Political postcards
By JIM MONTANA
jim.montana(at)gmail.com
After taking the last couple of weeks for reflection in Montana, I am pleased to be back in a rested frame of mind and am ready to tackle the New Year and all of the political news that comes with it. If my columns sucked, let me apologize that is what happens when you let your cat write your columns for you. With all of that said let’s dive right into the news and opinion.
New Hampshire Rewind: As I wrote last week, Hillary Clinton shocked the political world and pulled off the upset of the year in politics. Going into the New Hampshire primary, all exit polls had Clinton in a dog race for second place behind Barrack Obama. Well, we all learned exit polls mean nothing.
Maybe it was her breaking down and crying at an event the day before or maybe it was Bill promising all of the women of the state 8×10 photos of him if they voted for Hillary, who knows but whatever it was maybe it will work for Nevada this coming Saturday. On the Republican side , it was Sen. John McCain proving that he was in fact the true comeback kid by winning the Republican primary with former Gov. Mitt Romney taking his second silver in a row.
As a side note, Romney finally won one of the big ones, Tuesday night he won the Michigan primary with McCain coming in second, Mike Huckabee in third and Rudy 9/11 Guilani coming in somewhere before Alan Keyes. I will cover this primary along with the South Carolina primary and the Nevada caucus in next week’s column.
Then there were three:Last Thursday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson dropped out of the race for the White House. This is not a big surprise as I have said from the beginning that Richardson is not in the running for the big chair; look for him to be Clinton’s choice for her running mate. After all, wasn’t that the intent of Richardson the entire time was to get his name out there let the other candidate know where he stood and for lack of a better term apply for the Vice President position?
I have a dream: This past week Hillary Clinton made some comments on Fox Snooze that many in the African American world are claiming were racist. The trouble started when Mrs. Clinton said in an interview, “Dr. King’s dream was realized when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act.” These comments have created a firestorm of controversy and have unfortunately brought the subject of race into the election. I for one see nothing wrong with this comment, however I am not an African American. In this election, the Democrats need to focus on the real issues at hand and unite in an effort to prevent the GOP from winning the White House.
With all of that being said, let me digress for a moment and talk about what is a disgrace to Dr. King’s legacy. The state of the African American culture for the most part disgusts me, except for the ones that have decided to rise above it. The African-American race has segregated itself from society. I promise you if Dr. King were alive today he too would be disgusted. He didn’t die that day in Memphis just for blacks to run around and shoot each other or to sing some rap song about slapping their bitch around. No he died so that African Americans could have the same rights that white people had. I live in the very city that Dr. king died in and I can attest to the fact that blacks here feel that they are the only ones allowed to utter his name and anyone else that does is racist. Hillary Clinton making a comment about King’s dream being realized is not as offensive black-on-black crime is. The question I have for all of these people who are blasting Clinton for her remarks is, would you be just as offended if Barrack Obama had said the very thing?
God: inside or outside of the White House: On Monday, Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that he did want to amend the constitution to reflect God’s law. Now I am not opposed to the constitution being amended, however using the bible to dictate that change is not only wrong, but it violates the separation of church and state. The President should let the needs of the American people lead him in his decision making. We have seen this movie before and know exactly how it ends. This country wants to move in a new direction and talking about amending the constitution from the onset is not the way to convince the American people that you are the candidate that can bring that change.
Showdown in the desert: On Tuesday night, the Democrats held debate # 575 of the election. This one took place in Nevada and only included three candidates. I heard that Dennis Kucinich’s UFO did not make it to Nevada in time. The real reason for his absence was that he was not invited by NBC to participate. Moreover, while many expected the debate to resemble that of a wrestling match it was on the most part on the tame side. Sen. Clinton and Obama showed that they were back on track and committed to uniting the Democratic party. That being said the candidates were excessively nice to each other. Now I am not saying that they need to go for the jugular, however they need to realize that only one of them will represent their party in the election. I personally feel that to speed up the promise, the top two candidates should walk twenty paces turn and shoot with the only candidate standing being nominated.
Current event story of the week: The nation has been on the outlook for a Marine wanted for the murder of a fellow pregnant Marine. The Marine in question was last seen on Saturday boarding a Greyhound bus in Louisiana headed for Texas, and has not been spotted since then. I will say that the Marine in question is of Latino decent therefore if he did in fact make it to Texas than what is to say that he didn’t cross the border and slip into Mexico and blend in with the other citizens. The Marine was wanted for questioning about the murdered Marine, which by the way accused him of raping her.