Arizona Votes

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I telephoned the Elections Office in Maricopa County today to ask if there was a way that I could determine if my mail-in ballot had been received and tallied. After ten minutes of listening to recordings and pressing numbers, I finally reached a human. I told the young man that I had mailed in my ballot three weeks ago. Would there be, I asked, a list of voters who had actually voted posted somewhere after the election so that I could ensure that my ballot had been received? "What is your name, sir?" he asked politely. After I told him, there was a pause for a few minutes, and then he came back on the line and told me that my ballot had been received and counted. Mail-in voting is so easy and so convenient!

Estimates are that one-third of the national electorate may have already voted by election day. Thirty states have some sort of early voting process, and I suspect that they will have fewer problems on election day than those states that cram all of their voters into one twelve-hour period. There certainly should be less waiting and hassle in places where citizens have been allowed to vote early. Who knows, election day might be one of the two or three days a year that we have rain in Arizona!

The Obama campaign began doing television advertising in Arizona today, after most polls moved the race from "solid McBush" to "lean McBush." John McBush has homes in several states, and some of the locals feel that he is more transfixed on life in Washington DC than he is on life in Arizona. Some wags refer to Arizona's Senator Kyl as our "workhorse" and McBush as our "showhorse." So long-story-short, McBush is losing ground in his home state and Obama is going to give him a run for Arizona's ten electoral votes. It's about damned time!

MSNBC reported tonight that McBush has a one-point lead in the polls in Arizona, and that Obama is twelve points ahead of McBush in the state's early voting. My call to Maricopa County today ensures that I am part of that twelve-point lead.

John McBush is up for re-election to the US Senate in two years. If he chooses to run again, Arizona's most popular politician, Governor Janet Napolitano, will send him to Sun City for a long-overdue retirement!

I am hoping for a surprise Obama visit to Arizona over the weekend. It's a shame that he doesn't have time to visit Alaska as well!

Dear John McBush

Dear John McBush,
Over the past two evenings I have written to your running mate and her daughter giving them my sage advice. And as there is still some sage left in the old cranium, I thought that I would sprinkle some your way too.

Please take what I am about to say in the spirit of constructive criticism: I believe, with every fiber of my being, that you would make a horrible President. We both know that residents of Arizona have conducted most of their U.S. Senate business through Senator Kyl for the past several years because you have been too busy cheerleading for the war, running for President, napping, and chasing tail to engage in the mundane business of legislating or assisting constituents with their issues. It is not uncommon to hear Arizonans talk about their two equine Senators - Kyl the workhorse, and McCain the show horse.

But it isn't your laziness or tom-catting that I find off-putting in the current Presidential election. Indeed we have suffered and survived lazy bastards and whore mongers living at the White House before - and undoubtedly will again. And it isn't even your insane support for the unwarranted and impossible-to-win Oil War that has me the most concerned, because we have had other dumb asses in the White House and survived them as well.

The thing that I find absolutely unforgivable about your quest to be President is your age. John, you are seventy-two years old. You are a tired old man. You are so old and so tired that you seldom campaign on weekends. The Presidency is a hard job, a job that needs to be managed by a healthy, alert, and very bright young person. It is not the type of thing that us old farts need to aspire to. Set that vanity aside and act your age!

Do you know that the brains of adult humans shrink as they get older, and that the shrinking really starts to kick into gear around the age of sixty? Remember sixty, John? It was twelve years ago! I'm sixty now, and I know that my energy level and my memory have decreased markedly over the past few years.

John, you would probably make a decent neighbor (though, please God, not mine!), but you are too old and cranky to lead the free world. Pack it in, Partner. It's time to dust off the golf cart, get rid of all those troublesome houses, and move to Sun City. You'll like it there, and if you don't, give it a couple of more years and you won't know where you're at anyway!

Yours for Obama in '08!

Pa Rock
Goodyear, AZ