Dead Cat Does His Civic Duty

Well it's Halloween night and only 7 days till election day, and I don't know what's more frightening - the thought of all those ghosts and goblins or the thought of who might be running the country for the next couple of years.

Aiiieeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Here in California it's gonna be a pretty quiet election. We don't really have many Congressional or Senatorial seats in play, so we're just gonna watch what happens in the rest of the country. That seems to happen a lot out here lately. Last election everything was so tied up in advance that the presidential candidates didn't even hardly make the effort to come out here. Kind of makes you feel left out.

Anyways, all the pundits and pollsters are looking for Democrats to win big this year. Of course, these are the same pundits and pollsters who looked at the exit polls and predicted a John Kerry win back in 2004 (remember that?), so I don't know if the Dems really have anything to feel cocky about. But so far things are looking pretty good for the Democrats, so unless some Democratic big shot does something stupid like insult our troops they shouldn't have any problems.

Oops, wait a minute...

Oh those Democrats. A week to go before the election and some big liberal from back east goes and sticks his foot in it by saying that the soldiers serving in Iraq are there because they were too dumb to get into college. Wouldn't you know it. All they had to do was keep their big mouths shut and stick with the anti-Bush stuff and they were in, but nooooooooo...

On the other hand, I'm sure the Republicans will cut the Democrats some slack on this. I'm sure they won't try to capitalize on this opportunity to switch the focus of the election from the Iraq War to John Kerry and his put-down of American soldiers who are currently fighting and dying for their country. I'm sure the Republicans will be happy to let the whole thing blow over and not try to cut into the pre-election momentum of the Democrats. After all, these are politicians; these are honorable men and women. They wouldn't resort to anything so underhanded.

Would they?

Luckily for the Dems, though, there are only 7 days left till the election so if they can spin this thing right they should be able to minimize the damage. From what I've heard so far it looks like they're going with the "Well if Bush hadn't gotten us into this war then Kerry never would have made such an asinine remark in the first place" argument. Might work, I suppose. Maybe it'll even motivate their base which, I guess, seems to think we've got a bunch of illeterate goons over there fighting this war. I wouldn't count on it , though, and I wouldn't be suprised to see those poll numbers tighten up a little over the next 7 days.

We'll see.

Meanwhile, back here in California the only real issues left to decide are the usual thousand and one ballot propositions we have to deal with every election. This years voter pamphlet (for those who care) clocks in at a svelte 191 pages, and so far I've managed to make my way through to about page 41.

The really big issue this time around seems to be Proposition 87 - the "Alternative Energy, Research, Production, Incentives, Tax on California Oil Producers Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute". So far we've had the oil companies flooding with airwaves with anti-87 ads, and a couple of big Democratic guns named Gore and Clinton answering back with ads of their own. Obviously, it's a big deal, and pretty damn confusing when you get right down to it.

If passed, the Constitutional Amendment will tax the state's oil producers and create a $4 billion fund to be used for research and development of alternative energy sources. How all this will be achieved is a little vague, however, and seems to go right to the fundamental difference between the Democratic and Republican views of government. Let me explain.

The way I see it, to a Democrat the $4 billion is like fertilizer, and once spread around there will be sunshine and rainbows and grass and flowers and the whole state will become green with new growth. It'll be like one big money hug. On the other hand, a Republican worries that putting a $4 billion pile of money in front of a bunch of politicians is like putting a pile of raw meat in the sewer. Instead of getting sunshine and flowers all we'll be getting are a bunch of rats and mice and other vermin who will pick up the scent and devour it.

I'm kind of undecided, myself, and wish that the Proposition was a little better on the specifics. Alternative energy doesn't really say much and seems to encompass a lot of things, and I don't want us to find ourselves 2 years down the road reading a story in the paper about some whacko in Chula Vista who got $50 million for some hare-brained scheme to turn rust into kerosine.

I've seen it happen before.

Anyways, I've still got another 7 days to ruminate on it and also get through the other 150 pages of my voter pamphlet, so looks like I'll be busy. Sheesh, I've got some cramming to do.