I watched the first debate between gubernatorial candidates in my State. It featured the incumbent, a savvy, attractive, articulate female person, and her opponent, a man who has only one thing going for him, a huge pile of money to spend.
The last time I read how much he'd already spent on the campaign it was up to $19,000,000, and that was several weeks ago. The guy is so obviously not Governor material. But, he has all that money, and has not only spent it like it was Gatorade, but for years and years he has been feedbagging prominent Republican causes and candidates who now have to reciprocate and campaign for him, or at least give him some good blurbs for his ads. It must gag some of them to do it, he is so obviously not an able candidate.
I'd like to think he can't be elected on the strength of money alone. But, I'm not so naive as I used to be. I've learned to never overestimate the voting public, nor underestimate what can go on behind the scenes to derail the vote.
Ms. Gov seems to be doing a good job, and I like the fact that she's not only female, but capable and competent, speaks clearly and logically, and I'm sure can turn up the burners in future debates way past his comfort level.
Wanting to do my part to help keep the Gov in office I volunteered to be a campaign helper. I visited her web site and found a place to enter my name, email address, etc. While I was there I thought I'd order a Tshirt to support my candidate. The site was wonky, and I couldn't get from here to Tshirt, so gave up and waited to see if I'd actually get a return email about my volunteering.
It took a long time, but I finally did get a response. What would I like to do, they wanted to know. I said I'd write Letters to the Editor, and hand out literature door to door. OK, they said, write a letter every week to the editor of a town some thirty miles away, and encolsed a sample letter that I could use.
But, I don't subscribe to that paper or live in that town, and the letter they sent me was not my kind of thing, it was a bit nasty, and I didn't want to do that. I don't live there, it seemed like false pretenses to me. I didn't write any letters.
Then there was the door to door thing. I was about to do it, and then remembered the sample letter I'd been sent to copy and mail. Wait a minute, I thought, I don't know what kind of literature they will give me to hand out. Is it going to be nasty too? So, I didn't go.
But, maybe there is still the Tshirt route. I'll check the Gov's site again. And, what might be available elsewhere? I went to CafePress.com, the big "create your own product" site, and did a search on "politics." Wow!
The search returned a list, complete with phtos of the items, for 120,000 designs on 2,070,000 products. Not all for my Gov, of course, but there may be some in there. I'm finding, however, surfing around among the designs, that what citizens are willing to wear on their chests and put on their car bumpers is a great political commentary on the mood of the country.
Some samples:
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