Ron Paul expanding his base

   I’m not totally surprised by what I see happening on the right.  It should be a warning for all the candidates that Ron Paul is fast gathering the disgruntled voters to his horde.  While he was just a blog sensation they had nothing to fear, but it seems on the surface as if all that is changing.  The impending straw poll in Iowa will help sort out just how much of an inroad he has made into the mainstream electorate.

   A few things I have noticed already

1.  Google hits at my blog, or I should say server hits relating to Ron Paul have increased by a factor of 10 since sunday mornings debate.  I’m not sure the two are related, but reading about Ron Paul from outside the blogosphere has begun to increase.  These are likely as not everyday people who happen to have computers, as the numbers were consistent for the 2.5 months I’ve been blogging.

2.  The hits seem to be directed at issues which may make this even a little more sinister for the rest of the candidates.  People don’t seem to be looking at for/against articles so much as they are looking at issue related articles.  Marque and reprisal, earmarks, Nafta Superhighway, and immigration reform articles have received a genuine old fashioned monkey stomp from the search engines.

3.  His face is showing up closer to the front page on the main news sources (FOX, MSNBC, CNN), and all you have to do is click the politics tab, and he is present now on a regular basis.

   The natural question is why?  It would appear that people are tired of the same old song and dance.  If you really look at them, what do Giuliani and Romney offer that we haven’t already seen?  McCain will almost certainly go down in history as one of the most decent men ever to play the politics game, but he is on the wrong side of some issues that Americans seem to feel very strongly about.  Immigration and the war in Iraq are likely as not going to decide this election, and as I said weeks ago, if they let the immigration issue lie dormant it is going to kill the members of congress that are running.  Incidentally, Ron Paul is on the right side of both of these issues.

   Another reason quite simply is they like what he has to say about foreign policy.  The one thing people aren’t looking for here is his foreign policy stance.  That would probably be because they already understand it, and they already agree with it.

    I’m not sold on Ron Paul, and I won’t be.  My vote is hardly the deciding factor.  What is apparent, and important, is that people are taking a closer look.  Only time will tell if it maters or not.

Electoral college change could benefit Republican candidates

   This is one you liberals better get up in arms about in a hurry.  Imagine if  the popular vote winner in a state didn’t get all the electoral votes.  Instead, suppose that the winner in each congressional district won a portion of them.  Instead of an automatic 55 electoral votes going to the Democrats in the state of California, it were split, more fairly along party lines.

   Well, if a ballot initiative in California goes through that’s exactly what will happen, and the Democrat candidates will find it much harder to win the election.

Before you scream foul though, Democrats are trying to do the exact same thing in North Carolina.  Watching politics is more fun than football.

6 a.m. hateful

  I did not sleep well…this does not bode well.

that corpulent cretin would be well advised to stay the fuck away from me today. Jobs are easily replaced.  Not so larynx’s.

94 degrees with 12000% humidity…it’s going to be a golden day.

The Dog Days

   August here is hot.  That cloying, funky,  sort of hot that gets into your head.  It takes a toll on your facuities, and limits your ability to act rationally.    Add in the difficulty of working in a foundry in this heat, and you have all kinds of hardheaded people working just this side of the line between sanity, and incomprehensible rage mullets.

    I was screamed at today at work by a supervisor.  Actually by an assistant plant manager.  He spent several minutes berating me for not doing what he wished for me to do.  When he finished, in the calmest voice I could muster in my “i -need-to- choke-you” state I explained that there was no way I could have done what he wished because it had been raining when I arrived at work.

   Shit for brains then said ”  I don’t care if there was a blizzard.  You should have done what I told you to do.”

Oh.

right.

So I replied   “fair enough, next time we have a blizzard in August, the short fat stupid guy shall get his wish.”

As I understand it,  there was some lighthearted discussion about my termination while the short fat stupid guy was in the room, and then general agreement that I must not be feeling well because that was an incredibly mild thing for me to have said after he left.

Either way, I’m still employed, and the short fat stupid guy is unhappy.

It will be hotter tomorrow.

and the day after that

and…