calherewecome

Mark Twain once said, “It is easier to fool someone, than to convince someone that they have been fooled.”

In the current presidential election season, this seems quite true. I have yet to find someone that is undecided on who they are going to vote for. Perhaps, this is due to the online context in which we live. The “undecides” aren’t poking around either the political blogs, facebook or twitter.

So, it continues. Two more months until election day. ARGGGH. Why does the election season need to be so long. I am really getting tired of it all. Move the question and get on with other important stuff (like football).

On a related issue, I read that Al Gore is suggesting getting rid of the Electoral College. i think he’s right. It might be better if someone else floated the idea. The Electoral College is an anachronism. The net effect is many states get ignored by the candidates and other states have too much influence on the result. Just saying. It probably won’t happen for a long time.

One more thing that crossed my mind. And that is of the press. Disclosure: I read the NY Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, and occasionally USA Today and lastly the “Daily Breeze” (local San Pedro rag). Back in 2008, then VP candidate Sarah Palin, famously answered Katey Couric’s softball question on Today, “What newspapers do you read?” To which she answered (with a deer in the headlights look), “All of them.”

So when I quote an article in one of these publications about a Republican candidate, my Republican friends discount it with the “just a liberal paper”. They lie. So when Fox News reported on Paul Ryan’s speech the other night. Saying it wasn’t quite the truth. Same friends say it was the house liberal on Fox News. Everyone has an excuse for what they believe. I don’t watch Fox News or MSNBC. As i said in the opening paragraph, changing opinions is really hard.

So fact-checkers are ignored when the report doesn’t fit with one’s view of the truth, thus political campaigns seem to be able to lie with impunity. Very sad.

It’s been over a month, since I last watched any TV news. We haven’t got around to get TV service hooked up. Not sure I miss it. Of course, I do miss sports coverage. But the local news here doesn’t tell me how much the Red Sox suck. Football season starts soon so we need to get going on getting an HDTV and DirecTV set up. The only way I am going to watch the New England Patriots is on DirecTV.

One more thought. I read a piece on Condi Rice. It surprised me that Mitt Romney didn’t pick her for the VP slot. Ms Rice would have won over many centrist undecided voters and many women voters. She has the foreign policy chops that neither Romney or Ryan have. I suspect that her views on abortion (Pro Choice) and other women’s issues were the deciding factor. So Mitt picked Paul Ryan to satisfy the right wing base.
I have a question for my online audience. Who is going to play Paul Ryan on SNL?

This entry was posted on September 1, 2012 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Politics, Retirement. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: newspapers, Politics