To Vote or not to Vote

It is appalling another 4 years has come around with today being the Iowa Caucus. Or as America's Biggest and Most Amusing Blowhard, Rush Limbaugh, calls it, the Buckeye Cauci. Now, just because I mentioned Mr. Limbaugh do not go thinking I'm an arch conservative. I listen to him because WBAP is the only radio station that comes in clear on my cheap headphones I wear sometimes while biking and hiking. And if you've formed a negative opinion about Limbaugh, but have not actually listened to him, give yourself a break and do so. You may find him quite amusing.

It this is an election year it must also be an Olympics year, another event that seems to come around way too soon. It's too early to guess who is going to win the Olympics, but with this election thing it would appear we are going to be stuck with either Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Guilliani or maybe Mr. McCain as our next president. Anyone of whom would seem likely to be a fresh breath of competence after what we have endured since 2000.

I went to a caucus once. In Washington. The year Bill Clinton won. Washington has since switched to the primary method. I'm not sure I approve of the caucus method, based on my own personal experience. It amounted to being about 20 people in a stranger's living room, one or two self-appointed know-it-alls, but in actuality know-nothing yappers, dominating the discussion with ignorant blather while the rest of us sat in pained silence. At some point I couldn't take it anymore and interupted with a string of facts that refuted the nonsense I'd been listening to. The details of what was spewed that night has long left my memory banks. But my disdain for the caucus method of selecting candidates remains.

I'm sure you are wondering who I voted for at my one and only caucus. Well, it was not Bill Clinton. At that point in time I could not believe he could go far with what seemed to me to be his sort of phony ways. As often is the case, I was wrong. I voted for Paul Tsongas. I don't remember who actually won our local caucus. I'm fairly certain it was not Tsongas since the only time I've voted for a winner was the second time Reagan won. And the second time Nixon won. Quite a track record.

My guesses as to who is going to win the Iowa Caucus today, thus insuring they will lose, is Barack Obama for the Democrats and Mike Huckabee for the Republicans.

But I don't think Mike Huckabee is going to win next week as he keeps making weird mistakes. Like his reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto when Huckabee said we need to secure our southern border to stop the Pakistanis from entering from Mexico because they are our #2 illegal alien invaders. This is not even remotely accurate and no artful spin could make it so. So, Huckabee somehow thought it logical that of all the nations in the world that somehow poor Pakistanis made it all the way around the world, wandering up through Mexico in such large numbers that they out number people's from other Central and South America nations entering our country. He somehow thought that millions of Pakistanis were invading us, likely for some long-planned jihad that would make 9/11 pale by comparison. And yet the first he raised this dire Pakistani invasion issue was in reaction to the Bhutto killing?? No, I do not think we really need another out of touch, albeit nice guy, being our president. In other words, I am shocked Huckabee won the Iowa caucus, all things considered, even though I thought he would, I just somehow thought the common sense of all those solid midwesterner Iowans would prevail. But it didn't.

So, with my track record of being wrong it'll probably be Hillary and John McCain tonight, with Hillary turning into a steamroller express making the rest of the election on the Democrat side into a big bore.