Time to take one day off from football. This will be just a rambling jumble of thoughts thrown together to see if anything makes sense and sticks.

For those who remember the band Chicago, you are probably familiar with their song "Harry Truman".

"Harry Truman" is a song written by Robert Lamm for the groups album Chicago VIII (1975), with lead vocals by Lamm. The first single released from that album, it reached #13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Written after the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon, the lyrics are a tribute to a former President that Lamm felt the American people could trust -- straight-talking Harry S. Truman. "America needs you, Harry Truman." A sampling of the lyrics:

"America needs you Harry Truman Harry could you please come home Things are looking bad I know you would be mad To see your favorite men Prevail upon the land you love

Americas wondering
How we got here
Harry all we get is lies
Were gettin' safer cars
Rocket ships to Mars
From men who'd sell us out
To get themselves a piece of power

We'd love to hear you speak your mind
In plain and simple ways
Call a spade a spade
Like you did back in the days
You would play piano
Each morning walk a mile
Speak of what was going down
With honesty and style"

Good stuff that.

As you know, I've yet to make up my mind on who I shall vote for in the upcoming presidential election. I have a choice between a Progressive Republican (which means a right leaning liberal) in John McCain, a socialist (two lefts don't make a right) in Barrack Obama . Or someone who just cries a lot and stamps her feet when she doesn't get her way.

Not a whole lot to choose from. I still think people need to study the fall of the Roman Empire when idiots and certifiable loony's were running the country, taxes went sky high, and the whole darn thing collapsed.

So, we need a new song. "America needs you, Ronald Reagan." He'd know what to do.

McGovern

Many of you are going to be too old to remember George McGovern. McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to incumbent Richard Nixon. In the general election, McGovern suffered a 60%-38% defeat to Nixon which at the time, was the second biggest landslide in American history, with Electoral College totals of 520 to 17. McGovern's two electoral vote victories came in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. That means he lost 49 states out of 50 for those keeping score at home.

The right has come out swinging against Obama. Here is a snippet from an article I read on the Timesonline (I can't read the crap printed in the States so I usually read news from across The Pond):

"Obama has the voting record of a “hard-left” socialist, from his time in the Illinois state legislature to the US Senate. He was recently judged by the nonpartisan National Journal to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 of any senator."

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and Republican guru, recently described Obama as:

"the most leftwing candidate to run since George McGovern”

And then that became the big story. Socialists have pretty much destroyed every country they've ever led, why should we think any differently here?

But it gets even messier. Obama is tainted by his long association with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a Chicago property developer was scheduled to go on trial for extorting kickbacks in return for political favours on March 3, the day before the Ohio and Texas primaries.

Obama bought his family home in Chicago for $1.65m, $300,000 less than the asking price, on the day that Rezko’s wife Rita bought an adjoining lot at the full price of $650,000. Obama later paid her $105,000 for a sixth of her yard in order to expand his garden.

The seller insisted on both plots being sold together, which suggests that Rezko did Obama an enormous favour even if the deal was not illegal. The seller has so far evaded press inquiries, but he is regarded as a potential “ticking timebomb” should he decide to go public.

Clinton briefly raised the question of Rezko, whom she described as a “slum landlord”, in a televised debate with Obama in California, but was silenced when a 1990s picture emerged of her with Rezko and President Bill Clinton. Nice research Hillary. But to be fair, Obama has returned around $85,000 in campaign contributions from Rezko.

What this means is that Hillary has put the issue into the bloodstream, but it didn’t get focused on. If I know my Republicans they wil somehow use the well financed “527” attack groups to mercilessly pursue Obama over his ties to Rezko.

It was a conservative “527” group, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who did grave damage to John Kerry’s reputation as a war hero in the 2004 White House race.

Obama could run into further difficulties over his relationship with William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois and former member of the Weather Underground, a leftwing terrorist group that planted bombs in the Capitol and the Pentagon in the 1970s.

Ayers told The New York Times on the day of the September 11 attacks:

“I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”

It emerged last week that Ayers served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, an antipoverty group, from 1999 to 2002, and donated $200 towards his Illinois state Senate campaign in 2001.

I bring that up not because I would believe Obama to agree with that assessment - as it require quite a leap of logic to assume that Obama agrees with William Ayers or condones what he did - but that this would be an additional line of attack from the right.

Of course, in a voting field that is already sick to death of mud-slinging and salvos fired without due cause, if the Elephants go too far in their attacks, it may backfire. Additionally there is a lot of apathy among the Republican ideological base. I just don’t see a level of energy there this time around.

Meanwhile, the left is already running with taking obvious quotes of of context from McCain. To wit:

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm going to be sick of this election by the time Mother's Day hits. I just want a civil election this time around. Enough with the mud-slinging, the raised voices, the finger pointing. I just don't think we're going to get there this time around. I hope I'm wrong.

McCain and VP

If McCain wants to get back the conservative crowd, and bring along the African American vote as well, I think he should consider this man below:

Know him? If you don't, you can read about him here.

Links

The VU Nut Job of the Week goes to "Good Morning America" co-host Chris Cuomo.

I'm going to have to watch the Weather Channel a whole lot more! I'd love to see Gore spanked.

Let's ask her if she thinks Holocaust was made up as well. Like I told my wife while watching the Oscars recently, "these people do not live in the real world."

OMG! You won't find this in the STrib.

I don't know what to say. On one hand, you are repelled. On the other, strangely attracted.

Take your cell phone away from your significant other....and do it now!

Coming Saturday: VU Podcast Fifty-Nine with former special teams coach Gary Zauner. And iTunes has once again listed me as an "official" podcast. Cool!

Posted by briankeithmaas@msn.com at March 5, 2008 01:21 AM