As Aerosmith once said, “I’m back in the saddle, again!” Had a couple of nice days off, and I see the political arena has gotten itself in a frenzy.
Some random thoughts:
Obama foregoes public financing
I spent a couple of days with close friends in York County. One of them - mother of two, college educated, someone I love very much - said to me she would not vote for Barack Obama because there were too many rumors about him, too many e-mails about ties to terrorists and radical Islam and his middle name is Hussein.
That is one reason why Obama decided to forego public financing for the election and its $84.1 million limit. And he’s not only going to need funds to fight such unfounded rumors, but the closer we get to November the more realistic the chances will seem of an African-American president, there’s going to be a lot of racist-type material spread around. Going to take a good p.r. campaign to combat all of that.
Obama in the post Hillary Clinton-world had plenty of political capital to spend, so why not go back on the promise because it won’t hurt him all that much.
Armstrong gets fire over education vote
New Era today had an article about local parents taking aim at GOP state Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong for authoring and voting for a bill that would slash Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s education budget by $118 million.
It’s important to remember that the bill and the vote was merely a strong message to Rendell, not the final budget. My guess is the Senate Republicans are forcing Rendell’s hand and making him choose between two priorities: education and health care. The GOP will give him one but not the other, and my sense is the Republican caucus is more likely to give education funding rather than a new, large government health care system. The governor has a BIG agenda and wants to provide health care to uninsured adults and to boost education funding in the wake of a state House study that showed drasting underfunding in public ed. So the GOP makes a move to cuteducation funding, force Rendell to meet them on that front and leave little for health care reform.
And why would Armstrong be the prime sponsor? Well, he’s retiring at the end of this year, so there’s no risk.
Bush calls for drilling off-shore and in ANWR
Is anybody these days really listening to what the president says?
What are they trying to hide? 
