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THE QUOTE
“I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends — that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.” — Adlai E. Stevenson
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THE DEMS COME OUT SWINGING?
Nobody threw a punch yesterday evening at the Bloomington High School South auditorium. Nobody even flung any mud.
The five Democratic candidates for Indiana’s 9th District seat in the US House of Representatives gathered at BHSS for their debate sponsored by the Monroe County Dems.
But, as candidate John Tilford said, it really was no debate at all considering the five agree on pretty much everything.
Tilford
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Which is true. Check the candidates’ websites or follow their pronouncements in the newspapers and you’ll come to the conclusion that each mirrors the others. They’re all center-slightly left Dems, just like the Big Dem in the White House.
The question Democratic voters must ask themselves when they vote in the primary on Tuesday, May 8th, is who can beat Todd Young.
Young
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My guess is it’ll be Shelli Yoder, former Miss Indiana and second runner-up in the 1993 Miss America pageant, or Jonathan George, retired US Air Force Brigadier General. The other three fellows in the race, John Griffin Miller, Tilford, and Robert Winningham don’t have a chance.
Yoder and George are the only ones who can sway voters who live outside Bloomington, New Albany, and Jeffersonville. See, they’ve got the liberal vote — sparse as it is; this is Indiana, after all — sewn up. But folks in Bedford and Seymour or who live in the vast rural areas of the District and who may still be in an anti-incumbent, anti-Washington mood just might look kindly upon Yoder or George.
I’ve heard from a number of political insiders who say it’s nearly impossible to get the back country folks in this downstate region to vote for a woman. My guess, though, is they recoil from what they consider “uppity” women, those who wear pantsuits and speak forcefully. Think Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Yoder (left) On The Campaign Trail
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Yoder, being a former beauty queen, just might overcome their prejudice. She’s charming and polite. She looks great in a bathing suit (she ranked high in that category in the Miss America contest.) She fits their conception of what an ideal woman should be.
Of course, there’s a lot more to Yoder than her looks and charm, but I’m trying to think like an antediluvian here. And if the Dems are going to unseat Tea Party darling Todd Young, that has to be taken into account.
George As A Young U-2 Pilot
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The situation is similar for George. He can’t be dismissed as a socialist, abortionist, homosexual-tolerating liberal. He was, after all, a man who commanded two US Air Force wings, led a B-2 Stealth Bomber squadron, and was in charge of more than 10,000 US soldiers training Afghan security forces.
If the Dems have any hope against Young this November, they’re going to have to imagine what Archie Bunker might think.
What Would Archie Bunker Think?
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THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS…, FOR THE TIME BEING
So, the US Postal Service is going bust.
Or is it?
News reports of late suggest the Postal Service is operating under crushing debt and is on its last legs. The US Senate is pondering whether or not to give the USPS an $11B handout this fall. ABC News says the bailout is aimed at paying off the service’s debt and get it to “become profitable again.”
Conventional wisdom has it that the USPS is a dinosaur that deserves a quick death, what with most communications being done by electronic device these days.
When was the last time you wrote a letter to a friend? I mean actually applying pen to paper, tri-folding sheets neatly, slipping them into an envelope, licking the flap closed, affixing a stamp to it, and walking it down to the mailbox.
For that matter, do you even know where the mailbox is anymore?
Relic?
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Dependable old liberal commentator Jim Hightower has a different take on the state of what we used to call the post office. (h/t to Bill Lichtenberg of Forest Park, Illinois.)
Hightower points out that all the doom and gloom surrounding the USPS is being advanced by pols at the behest of private letter and package services like FedEx. Nothing would make those for-profit businesses happier than for the federal government subsidized service to disappear from the face of the Earth. Hightower says the half a buck you drop on a First Class stamp is a fantastic deal, unlike any deal the private carriers can even approach.
As for the profitability issue, Hightower reminds us the USPS has never been profitable, nor was it intended to be. Neither, he says, have the Pentagon, the FBI, or many other federal services.
Check out Hightower’s piece; it’ll put the USPS in a different light for you.
Hightower
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By the way, linguistic observer Bill Bryson points out the irony that here in the US, we mail a letter which is sent on its way via the Postal Service. In Great Britain, they post a letter using the Royal Mail.
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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
◗ Bloomington, Citywide — IU’s Arts Week Everywhere 2012; Ongoing, various times
◗ Grunwald (SOFA) Gallery — MFA & BFA Thesis 3 exhibitions; through May 5th
◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Black faculty and Staff Recognition Ceremony; Noon
◗ The Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze,” exhibit, art by women examining men; Ongoing, 1:30-5pm
◗ IU Franklin Hall, Room 303 — Study Abroad 101; 4pm
◗ IU Medical Arts Classroom Building — Credit Counseling; 5:30pm
◗ IU Jacobs School of Music, Musical Arts Center — IU Black Graduates Congratulatory Ceremony; 7pm
◗ Classic Lanes — Poker; 7pm
◗ The Player’s Pub — Stardusters; 7:30pm
◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm
◗ Bear’s Place — Jered Jacobs, Matt Woods, and David Bartlett; 8pm
◗ The Bluebird — Rod Ruffcurls and the Benchpress; 8pm
◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Star-Gazing Open House; 9pm (rain or shine)
◗ Uncle Elizabeth’s — Free billiards; 10pm & midnight
◗ Jake’s Nightclub — Battle of the Bands; 10pm
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I’m surprised direct mail advertisers aren’t getting vocal about threats to the USPS, as they’re the only ones who seem to use the service much. No way could FedEx or UPS deliver junk mail to everyone’s door for the low cost USPS achieves. A friend who worked at the Post Office maintains that all the presorted junk mail is the only thing that keeps the letter-delivering portion of USPS busily functioning.
And there’s the irony. With USPS I get all this useless crap mail that irritates me, and I immediately toss, but hundreds of thousands have decent-paying jobs. Or, we could get rid of all that and pay a buck or more (probably much more) for the occasional important letter. I’m all for cutting government waste and inefficiency, but for now jobs seem a lot more important. At least those folks are doing something for the money.
No, I’d like to see us simply rationalize and cut waste from the farm subsidy program — then we’d hear the richest Republican farmers stand up howl in agreement. Wouldn’t we?
Yeah, John, where is the of the big retailers and the grocery chains (Macy’s, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond & the like) who get their sale notices and coupons out via direct mail? or the retailers whose snail-mail catalogs drive online purchases? (They sure do for me – guilty!)
Re the Dem candidates … much as I like Shelli and want to see her political career develop, I have the achy feeling that George would be the candidate to kneecap Young with his experience and sanity — giving moderate Republicans a place to go — and further face down the Tea-drinkers in Congress. I did grow up in a Republican household that preferred sensible talk and civil action to sensational hyperbole.
“where is the voice of the big retailers,” I mean.