MaDD Blogger

Oh give me a home....

Senator John Kerry is currently visiting some of our states out west during the current Senate recess and yesterday ended up in Ribera, New Mexico at the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer which is run by Kerry's long time friend radio host Don Imus. The ranch was on an off day as each session runs aproximatly 10 days, 9 days which are spent with the kids and the 10th day which allows the staff to have a day off and prepare for the next group of kids which arrives today. Mr.Imus' radio program is simulcast on MSNBC from 6 to 9 EST Monday through Friday.

Imus told some very interesting stories about Senator Kerry and speculated that Kerry was touring certain states to shore up his base for a possible '08 run although recent Democratic polling shows Kerry with about 16 percent support behind Hillary Clinton's 40 percent. While at the ranch Kerry rode horses and tried his hand at cutting cattle with Imus's 7 year old son Wyatt which apparently he was pretty good at. Senator Kerry also broke the news to Imus about Dana Reeve's cancer diagnosis. Imus had met and interviewed Dana Reeve a few years ago when she was on broadway with his comedy writer Rob Bartlett but it was the events that took place before the cattle cutting that I found most amusing.

According to Imus before going into the roping area Senator Kerry was having a conversation with Ramone one of Imus' ranch hands. Senator Kerry walked up to Ramone and shook his hand and asked "Who did you vote for?" to which Ramone responded "I voted for Bush!". This apparently shocked the Senator who then asked "Why?" to which Ramone responded "He's a Christian." to which Kerry said "Well, I'm a Christian too." to which Ramone responded "Well, I just don't think that some people should be getting married...if you know what I'm saying." to which Kerry responded "Well you know I actually believe that too.". This where the story stopped and Imus started making fun of Kerry whom he felt was willing to do anything to get a vote. He even used that hooker line "I'll be whatever you want me to be." which is what I have thought of Kerry anyway. Whatever your opinion on gay marriage is Senator Kerry's will "modify" depending on who he is talking too.

Senator Kerry and Imus fell out for a few weeks after the election mainly because Imus while promising to vote for Kerry out of friendship was blasting him on air for what he thought were some bone headed decisions and a lack of guts during the campaign. Kerry at the time would not return Imus's phone calls but after a few weeks relented and began appearing again. I've been watching Imus on MSNBC since it's debut nearly a decade ago. I even used to watch him on C-SPAN where he appeared once a month for a while. Imus is a registered Republican but has been known to call it down the middle and he's had Kerry on dozens of times over the years and though he was a Democrat I became an admirer of his but the campaign brought out the worst of him as it does in most candidates.

Running for the Presidency made Bob Dole look like a doddering old fool with very little help from Bubba Clintons campaign. He fell off the campaign stage and twice forgot what city he was in which of course the press ran wild with. Al Gore's attempts to appear smarter than everyone else backfired against George W. Bush who appeared to be a down home regular guy against an uber geek and before we get into a partisan pissing match about how Dubya stole that election let's go over the facts one more time.

Gore won the popular vote, Bush won the electoral vote and it's the latter that gets you into the White House. Andrew Jackson did the same thing when he lost to John Quincy Adams even though he had more popular votes. Then you have the Florida debacle where Gore requested recounts of some of the largest Florida counties all of which he lost though the race got tighter so rather than suck it up and just except it he decided to call for a statewide recount which the Supreme Court struck down which was a good thing because it was said at the time that the Republicans were planning on pulling recounts in states like New Mexico if they indeed lost Florida so it would have kept on going. Both the New York Times and Washington Post both of whom had endorsed Gore performed recounts of their own and while the numbers were slightly different both declared Bush the winner. And then there's my favorite, Gore had enough electoral votes already that if he had won either Clinton's home state of Arkansas or his home state of Tennessee he'd be President right now.

You go back several elections and find an elected President that didn't win his home state. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, both Bush 41 and 43 and Clinton all won their home states. I'm well aware that I skipped Gerald Ford but he holds the dubious distinction of being the only man in history to hold both the Vice-Presidency and the Presidency and not be elected to either office. I am extremely curious about who both parties will run for President in '08. For my side I like John McCain though I am concerned that he is unwilling to sell himself or compromise his beliefs. That makes him a great man but a bad candidate because to paraphrase Rudy from Survivor "If you want to be President you've got to get a little dirty!".

I've watched McCain for years and never once felt that he was lying about anything and I used to say the same thing about Kerry until last year but it's those same qualities of honesty and integrity that hurt McCain's 2000 bid where he seemed unwilling to resort to the same tactics as the Bush campaign especially in South Carolina where Bush's people conducted themselves without honor. Guess what? Running for President, it's hard...it's hard work and I'd rather see McCain sully himself and get elected because I know his true nature would shine through and help him lead this nation in the end.