Towards a Green Future

So, come election day, I will get to vote here in Alexandria, VA - my new home. I was checking out the Alexandria voter registration site (because I'm a political dork, and that how I roll), and found out the following.

1. Alexandria has an electronic voting system (new to me - I was always an opti-scan voter in Iowa).
2. Virginia law requires you to produce a valid ID or sign an affidavit testifying to your identity prior to voting (new to me)
3. The company that makes the voting machines that Alexandria uses is Hart InterCivic.   A comparison of their officers to the OpenSecrets.org donor database shows no contributions to any candidates in the 2008 cycle.

On election day, I will bring every form if ID with me from Drivers license to my student ID, to my Green Party and ACLU membership cards (ok - maybe not those last two, in case or Republican poll thugs watchers).

In other news:

Not so surprisingly, the Washington Post has endorsed Obama.  The cliff notes version of the article: Obama is pretty cool, and could be a great president. McCain is pretty cool too, but has run a crappy campaign and his economic plan of yet more tax cuts for the rich is monumentally bad.

I get campaign emails from the McPalin campaign. Why? I enjoy discomfort and cringing. Very life affirming.

Anyhow - I enjoy the disclaimer at the bottom of each email the contains a fundraising plea to help defeat the "librul" media:

"Because the McCain-Palin Campaign is participating in the presidential public funding system, it may not receive contributions for any candidate's election. However, federal law allows the McCain-Palin Campaign's Compliance Fund to defray legal and accounting compliance costs and preserve the Campaign's public grant for media, mail, phones, and get-out-the-vote programs. Contributions to McCain-Palin Victory 2008 will go to the Compliance Fund, and to participating party committees for Victory 2008 programs." 

Just so you know - the Maverick (giggle) is using the donations to fund party building activities. NOT the campaign. You, the taxpayer, are paying for McCain's trainwreck of a campaign. Not that publicly financed campaigns aren't a good idea - they are.

That is all.

Carry on.

Found this interesting snippet on the interweb yesterday. In 2000 during McCain's "Black Baby" primary fight with then Governor George W Bush, McCain pulled out of the California GOP debate.

Link to article


02-28-2000

"With new polls showing his campaign dead in the water among California Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain has pulled out of a long-scheduled debate with Texas Gov. George Bush, set for Thursday in Los Angeles.

McCain campaign officials tried desperately yesterday to put the best face on their withdrawal, even as a new Field Poll showed Bush far ahead among likely Republican voters in the winner-take-all race for the state's 162 GOP delegates."

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Does one other instance make for a trend? I will let you, the readers, decide. But, the general thought is that in a debate, it is usually the underdog that stands to benefit the most. McCain was in that position in 2000, and is in that position again against Obama in 2008.

Tune in to see if Barack has a buddy to talk with at the debate?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903531_pf.html

Just so we're clear - when Obama uses the phrase "lipstick on a pig" it is a sexist attack on Palin. When McCain uses it, it's ok. When Palin uses it, it's ok.

Wow. It's getting deeper than I expected already! But, anything to distract us from real issues must be a good thing, right? I mean really, how boring would it be to debate the merits of McCain "DrillPlan 9000" energy strategy, and Obama's "CleanCoalNuclearFantasy with a dash of renewables" added for spice?

Considering the amount of special interest money from the energy companies flowing to both campaigns (see chart link in my previous post), I do not expect anything more than window-dressing when it comes to energy issues.

And both campaigns know this too - thus "LipstickGate." Because, at best, you will only get small, incremental change out of two corporate-dominated parties.

Happy Wednesday, comrades!