I had to share this snippet from a report in the News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware, about Sarah Palin's badly received appearance at the Flyers hockey game in Philadelphia: "The weirdest part of it was that Palin, who had to know she was going to be booed, walked out with her cutie pie 7-year-old daughter, Piper. Why do I have a feeling that poor Piper will be discussing being booed by thousands with a therapist in about 10 years?"

I am waiting (but not holding my breath) for someone - ANYONE - in mainstream media to point out something that to me appears obvious - and which explains why those crowds at the McCain-Palin rallies are so hostile and angry. When the McCain campaign needs to generate a crowd, where do you think they go to find a sympathetic audience? Why, to rightwing radio talkshow hosts, of course. You know, those guys and gals who make their living spewing hatred of all things progressive day in and day out. Their listeners are known, to put it gently, as "low information voters". Or as I prefer to call them, "Voters Without a Clue." The Rush Limbaugh crowd, the Hannity imbeciles, those idiots who have never read a newspaper in their life except for the sports and "gracious living" sections. Those dumb nitwits who permeate this country and think they are informed because they listen to hate radio every day. I am willing to bet you that the tickets to McCain-Palin rallies are given away to those people by those hate radio hosts, probably as prizes for offering the most inane, sycophantic call-in to their show. Most Repugnicants, repulsive and loathesome though they may be, are not rabid and off-balanced people such as those we see at McCain rallies. They may be mean and rotten to the core, but unbalanced they are not. The people at those rallies are truly unbalanced - just take a look at them when the next newsclip flashes by. These are not well people! And they are working themselves up for naught. These rabid rallies have resulted in not ANY kind of improvement in McCain's poll numbers ANYWHERE. That is fact! These nuts are actually working to McCain's disadvantage, turning off reasonable people who might have voted for him otherwise but do not want to be associated with those nutjobs. Poor ol' McCain, he can't win for LOSING!

At a town hall meeting in Wisconsin today, a McCain supporter stood up and anxiously addressed the Senator: "We're all wondering why Obama is where he's at. How he got here. Everybody in this room is stunned we're in this position." Dang, that one really put a big smile on my face - which pretty quickly turned into a total guffaw! Are we having fun yet?

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence has made up their mind about who they will vote for in November. Only the clueless pea-brains remain undecided at this point. And THEY are the ones who get to decide who is our next President. They make up about 10 percent of likely voters, according to most polls. This is not a comforting thought. I watched a group of undecided women discuss the election with anchor Rick Sanchez on CNN the other day. They appeared to be normal, regular women, but when each attempted to express her thoughts, one thing became clear. Not a single one of them had any thoughts whatsoever about much of anything. I also watched a discussion by a group of undecided voters after this week's debate. Each of them was offended because the candidates hadn't given them enough details about every issue imaginable. They wanted all this detail spoon-fed to them within that single debate's 90 minutes. Every detail. Totally spelled out. And they faulted the candidates for not having done what they expected them to do. It never crossed any of their less-than-mediocre minds that THEY might have just a little bit of responsibility for educating themselves. Oh no! "Tell me what to think," seems to be the cry of the undecideds. God save us from our dumb and imbecilic fellow citizens!

Pat Schroeder, who served for 24 years as a Congressmember from Colorado and is now the President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, the national trade organization of the book publishing industry, offered the following comment on a blog at Politico.com in response to a question about whether race would play a part in the results of the election: "... Can we all ponder how the public would have reacted if one of Obama's girls was pregnant out of wedlock or if he had been 5th from the bottom of his class at college?" I can ponder that. There would be no end to the outrage that would overwhelm us from the right. The religious rightwing zealots would be beside themselves with righteous indignation. So the next time you feel a tinge of pity for poor ol' incompetent John McCain and hapless Sarah Moosekiller, ponder Pat Schroeder's comment, take a deep breath, and blast 'em some more. Let's teach those hypocritical jerks a lesson they will remember till Pat Robertson and Billy Graham have rotted in their graves: Yes, we can! And yes we will!

Articulate. Charming. Genuine. Magnanimous - even after watching (for the first time) Sarah Palin trash her husband! What more could we ask for in a First Lady? Her interview on Larry King tonight on CNN was the epitome of how we want a First Lady to present herself.

... that the next time the ask you what you are going to do next, you reply, "I don't know. I am thinking about going to Disneyland. Why don't you go and ask Lou Dobbs what we should do next?"

And then smile and simply walk away. And wait. And wait. Until the cows come home if necessary.

(Never fear, Lou Dobbs will come riding out of the television ratings with the answer any minute now.)

 

My sister, the president of the women's club in her town in Ohio, has voted for a Democrat only three times in her 70 years. She voted for Bill Clinton - twice (and took a lot of heat for it from her friends), and this year she voted for Hillary Clinton. No other Democrat has impressed her to the point of wooing her away from her Republican loyalties.