WILL PERRIN PULL OUT OF THE RACE?

Now that the end is in sight, super delegates are rushing to endorse Barack Obama’s campaign. Former presidential candidate John Edwards has thrown his weight behind Obama. Democratic leaders are calling for Senator Clinton to pull out so that the party will be unified in its fight for the White House in the general election.

Surprisingly, no one has called for Dr. Carl Perrin to withdraw his candidacy, even though he has run a strong campaign based on a platform of cheap beer. For a while analysts speculated that Perrin was hoping for Hillary and Barack to go to the convention with the vote split between them. According to this scenario, the convention would then have to come up with a compromise candidate, someone who could pull the party together. And who would be better in this role than Carl Perrin?

Both Clinton and Perrin have their motives for hanging in there by their fingernails. If Clinton stays in just a little while longer, she might be able to raise a little more money to pay off the huge debt that her campaign has generated. Perrin, on the other hand, may be hoping that the senator from Illinois might offer him some soft job in his administration.

Not so fast, insiders say. While Perrin may recognize that he has little chance of winning the Democratic nomination, nothing will prevent him from running as an Independent. During the time that Perrin lived in Maine, it had two Independent governors. Connecticut and Vermont have Independent senators. It would be a big mistake to write Perrin off too soon.

SHOULD PERRIN GET A TATTOO?

Hillary Clinton has been trying to portray Barack Obama as an elitist, out of touch with blue collar working men and women. Obama didn’t help himself when he said that people in small towns get bitter and turn to guns and religion. Then we see Hillary in a bar hoisting a mug of beer, while Barack goes to a bowling alley and throws a gutter ball. The image is beginning to stick, and it is hurting the Illinois senator in the voting booth.

Democratic candidate Dr. Carl Perrin may be suffering from the same kind of negative image. Some people see him as an English professor who goes around correcting people’s grammar. While Perrin is happy to hoist a mug of beer, especially if it is cheap beer, he is a worse bowler than Barack Obama. Maybe some people see him as an elitist, and that is why he gained so few votes in the primaries.

According the Perrin campaign manager Aristotle Mongoose, that is about to change. Perrin is about to show that he is a real down-to-earth kind of guy. He is going to get a tattoo. He is thinking about his wife’s name enclosed within a heart. He was planning to put the tattoo on his shoulder, but he realized that there would be little occasion to remove his shirt on the campaign trail, so now he is considering having the tattoo on his forearm. That way he can go into a bar, order a beer, and roll up his sleeves, so the television camera can show him holding a beer and displaying his tattoo. That should help portray the former English professor as a man of the people.

The only problem is that Perrin is afraid of needles, so it may be a while before anyone sees the actual tattoo.

30 CENTS A DAY

With the price of everything, including food and gas, going up, I’ve had to cut back on all kinds of things. Luckily I can still afford to buy cheap beer, but I can no longer pay for a Starbucks latte. However, with Senator Clinton’s and Senator McCain’s new plan, things are about to change. These two senators want to suspend the federal tax on gasoline for the summer months. (They both have some really strange ideas about how to make up the shortfall in the overextended federal budget, but I don’t care about that kind of stuff. I just want to get the extra money that will be in my pocket when I don’t have to pay the gasoline tax.)

I stay up nights trying to decide what to do with all that extra money that I will have if Clinton-McCain plan passes. According to some estimates, the average driver will save about 30 cents a day. Wow! If I put that 30 cents aside each day, over a month it would come to—let’s see--$9.00! If I just add a little more that, then three times a month I could afford a Starbucks latte. Thank you, Hillary and John.

STUPID AWARD

Charles Ray Fuller wins the Stupidity Award of the Week. The north Texas man took a check from his girl friend’s mother, changed the numbers, and added a bunch of zeros. Then he took it to the bank and tried to cash the $360 billion check. You can’t fool those bank tellers, though. They became suspicious when Fuller presented a $360 billion personal check. Not many people keep that much money in their personal checking accounts. In fact I don’t even keep $1 million in my personal account. I mean, why take a chance? Some dope like Charles Ray Fuller might take my check and add a few zeros. That would clean my checking account out easily.

BUSH BREAKS A RECORD

President George Bush has broken a record. At 71 percent he has earned the highest record of disapproval since such records began to be kept. He even beat out Richard Nixon, whose disapproval rate was 66 percent. Kennedy and Eisenhower both had disapproval rates in the thirties. Clinton’s was 54.

Our question is, how is it possible that 29 percent of people surveyed thought George Bush was doing okay? He turned the huge federal surplus that he inherited into the largest deficit ever. He failed to follow up aggressively in seeking out the Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Instead he diverted military resources away from that and sent them to an illegal and unnecessary war in Iraq. In this foolhardy enterprise, he has squandered billions of dollars and the lives of over 4,000 young American men and women along with untold thousands of Iraqi lives. This absurd effort has weakened the U. S. military and damaged the American image of a benevolent nation. The president has illegally spied on American citizens and authorized the torture of captives, thus leaving American prisoners of war subject to torture. He has torn up a treaty to protect the environment. His administration is full of people who rewrite science for political ends and use public office illegally to further partisan politics.

What more does this man have to do before every single American realizes that he has done irreparable damage to the country?

SAVE US FROM PANDERERS

Senator John McCain has come up with a wonderful idea. Why doesn’t the government suspend the federal tax on gasoline during the summer when people drive so much more? Senator Hillary Clinton climbed right aboard the gas tax holiday with her buddy John. The Arizona senator would make up for the loss of tax revenue from the general fund, which means it would not be made up. The New York senator would balance the money lost in the tax holiday by putting a windfall tax on the oil companies. This is a proposal that has already come before the senate and rejected.

Barack Obama doesn’t think dropping the tax during the summer months makes much sense, and it could even lead to higher gasoline costs. If people drive more and use more petroleum, the cost of gasoline could go up even further, negating the effect of the dropped tax. Furthermore, the tax money now goes for highway maintenance. The loss of funding for that would lead to a loss of thousands of construction jobs, just when we need to create jobs.

How much would the average family save if the gas tax is suspended from Memorial Day to Labor Day? According to a CNN article the average family would save about $2.35 every time they fill their tank. Congressional analysts,however, say that that means the average family would save about $30 over the summer. Well, whoop-te-do! I can see families sitting around discussing what they’re going to do with all that money.

Unfortunately, people will not see the false promise of McCain/Clinton scheme. Pretending to give something to everyday people, their plans will just drive up the price of gasoline, negating the “savings” which the two senators offer. They’ll repeat the false charges that Senator Obama is “out of touch” with common people, and they’ll go to the polls and vote for the panderers.

JEREMIAH WRIGHT TO THE RESCUE

Just a few weeks ago Barack Obama seemed on track to win the Democratic nomination. He had more votes than Hillary Clinton, more delegates, more endorsements by super delegates, and he was way ahead in fund raising. Democratic leaders were calling on the New York senator to drop out of the race so that the party could come together and prepare to fight the Republican candidate. When clips of Jeremiah Wright’s speech God damning America started appearing on the Internet, the Illinois senator gave a masterful speech in response to it. He was able to project his ability to see both sides of the race conflict. People were saying that the contest of Obama’s to lose.

And right away he started lose it. Hillary was expected to win in Pennsylvania, but the outcome might have been closer if it had not been for Barack’s comment that when small town people (poor whites) became bitter, they turned to guns and religion. Whoops! It was not only probably wrong factually, but it was certainly impolitic. Hillary called him an elitist who didn’t understand working class people. Then we see her on television in a bar with mug of beer and then with a shot of whiskey, while Barack goes to a bowling alley and throws a gutter ball. People wonder why he doesn’t wear an American flag in his lapel. Maybe he’s lacking in patriotism, particularly when you consider Wright’s comments damning America and Michelle Obama’s statement earlier in the campaign that for the first time in her adult life, she is proud of America.

A flag in the lapel is no true measure of patriotism, of course, but part of being a politician is creating an image. It wouldn’t hurt the Illinois senator to wear a flag pin in his lapel or to be seen hoisting a mug of beer.

Anyway, just at this crucial moment, Jeremiah Wright comes to the rescue. The reverend has been popping up all over the television. He mimicked JFK’s New England accents and LBJ’s Texas accent, charging that no one told those men that they spoke bad English. Black children, however, who speak Ebonics are told that their English is incorrect. He insisted that attacks on his statements are not an attack on him or on Barack Obama but attacks on the black church. Huh?

All Barack Obama needs now is an endorsement from Dick Cheney.