Voting With the Gut

I just heard Stephen Colbert (a Comedy Central news show host) speaking at the White House Press Correspondent's dinner with George Bush in attendance. It’s amazing that a guy can speak the way he did just 10 feet away from the leader of the most powerful nation on earth—stinging satire of what George Bush is all about! It’s a testament both to the greatness of our freedom of speech and the greatness of our contempt for authority in these times. That being said, I happened to agree with some of what he was saying. He makes fun of how stupid and uninformed the average American can be as they support political candidates. He said satirically that he identifies with the president; they both make decisions from the gut. He said, “did you know that there are more nerve endings in your gut than in your head?” How does he know? His gut told him.

Anyway, my gut told me that I needed to make another blog post. My last one was starting to embarrass me. That’s the only reason I make new blog posts now, when the old one becomes so old that it’s unbearable even to its proud creator. Why have a blog then? Well, I suppose I enjoy having a presence online even if it’s only a tiny, stagnant, watering hole in the middle of a desert. Occasionally people stumble upon my blog, though they may refrain from drinking after glancing at the date stamp. Dried algae colors the ground around my pool. But the blog does let people know that I occasionally think something. About once every three months to a year I will think something. The rest of the time my mind is of course completely blank. My gut, on the other hand, is always working.

In addition to six strips of very thick, Winco Foods bacon, my gut today was mulling over that great crusader Ron Paul. Actually what happened was that Peter Roise, a local supporter of Ron Paul in Moscow, called me up to let me know that the Washington caucus is occurring on February 9th. And, as I am one of those few people that hop on the new Palouse superhighway over to Pullman every night, he thought I should know about this.

Now I’ve liked Ron Paul ever since I heard about him. I voted for Allan Keys who had some of the same ideas back in 2000. It’s a shame that the conservative talk show hosts are against him. I heard one host say that half the time Paul sounds crazy and the other half of the time he sounds like Daffy Duck. But originally I when I learned about Paul, I thought, this guy could never be elected, so I became rather taken with Huckabee instead.

There was one YouTube interview in which Tim Russert asked Huckabee about a statement in his book about homosexuals. It seems that Huckabee had lumped Homosexuals into a list with pedophiles in a single sentence in his book. I don’t remember his exact words to Russert, but he didn’t back down. He said there was a difference between pedophilia and homosexuality, but that they are both sin from a Christian perspective. And he also said that when Christians speak about sin they are referring to “missing the mark.” His point being that Christians, like himself, don’t make a distinction between the sinners in the world and the sinless people, we’re all sinners. He seemed to represent the faith well and that’s why I thought he would be a good president. I mean, not that the presidents primary job is to witness to people, but give me a brake! I'm an evangelical here! If we didn't have a Christian president, then I might actually have to look to my Pastor for spiritual leadership. I just had that gut feeling about Huckabee. “There’s just something about him” and he plays the bass guitar.

However, since receiving the phone call from Peter and thinking that perhaps Ron Paul is in this for the long haul, having raised more money than Huckabee, I logged onto Paul's website and watched his January 27 video about how the campaign was going and I have to tell you that that was the first time that Paul spoke to me in the gut. He was so honest in the way he evaluated the success of his campaign. He said that he had no plans of leaving the race until his support died out and that as long as his supporters were enthusiastic, he was in it for the long haul. He had several young people around him in his office as he delivered this message, representing the thousands of young supporters that will listen to it online. He encouraged his idealistic followers, but didn’t lie to them. He said he didn’t know the future. It was great. I was touched. I became a Ron Paul supporter in my gut and not just my head! (Am I jerking any tears out there?)

There’s no question that Ron Paul is the stellar candidate, a real, live, honest politician. A new species, if there ever was one. He has risen out of the primordial goo of politics, not to mention the primordial goo of my blog, and proven evolution true for the first time. Now if we all could just prove the Revolution true! Go Ron Paul!

I like Mike

Okay, so I know that the ability to play the bass guitar is not necessary for being president, but I just like Mike Huckabee! In fact, I've been on a political binge (I don't consider politics to be normal healthy fair) for the past couple of days, as people have been voting in Iowa. I've listened to all of the youtube clips and other media that you can find on the candidate's websites and, although Ron Paul is the favorite of many of my respected friends, he just seems too shrill to ever be elected president. I've been to a Ralph Nader ralley before and listening to Ron Paul reminds me of being at a Nader ralley.

Huckabee on the other hand is so likeable! Huckabee reminded me of a certain feeling I had as a kid when watching TV at election time, the feeling of excitement that I really, really like a certain candidate and that I think he really could win. That's the feeling that I had listening to Huckabee and I think its all because he's an unashamed Christian.

I love the way he spoke on Meet the Press, defending a quote in his book about homosexuality. Click on the link above.