Comments on: Via Negativa endorsement: kiss of death?

By: handdrummer

handdrummer — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:46:53 +0000

He does not strike us as a child molester or sociopath.

The single best endorsement of the season. I’ve read a couple of hundred in the run-up to this fiasco.

Bravo!

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:49:07 +0000

I wonder how one would submit a blank ballot on an electronic voting machine?

Speaking of electronic voting machines and the associated paranoia, my dad mentioned he heard that the state of Florida was trying to restrict exit pollers’ access to voters. Wonder why they’d want to do that?

By: pablo

pablo — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:01:53 +0000

Jose Saramago’s newest novel, Seeing, begins with the citizens of a city nearly all casting blank ballots in their election. They don’t abstain from voting. They simply submit empty ballots. They choose the None of the Above option. The story doesn’t end well.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 03:39:53 +0000

For anyone who might be interested in another Pennsylvania conservationist's picks, Alan Gregory's endorsements are here.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 03:20:02 +0000

Well, as I see it, there are basic problems with a system like ours that doesn’t automatically disqualify for higher office anyone who badly wants the job. The system selects for shallow egomaniacs.

By: mikaelah

mikaelah — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 01:24:52 +0000

hahaha… well, yes … I HAVE been living under a rock and just this evening peered out … to talk to a friend in Chicago about honesty and integrity in the men of office and how hard I find to vote because of my concerns regarding the above two characteristics.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 18:59:24 +0000

Thanks, Alan. It’s good to get a newspaper reporter’s thoughts on this. I guess I agree about you on Rendell – Swann actively refused to take positions on most environmental issues, which struck me as ominous. I’ll look forward to seeing your own slate of endorsements.

By: Alan Gregory

Alan Gregory — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 18:29:27 +0000

Well, well, well. It is indeed endorsement time. Except here at the portly Standard-Speaker where editorials from places such as Des Moines are used routinely in order to fill up the so-called editorial page. Local rags ought to be taking the lead in stirring debate. And that starts with hard-hitting local editorials. Well not today, anyway.
I’ll be posting my endorsements this evening (too late, I realize, to have a major impact on voters’ decisions) from home.
But let me say this about your picks:
Tony Barr. From your description, he sounds like Carl Hiaasen’s “Skink.” And we know what happened to that guy.
Bill Shuster Jr. I’ve editorialized about Shyster senior, as you know. But not his son. I guess I would only mention that at least with Junior we know what make and model of cars not to buy.
Bob Casey Jr. Wishy, washy Casey. I understand your endorsement of None of the Above. But as you note, None has no chance in hell of emerging victorious. So once again we’re stuck with voting for a guy who’s chief claim to fame is he AIN’T Santorum.
Lynn Swann or Fast Eddie. It’s too bad Fast Eddie isn’t a former actor. I’d vote for him without hestitation. I dislike Rendell immensely. 1. His Department of Environmental Protection has demonstrated itself to be nothing more than an extension of industry boosters — a sort of statewide chamber of commerce. 2. He could’ve stopped that damn I-99 with one phone call. He didn’t. 3. Where is the truly visionary conservation platform in the world of Rendell?
But he ain’t a Republican whore. So he again gits my vote.
On the national side, where’s your analysis of the Pombo-McNerney race? Meester Pombo is the arch enemy of real people everywhere. I hope you reconsider and issue a last-minute endorsement of McNerney. It could help put him over the top, after all.