The International House of Bacon

* I have lots of reasons to like Mike Lowell, but this doesn’t hurt, either. A class act through and through, he’s the type of guy you want to root for. I’m so excited for this season.

* My conspiracy theory as to why Obama’s largely masking his platform with inspirational quotes that belong on pictures of kittens? the fact that he’s probably the most liberal candidate to come this close to the Presidency in my lifetime. That doesn’t jive with the center.

* I’m glad that the New York Times was able to take some time out of their busy schedule to go after Obama’s economic hypocrisy. Oh, wait, they didn’t - they were too busy implying McCain’s having an affair with a staffer/lobbyist. Bang-up job there, Grey Lady. Great sourcing, too, really.

* Two movie notes:

a) Not a huge fan of Where the Wild Things Are. I skipped the picture book phase of my learning to read portion of the program, and so I never got to read it when it might have made any sort of lasting impression. With that said, I wasn’t at all interested in the Spike Jonze film interpretation until I read how poorly it’s testing. It seems like he’s either missing the boat and making an adult film, or (my broader suspicion) Warner Bros. forgot that the book isn’t 100% for kids anyway, and there’s no way not to make a book that ends with the monsters yelling “Oh please don’t go–we’ll eat you up–we love you so!” This could end up being absolutely phenominal.

b) A World War Z movie? While I always harbored a desire to film this myself someday, I’m pretty excited by the prospect.

* Via Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, someone’s gonna be getting fired over this one.

* If I only had about $5m in expendable cash….

* Required reading alert: The Impossible Dream of Energy Independence at Reason.

* An interesting story making the rounds is that Lawrence Lessig, lawyer and copyleft pioneer, is considering a run for Congress. I’m not really a big proponent of copyleft/Free Software Foundation positions, and I think that having a person with those points of view in power could seriously undermine our ability to keep innovative technologies and ideas in the United States. With that said, it would be a very interesting campaign, as Lessig could quite possibly become the first true internet candidate in the sense that he’s well-known around tech circles and the types of philosophies he pushes garner quite a bit of enthusiasm. Then again, he could be the next Ron Paul.

* Gov. Lynch makes his case against re-election in November. God, if I didn’t know of Deval Patrick, I’d say that New Hampshire has one of the dumber governors in the nation.

* What does it say about me that I’m seriously considering this for myself?

* This is an interesting wrinkle: If the Supreme Court somehow rules against individual gun rights this spring, it’ll break a compact with Montana. That’s crazy stuff.

* I agree with this.

* Mark Cuban is awesome.

‘Tis all for now.

Someday, I hope to catch up with everything. Someday.

* Behind the scenes of the superdelegate courting. With Obama winning handily last night, this may be a moot point, but yeah.

* A possibly leaked memo from CNN to the newsfolk about how to handle the Castro resignation news. Good to know they, uh, have their priorities straight.

* QandO provides a link dump of a building backlash against Paul Krugman. Where the hell have they been the last 8 years?

* Newsweek profiles Students for Concealed Carry, an advocacy group forming in response to the campus shootings we’ve had this past year. I still think the “Gun Free Zones” that were in place for most of these shootings are a lawsuit waiting to happen, but kudos to this group for making some attempts at an inroad. The group’s website.

* Overlawyered profiles how the AP chose to handle the Supreme Court’s Katrina insurance case. Kind of ridiculous.

* Reason talks about how Palm Beach is trying to ban “formula restaurants.” Again - the mind boggles.

* Remember the Baltimore cop who went off on the skateboarders? It wasn’t the first time.

Quickies:

* Solid gains in how homosexual/transgender kids are treated by their peers, contrary to what the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Bill proponents would like to paint. We still have a ways to go, of course, but I liked reading this today.

* So, Senator Obama, when it turns out that one of your predictions turned out to be false, what do you do with the publication: Admit you were incorrect, or send it down the memory hole and hope no one notices? I’m sure not surprised by the answer.

* Interesting news story #1 this week is the Declaration of Independence by Kosovo. It’s causing Europe some minor fits, but I’m in favor of it - secession is often necessary, unfortunately.

* Interesting news story #2 is Fidel Castro stepping down. I don’t expect much change from Fidel to Raul, but even the outside chance that this can cause some reform in terms of normalizing relations and getting Cuba moved somewhere close to the 21st century is good enough for the moment.

* Interesting news story #3: Pakistan’s Musharrif appears to be on his way out. This is probably a more important story than Iraq in terms of the 2008 election, especially seeing as we have a candidate who isn’t all that interested in Pakistani autonomy attempting to run the show.

* Idiotic, unhelpful regulation at work.

* An interesting piece reprinted at Cato regarding global warming data and urban heat.

* The possibility of finding life on other planets in my lifetime may have gotten a step closer this week, as a study released suggests that there are a number of stars of similar stature to our own Sun, and that there could be a very large amount of Earth-like planets rotating them, or being formed. Cool stuff.

* Howard Kurtz contrasts the media treatment given to Hillary Clinton as opposed to Obama.

* One thing I’m not impressed by is the “Obama plagiarized Deval Patrick” smear attempt. When you base your campaign on ideas and platitudes, you’re going to sound like other people who do the same thing. I’m also not impressed at all by the “I did coke and had gay sex with Obama in 1999” smear that’s floating around the blogosphere right now - it’s completely ridiculous and ultimately a sickening prospect. What I am impressed by is that Obama only considers hanging a Che Guevara flag “inappropriate” while not demanding that his volunteers take it down. While I’m glad he’s said it’s inappropriate, you’d think he’d take the moment to focus on why it’s inappropriate as opposed to simply glossing over it and saying that it’s “offensive to Cuban-Americans.” I mean, he says that Guevara and he don’t share ideas, but his economic policy seems to be trying to send us in the same direction. It’ll be interesting to see if this story ever truly dies off.

Good times. I have a ton of stuff piled up - I wish I could say I was busy this weekend, but I won’t lie - I spent most of it playing Blue Dragon. If you’re reading on the LJ side, I’m getting intermittent comment notifications, so if I haven’t replied to your comments from earlier, it’s because I only saw them about 20 minutes ago.

* The closest thing to zombies of late. Personally, I’d consider myself blessed in a few ways.

* The rumored number two porn collection in the world doesn’t actually exist. One less reason to visit Cambridge University, I suppose.

* Reason covers the Hugo Chavez disaster. To me, the Chavez situation continues to be one of the great disasters of the world currently - not nearly as bad as the situations in Africa and the Middle East, but a horrible situation that should really get more honest coverage.

* Attention, Democratic voters who subscribe to the “the world hates us because Bush’s diplomacy sucks” meme: claiming that a world leader lacks a soul isn’t going to repair that. And I don’t especially care if she’s right (because I’m inclined to believe she is) - that’s not how you deal with it.

* A fun link for video game fans, especially those with any fond memories of the Ultima series: The Many Deaths of Lord British.

* Larry Kudlow reminds us that if a recession really is coming, it ain’t there yet. Expect the media to continue to push the issue regardless, however - they haven’t been honest about the economy in years, so why start now?

* A great story about the guy who moved into a homeless shelter with $25, and came out a year later with an apartment and $5000 in cash.

* Cato demonstrates the reality surrounding part of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. Oops!

* England floats a smoking permit. The mind reels.

* I hate the Dolphins because I’m a Patriots fan, but I’ve always liked Zach Thomas. He’s set to meet with the Pats this week, and the thought of it excites me to see him in a New England uniform.

* Sometime last year, you’ll remember a video circulating from 1994 about Dick Cheney’s position about war in Iraq. Namely, that he was against it for reasons many believe actually occurred during the last few years. Of course, it’ll be interesting to see people spin the video of Bill “I was always against the Administration’s war” Clinton making the case Bush should have made. Video here. If we did it right the first time, or if Clinton actually acted as he should have in 1998, it’d be very interesting to see where we’d be today, 10 years later.

* A great spring training prank by the Phillies.

Dunno if I’ll get another post out today, but who knows.

Since there’s not much more to say at this point about Obama’s ridiculous campaign, perhaps it’s time to start shining a light on some of the ideas he’s trotting out there, either as a Senator or as a possible action as President. Here’s one to get the ball rolling:

Meet the Patriot Corporation Act. This act, co-sponsored by Obama, is an interesting beast. The quick and dirty is this: Corporations will get tax breaks under this plan, as long as they meet a few requirements: namely that they do 90% of their production and employment in the United States while offering decent wages, health insurance, and other perks. Of course, these numbers aren’t defined by anything realistic - the wages are required to be “enough to keep a family of three out of poverty,” push for “neutrality” in worker organization drives (a clear shot across the bow at the reisstance to the elimination of the secret ballot in terms of organizing) and the employer needs to cover “at least 60% of each worker’s health care premiums.” Never mind that wages to “keep a family of three out of poverty” mean completely different things depending on where you are and what industry you’re in (not to mention that it sets some arbitrary standard as to what salary level constitutes being patriotic, but whatever) - the bill uses the census figures which fail to account for the broad standard of living deviances across the nation - but if any company attempted to actually reach this standard that didn’t already, the tax break that the company gets? The equivalent of 1% of the taxable income. That doesn’t come close to covering this nonsense.

This bill is really a great example of how Barack Obama simply doesn’t understand the problems that are facing this nation economically right now. Right now, the United States has some of the most uncompetitive corporate tax rates in the world. At 35% on the federal level alone (the rate can go north of 10 points higher when you factor in state and local taxes), that puts us 18th overall and nearly 8 points above the average, an average that is declining as Europe moves to a flat tax and places like Canada plan to drop their rate dramatically. General Motors continues to shed jobs because it costs so much to employ people in the United States compared to overseas markets. In the long term, the blunt reality is that the United States is moving away from a manufacturing economy and toward a service one, and part of that move is the recognition that globalization is here to stay.

Barack Obama mentions corporate taxation once on his website. His only plan to deal with the fact that we’re falling behind internationally is to try and close loopholes and try to govern where international corporations decide to set up shop. Instead of aggressively dealing with the problem in a way that keeps us productive and competitive - a sharp reduction in corporate tax rates, for a possible example - he goes for the Same Old Democratic Response: act as if the corporations and businesses in America are not doing enough for this nation, and saddle them with the extra costs, fees, and taxes that are causing them to close up shop and head elsewhere to begin with. Politics as usual. All Obama’s positions advocate are the further siphoning of jobs to lower-cost nations, and harm the economy in poor ways.

6 inches of sleet for me, a slate of links for you. None about Obama, so you’ll have to find something else to get angry about. d;-)

* GetReligion has a great entry up about the media missing the boat on Huckabee’s rhetoric. It’s a good exposure into the liberal media concept - it’s not necessarily that the media is going out of its way to be biased, but rather that the media’s makeup is generally Democratic, and there’s probably a bit of confirmation bias involved in the whole thing. Essentially, the media misses the boat with Huckabee often because the major orgs don’t have the type of diversity in the newsroom to catch these sorts of things when they come up. It’s an interesting framework to think about when discussing media biases - it’s not always right/left.

* Radley Balko posted at the Reason blog about the online gambling ban, which involved the US Trade Department making some concessions to work around some international treaties. The terms weren’t disclosed, and a Freedom of Information Act request was denied based on “national security” reasons. More at Cato and the links within the two posts, but how ridiculous.

* Also from the Cato blog, a new study about how non-smokers actually cost more for the health system than smokers do. A bit of a hole in the universal healthcare argument.

* Kudlow notes the strange coincedence that the stock market has plunged around the same time as the last few primary contests.

* OverLawyered notes that McCain’s big wins yesterday repudiate one of the main reasons for his campaign reform bill. Money doesn’t win elections, people. If they did, President Perot would have been quite the hoot.

* New England Republican gets it. The second half is worth reading for Democrats and liberals as well, just substitute “terror” with “Iraq” and the concept is the same - there’s more going on in the world that is ultimately more important. The problem, unfortunately, is that there isn’t a Goldwater or Reagan type waiting in the wings to steer the Republican Party back to what made them worthwhile in the first place.

* Stanley Kurtz over at the National Review presents an interesting theory about the electorate as it stands, namely that the right missed the boat. It’s a little more hysterical and inflammatory than it needs to be, but the gist of it is that the education system has moved left with no real significant response from the other side, thus churning out people who have no serious insight into the other side of things. Hell, I went to private Catholic schools and can largely speak to that. It’s interesting to see if this holds water long-term.

* Linked everywhere, Right Wing News interviews Thomas Sowell. Sowell’s the most important intellectual on the right today, and, IMO, is proof positive that you can make a charismatic case for wonkish views. The Vision of the Anointed should be required reading for anyone with even a cursory interest in politics.

* Finally, if you haven’t been keeping up with the Drew Carey Project at Reason’s video site, you’re missing out on some pretty good stuff. His latest is on the middle class, and how the assumption that we’re getting squeezed doesn’t really hold water. It fits in well with Reason’s piece on the middle class from last year as well as the fact that the middle class is disappearing because they’re getting richer.

This video spoke to me in a different way, though - for those of us in the middle class (and Ann & I fit into the lower middle class by most accounts), it is a lot about choices. Our savings rate isn’t quite what we might want it to be, and some weeks may feel harder than others, but a lot of that has had to do with the choices we’ve made - we chose to buy a house and have a mortgage as opposed to rent for less. I bought a newer car because I felt a car payment now would work out better in the long run. We go out to eat once a week, we try to catch a movie, we go to Red Sox games. The important part? We’re happy.

This isn’t to say that luck or outside influences aren’t occasionally a factor - we’re certainly lucky we haven’t had medical catastrophes or that my employment issues didn’t hurt us long term the way that they do for other people - but that the concept of a “middle class squeeze” is largely a bizarre manifestation, and one we can probably blame on the Lou Dobbses and the John Edwardses of the world.

A quickie because I missed a few last night.

* If you’re voting in the Democratic primary today, think about it for a second: Barack Obama has a record he can theoretically be proud of, so why isn’t he running on it? Why doesn’t he want you to know what he’s been up to?

I found this picture in an LJ community posting, it’s fun:

* I’ve had this sitting open on my desktop for ages now, so I may as well link to it: Can Atheists Be Parents? Time asked the question in the context of a New Jersey adoption case where a set of prospective adoptive parents were denied due to the atheism angle. The case is from 1970, but the issue still remains: Volokh notes some very recent judicial precedents regarding this sort of craziness, and it’s a little chilling. It’s interesting - this may be one of the first times where both the majority (read: believers) and the fringe minority (read: nonbelievers) can lay claim to having their beliefs persecuted and not be blowing smoke. I’ve written at length about my atheism here, and I have more to come.

* Listen, I know it toes the line of a stereotype, and I still feel like it’s a low blow to highlight it, but I have to ask - is there a way to criticize Hillary Clinton’s crying without being accused of mysogyny? I’m all for real emotional output, but something appears to be off about this whole thing. I can’t tell if I’m bothered by her crying (which only seems to come up when she’s being complemented) or bothered by the knee-jerk reactions to it at this point.

* Of course, I know that Hillary’s not going to cry for those who’s wages she plans to garnish to cover her misguided health plan. Taking a page from the John Edwards “Say you’re helping the middle class while screwing them” playbook, it would (of course) only apply to those “workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it,” thus removing the choice motive and screwing everyone in the process. This has little difference to it than the Massachusetts failure, which simply charges an absurd tax surcharge as opposed to wage garnishing (as if the victim recognizes the difference) , but hey, it’s one step closer to socialized medicine, so get on board or you hate the poor, or something.

* I like QandO’s insight into the possible general election race.

* Linked a few places, Jennifer Abel in Hartford went inside the 9/11 Truth movement a bit, and to really fascinating results. Truthers are crazy.

* Finally, a fun photoshop contest from Woot, inserting products they sell into Presidential campaigns. I, of course, love the Obama one, but they’re all worth seeing.

* Wizbang took a look at where the government spending priorities have been since the New Deal. Interesting breakdown, even I noticed odd things that I didn’t before. Worst point? The amount of money that we’ve mandated by law - we won’t get anywhere unless we attack that, first. Earmarks are a drop in the bucket.

* I’ve seen this a couple places, the Will.I.Am “Yes We Can” video inspired by Obama. Yes, it gives me chills, but not the good ones. It makes me extremely uneasy.

* Reason posted an article on Presidential candidates and drug policy. Worth reading as a recap of how far we really need to go in terms of how we handle prohibition.

* GraniteGrok highlights three stories about an emerging Democratic scandal in New Hampshire. The interesting part for me is that the NH GOP had a scandal of their own a few years back, and this effectively evens the score a bit. So much for feeding off of good will.

* No matter which way you look at it, the budget is screwed with the next guy in. Lowest increase is a few billion dollars.

* An oldie from OverLawyered: Pro-consumer usually means anything but.

* WFMU notes that while The FCC is fining ABC for a naked butt, The Netherlands plan to air Deep Throat. This is why the United States is backwards.

If anyone’s even reading at this time of day.

* Personal opinion: Patriots 38, Giants 20. I don’t see this being close.

* From The Locker Room, an article at Tech Central Station about the successes of free market reforms around the world. A pretty interesting list.

* Cato at Liberty on Ted Kennedy actually getting it regarding the role of the judiciary v. the role of the legislative branch. I suppose you can teach an old dog new tricks.

* John Tierney at the New York Times signed he and his wife up to eHarmony to see if they could get a match, and then wrote about the results. A pretty interesting insight into the whole eHarmony thing.

* FactCheck.org debunks the long-standing myth that the unemployment stats don’t count folks who aren’t recieving benefits. A piece worth reading even if you already knew that.

* I’m very glad John Edwards is gone, but The Munchkin Wrangler posted a beautiful takedown of Edwards’s campaign yesterday that’s worth linking to.

* Julia Sweeney does a one-woman show about her atheism, and lists 10 things she’s learned.

Have a good weekend.

Coming soon, a final word (for now) on Obama stuff, and an angry rant about John McCain. Ran out of time for now for those.

* If you ever needed to know why I consider John Kyl one of my favorite Senators, check out his back-and-forth with Larry Kudlow. Kyl’s awesome, and I’m hoping he makes a run for President sometime.

* If John Kyl is one of my favorite Senators, Jeff Flake (also from Arizona) is definitely in my top 5 politicians in Washington. Flake’s been spending a lot of his time railing against the earmark system and entitlements in general, and he’s been trying to get a seat on the Appropriations Committee, but is getting stonewalled from all sides. The most ridiculous note from this yet appears to come from the House, where Kay Granger, who’s a top Republican in the House, would rather the seat go to a Democrat. I mean, really - the perception of corruption via earmarks is one of the reasons the GOP lost Congress in 2006. Either get the message or get out.

* Populists of the world, rejoice, for Ralph Nader is here! You’d think the guy would learn by now…

* Reason’s Hit & Run points us to GovernmentAttic.org, a compilation of Freedom of Information Act documents. I have a feeling this will become a staple of my reading.

* Also from Reason, an article on ESPN.com about the disconnect between the NFL’s position on human growth hormone (HGH) and HGH’s possible benefits in regards to healing from head injuries. A very fascinating read.

* From Shawn, quite possibly the best video ever. The Onion does it again.

* California’s version of government health care was soundly rejected this week. Good for them.

* Australia’s left does what even our right couldn’t accomplish, cutting taxes AND spending at the same time. Why can’t we be this smart?

* The big news of the morning? No, not that Rudy lost big and that he’s likely to endorse McCain (more on that later), but that John Edwards has dropped out. Good riddance, and this probably locks up the nomination for Obama.

* Gaming geeks: Check out the new proposed Team Fortress 2 achievements. Via Something Awful’s photoshop contests.

Let’s see how much of this backlog I can sift out. By the way, R.E.M. tour this spring with Modest Mouse, and the Boston date is Friday the 13th of June at the Tweeter Center. On one hand, it’s friggin’ odd because they couldn’t sell out the Tweeter Center last time. On the other hand, that’s essentially a guarantee that I’ll be able to go. I already put in for the day off, hah.

* Big news of the day is the executive order by Bush on earmarks. Two questions: where was this six years ago, and why didn’t he do this last year and possibly save the Republican congress? It’ll be interesting to see how this works out.

* Hey, John McCain, are you for good judges or against good judges? I knew my discomfort came from someplace legitimate - I can’t see how McCain can adequately escape this, but, then again, he might not have to if he ends up with the Republican nomination. Patrick Ruffini reprinted a telling article about McCain last month that’s really worth reading. I can’t believe I was getting suckered in by him.

* The best news out of Massachusetts in ages. Go Jim Go!

* Who didn’t see this coming? Massachusetts health debacle plan is slated to be nearly $250m over the projected budget next year. And to think the guy who signed this monstrousity wants to be President.

* Okay, so let me get this straight: Chris Dodd wants the federal government to buy bad mortgages, thus taking the private risk and instead making it a public one? Huh?

* Interesting set of posts from Cafe Hayek. A question: how many people do you think are making minimum wage or less? If you guessed more than 5%, you’re wrong! I was wrong, too: read more here and the follow up post here.

* I’m about 3/4ths of the way through Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, which is turning out to be a much more important book than I could have ever anticipated. Check out his truncated Daily Show appearance, and cross your fingers that we get to see the original uncut version.

* I’m glad that Alexander Hamilton’s legacy is being questioned in some ways, finally. I personally consider him one of the more embarrassing founders (and that’s before I learned last week that he had to lie to his constituents to get to Philadelphia in the first place - a lone bright spot in an uneven Unruly Americans and the Origin of the Constitution). The sooner we disavow Hamilton, the better off we’ll be.

* Fun nostalgia for me: Mormon PSAs. Growing up Catholic, I always found it odd to see the LDS advertising on all my favorite shows - after all, the Catholics didn’t do that. I know more now, which makes these an interesting trip down the lane for me.

* An interesting view from Commentary regarding the post-1960s legacy of the United States, specifically revolving around our social history.

* The Skeptical Optimist helps slay the savage “stagnant wages” beast. If you’re a conservative and not reading his blog, you should add it to your reader of choice. If you’re a moderate or liberal and not reading his blog, you should give it a shot - his perspectives on debt and growth in particular are eye-opening.

* Somewhat related to the above, is the middle class really being squeezed?

‘Tis all for now.

Typically, when voting for federal and state-level officials, I have a three leveled litmus test to figure out if a candidate is palatable enough for me to vote for, in order of necessity:

1) Economy - does the candidate/official show a tendency for reasonable spending, a logical tax rate? Is the candidate aware of the role of businesses, big and small, on our economy? Is the candidate aware of the reality of the United States economy, which is not based in manufacturing but rather service, and thus requires a more global view?

2) Constitutional issues - does the candidate/official show a basic understanding of Constitutional principles? Will the candidate, if applicable, support the appointment and/or confirmation of judges who show a firm understanding of those principles?

3) Rights - Does the candidate take a Constitutional approach to rights, typically deferring to the individual when realistically possible.

That’s it. With few exceptions, I can boil down what’s important to me as a voter and how things would work out using this litmus test. Retroactive application has worked in many circumstances as well, and the best part (well, “best” meaning “part that makes it the most failsafe”) is that it’s a decidedly nonpartisan one - while conservative politicians generally meet these issues in a positive way more than liberal ones, it doesn’t always mean that the expected result is what comes up.

In the Presidential election right now, only four candidates really hit these points well enough for me: Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Bill Richardson, and Fred Thompson. In a situation like 2008, pretty much the entire Democratic field save Richardson were eliminated along with McCain and Giuliani on my economic test, I was able to eliminate Huckabee on the second, and Romney on the third (although you could make a case for Romney on the first issue - McCain, for the record, is an abject failure on all three).

The problem, of course, is when you get to a situation like today: Richardson, Thompson, and Tancredo are out (Tancredo had no chance of winning anyway), and my NH primary choice, Ron Paul, isn’t going to win either. Creates a bit of a problem. In 2000, I voted Libertarian, and in 2004, I wrote in Romney (a vote I regret now). Both times I ended up taking that route because Bush and Gore both missed the boat on point 2, and Bush ended up losing out on point 1 by the time 2004 rolled around, and we don’t need to recall the disaster that was/is John Kerry. I didn’t think it could get worse than that, but looking at the 2008 slate…

The problem, I guess, is that the template works. The Manchester Union Leader had a somewhat hysterical op-ed this week about something that relates very close to this litmus test. Shortly before I moved up here, the state government went from Republican to Democratic leadership, including the governor, John Lynch. The op-ed highlights the most obvious concern that anyone could have reasonably predicted: within 2 years, the NH budget increased nearly 18%, we’re running a deficit, and, after hiking various fees, they’re floating an income tax to make up the difference. I mean, seriously. Even discarding the fact that they tried to get a seatbelt law passed, and they somehow succeeded in a minimum wage hike and smoking ban, anyone could have seen this coming on either side, and what has it ultimately benefited? Even with constrained spending, the NH DOT (Department of Transportation) is a money pit, the schools are still achieving by local need rather than any statewide improvement, and our pockets are what’s funding the relative stagnation.

It’s why economy is #1 on my list - rights issues ultimately end up with the proper result over time, the Constitution goes through phases, but it’s very, very hard to repair the damage once costs increase and handouts start happening. All we hear about with Bush is the insane amount of spending - a very legitimate criticism. The spending would have outpaced the tax revenues even if the tax cut and the wars never occurred, which means that this was coming no matter what. At no point are any of the candidates who are likely to be President a year from now talking about doing anything about that, and the Democrats in particular are looking to spend even more money on the same things that Bush has, war excluded (and even then, we all know that’s not going to change short term). If your litmus test was sane economic policy, and you’re supporting the Democrats but think Bush has been bad for the economy and for spending, there’s a disconnect there. Vice-versa if you think Bush has been great but find the Democratic (or Republican for that matter) initiatives to be favorable.

Of course, a lot of people are voting because of the war, or health care, or some other reason, and I’ll address those later as well. But something tells me if we moved away from single-issue situations toward a more reasoned approach to who we’re supporting, the landscape might be different. We might not have to rely on things like gridlock or hope that the Courts fix the problems that the legislators and executives have set up for us. Problems that we really should have seen coming.