Senator McCain Doesn't Know the Price of Gas

According to the Huffington post and several other sources a reporter from the Orange County register asked Senator McCain what was the price of gas. The senator replied that he didn't know and it was some time since he actually pumped his own gas. The purpose here is not to take a pot shot at Senator McCain. Rather, the real issue is that so many of our leaders are out of touch with the day-to-day realities with which we must all contend. Does Senator Obama fill up his gas tank? Likely not. He's under heavy Secret Service protection and these agents and others drive him around. But before he became a candidate, did he do this? Does Senator Clinton go shopping at the grocery store and know the price of a gallon of milk? I don't know, but these things are very important if you say that as president of the United States you are going to work hard for the people of this country. Talking to the people about these problems isn't enough to gain a full understanding of what people are concerned about. Perhaps it should be mandatory for the presidential candidates to go shopping at the grocery stores, pump their own gas, and actually pay their own bills.

Will the Democrats Lemming-like Behavior Hurt Obama's Bid to Become President?

Lemmings are small rodents that live in or near the Arctic. Under certain circumstances large migrating groups will reach a cliff overlooking the ocean. They will stop until the urge to press on causes them to jump off the cliff and start swimming, sometimes to exhaustion and death. Political lemmings, the humankind, emulate their rodent cousins when it comes to key elections. Rather than support their party's candidate, they find reasons why it would be better for them not to vote at all, and thereby let the opposition candidate win. While not totally comparable, there is a politically suicidal behavioral element in what my mother used to call, "Biting off your nose to spite your face."

A number of groups that strongly supported Senator Clinton are threatening not to vote for Senator Obama. If you were a Senator Clinton supporter would you really want Senator McCain to be the next president of the United States? You've got to be kidding! Some Democratic women who are threatening not to vote for Obama are making it a feminist issue. I participated in a discussion regarding this on another blog. Is it possible for a woman to call herself a feminist and vote for Senator McCain, a man who allegedly called his wife a four letter word that I won't put in my post. Of even greater importance (one would think), is whether a feminist would would want one or more new conservative Supreme Court justices added so there will be an absolute majority on the Supreme Court who will tell the women of America that they don't have control over their bodies.

This type of lemminglike behavior has been seen before, but never more odiously then in the 1968 presidential election. Many of my liberal friends said there was no difference between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. When I challenged their sanity, they accused me of political naiveté and questioned whether I was really a Democrat. As we all know, Nixon won the election and American democracy was severely threatened. The Nixon Cabinet was the first one since the Ulysses S. Grant administration to be able to hold cabinet meetings in prisons. I had moved by the time of the Watergate travesty and was not able to look my old friends in the eye. I may appear to be digressing, but I'm trying to emphasize the point that rational thinking can often be completely discarded in a heated emotions of political posturing. Stay tuned, this will only get more interesting.

Coming next: the Presidential candidacy of Senator McCain and Republican Lemming-like Behavior.