, etc. They both seemed silly. And we know Gore ain't clean. I already said McCain admitted he's not clean and we know Bush sure ain't clean so how about Bradley?

You know with "red leaguers" sometimes it's less important what they say they'll do than who they are. Bill Bradley looked real good until his heart thing came up. I bet a lot of people secretly think, "nah!, can't vote for a guy with a heart condition." As the season wears on, the "red leaguers" imagine that their candidate will look better, and they expect that it'll be Gore. Well, most trees look somewhat better in summer and fall anyway.

Oh by the way these two aren't the only two who can't think straight standing up, the former President's son, says a lot of stuff the meaning of which cannot be fathomed clearly. That's right, the Texas governor, besides having a shit eating grin that says "I know what you don't know" which irritates people, he can't speak a straight sentence. Most of what he says, if you stop and think about it, is completely incomprehensible. When I first saw him on TV I thought he was trying out to be a stand in announcer. The other announcers were sort of "buddy buddy" with him too. They smiled a lot. I couldn't remember anything of any importance he might have said. The message was that this guy was destined to be the next President. Right now I think that's an open question. The play's far from over.

The Polar Bear