DrStrangehose's Blog

I'm not giving up on this. There really was only 1 worthy candidate, and to me he's still worthy regardless of what a political party tries to tell me.

I'm unenrolled, and will be writing in Romney, regardless.

There is still only 1 candidate who has proved, that he will turn campaign promises into action when in office. At the moment we need to eliminate the deficit, boost our economy, and push through several reforms on domestic policies, such as privatizing social security, creating appropriate immigration reform, nationwide privatized healthcare reform, a national board of education, rebuild our infrasture, etc. Mitt Romney is the only candidate who PROVED he will actually do that.

Here is a website we will be tracking people's endorsements of his write-in campaign on. It's not much but its a start.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reinstateromney/
index.html

Write-in Romney for the Republican Nomination!
Write-in Romney in the General Election!
Write-in Romney, Regardless!

Make them handcount our votes, that will show em!

Right now we are at a major crossroads in our nation's history.

We have a deficit in the trillion, a slowing GDP, rising inflation, housing market slowdown, etc. These signs and others point to the likelihood that we will be in for a long recession. We need someone who understands the economy, and knows that we will need to cut taxes to boost spending, limmit the regulations which are impeding our companies from being able to compete on a global market... and increase investment at home in research and development to create the new technologies to lead the world in manufacturing again...

Mitt Romney was validictorian of his class at BYU, graduating summa cum laude. He then went on to earn a joint Juris Doctorate in Business Law, graduating cum laude, and Masters in Business Administration, graduating in the top 5% of his class, at Harvard University. He then went on to work for a consulting group, working his way to CEO. He then went on to create his own venture capital firm, which earned its reputation by rescuing failing business and creating new industries. That includes saving GM, and helping to create Staples and Dominos. He then took over from a corrupt and underfunded olympic organizing committee, and as president, eliminated the corruption, got the funding, got the projects completed on time, and ran a smooth olympics, despite the added security precautions needed in the wake of 9/11. He then went on to MA, as Governor, with a Dem. legislature, turned around a $3B deficit into a $2B surplus, and bucked the trend of losing people and jobs in the state, and earned modest job growth in a state that ranks at top of those with the highest cost of living.

If there ever was a person more qualified to turn around this nation's economy at this moment, it's Mitt Romney.

There is also going to be an impending crisis, when the baby boomers are eligible for social security benefits, at the same time that they're also retiring from the workforce, and thus pulling their taxable salaries out of the revenue to supply social security. We need someone to reform social security, both ensuring that everyone gets every dollar that they paid into it... while at the same time privitzing social security, so people become more responsible for their own retirement savings.

We also have several serious social reforms that are needed. We need appropriate immigration reform, which does not provide for amnesty. We need a national board of education to push for vouchers, all day kindergarten, stricter standards on both students and teachers, increased scholarships and pell grants, and increased adult education.

Mitt Romney has proven he has the ability to push through such reforms. As Governor of Massachusetts, he was able to create the nation's only successfully functioning universal healthcare plan, based primarily off the concept of private funding and personal responsibility. By raising standards on teachers and students, he was able to raise the standardized test scores for students in the state, and twice in the four years he was in office, Massachusetts students scored tops in the nation in every category of standardized testing -- the only two times that has ever occured. He also appointed a Lt. Governor who many thought was unqualified, but turned out to be very strong on crime. She was able to push through several laws which made it more difficult on drunk drivers, domestic and child abusers, rapists, repeat offenders, gangs, victim and witness intimidators, etc. She was a great assett to the Romney Administration.

We also have a crumbling infrastructure. There are roads and bridges everywhere that are falling apart. We have several levees which were either poorly planned or are now eroding, and need to be replaced. We have a major lack of public transportation. Mitt Romney showed at the olympics that he has the ability to get major construction projects completed quickly, and on a tight budget. As Governor of Massachusetts, he inherited control of the largest construction project in the history of our country. At that time, it had been going on for what seemed like ever, and the date of completion kept getting pushed back, and contractors kept jacking up the prices. Romney got the project set on time for completion, and sued corrupt contractors to recover much of the cost of the project.

 

All of this, and yet people are hung up on his religion, and parsing campaign words to see if there are any contradiction... to what he said 15+ years ago...

WE NEED MITT RIGHT NOW! THIS IS THE PERFECT TIME!

Romney is the only candidate who has proven successful leadership, as an executive, in business, government, and an international non-governmental organization.

Write-in Romney for the Republican Nomination!
Write-in Romney in the General Election!
Write-in Romney, Regardless!

We are also at a crucial time oversees. We are currently involved in what will be a long war against terrorism and other acts of political violence. In this process we have made great gains to strengthen our homeland security, and take the war to the enemy on their turf, preventing safe-havens from which they can train and organize. That is far from over, as we are still struggling for progress in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq. We are also in a very important diplomatic process, of seeking friends from the rest of the Arab nations, and attempting to create that Palestinian state, which they've all called for, to create peace between the Arab nations and Israel. However, a pending crisis with Iran still threatens to derail the entire process. We are already ruffling Putin's feathers the wrong way, and threatening to sour relations with China.

We need someone who is strong on defense, but at the same time, posessed the tact with which to negotiate with these nations.

Mistakingly everyone sees McCain as strong on defense, but he is only stong on warhawking behavior. He has threatened to "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!". He has called Vladimir Putin "the president of Germany". He has made tasteless jokes at debates about the possibility of open trade with Muslim nations. He has even railed off and threatened a fellow Senator with an IED, called a campaign questioner a "little jerk"...

That is not the diplomacy we need in a president. Mitt Romney proved his diplomacy while organizing the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, rescuing that organizing effort from embarrasing scandals, to running smoothly in the wake of 9/11. This earned him wide praise internationally. Mitt Romney is also fluent in French, and as unfavorable as the French are to many of us... they're very influential in many parts of the world, which we are at odds with. We currently have a pro-American French president. Negotiations between Romney, Sarkozy, Millon, as well as the foreign nations which are apt to follow suggestions from the French, could go a long way in turning the tide in the war on terror.

We are also in a time, when Washington is wraught with corruption and bi-partisan gridlock. Mitt Romney has proven time and time again, that he is able to get things done. In Massachusetts, he worked with an opposition legislature, bent on taxing and spending, and still was able to eliminate the $3B defcit to create a $2B surplus, get the Big Dig on track, and create the nation's only successfully functioning universal healthcare progam. He did this all while living a completely scandal free life. He is of the most upstanding moral character, and on numerous occasions he has gone out of his way, to save people's lives. There was the highly publicized event where he went and rescued his colleagues daughter from the streets of New York, but there's a little known story of Romney and sons saving drowning boaters on the lake behind his New Hampshire residence. The reason there is such little publication on it, is because Romney tried as hard as he could to deflect any suggestion of heroism in the event, saying it's what anyone would have done. That kind of humility is exactly what we need in our nation's leader.

 

WE NEED MITT ROMNEY MORE AT THIS TIME THAN ANY OTHER... especially given the lack of a clear alternative.

McCain is poor on the economy, and lacks true diplomacy. He has also proven to be a loose cannon, who is soft on immigration, and on tax breaks. He seems more apt to work with the Democrats to push through liberal legislation, than he does to put through private reforms. He has a whole host of other character issues with me, from the trophy wife with the prescription drug addictions, that he divorced his other one to get with, chosing Gary Hart as the best man at the wedding.

Huckabee is really an amatuer, and a religious zealot, who has said some extremely ridiculous things, aside from his comments to speak for God and Jesus at times, such as that all AIDS victims should be quarantined. His idea of a national sales tax, will only kill spending, and further incerease the likelihood of recession, perhaps creating a depression, with no incoming revenue to get out of. He thinks he could pull all this off without the IRS to oversee it as well, which is completely farsicle.

Paul might be an intelligent man, but his isolationist and separatist ideals seem more apt for talk of revolution than reform of our society, which would explain why most of his support comes from white-supremacist extremist groups, survivalist groups, and porn peddlers.

Obama might be intelligent, but we have all seen his favoritism for illegal immigrants, lazy people who live off the government, and many other liberal policies, which are founded on good intentions, but often lack the foresight to see into future repercussion on society.

Hillary... we don't even need to go there I'm sure. Just for good measure though, we should point out that for 40 years she has worked to try and create a system of universal healthcare, and has fallen short every time. Yet, Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts for just 4 years, and got the job done.

If you were Human Resources director hiring for an executive position to run your organization, and had the resumes from each of the candidates in this election, there is only 1 candidate you would call in for an interview.

Only 1 candidate has;

- significant experience as a leader of a major organization
- served as CEO
- created a major business
- actually served as President of a major organization previously
- turned a large deficit into a surplus
- created a universal healthcare plan
- overseen the completion of large construction projects

There's no thought to it. If you're hiring the executive to run this country, Mitt Romney is the only choice. We're not electing the candidate who talks about or voted to do it, we're electing the candidate that gets it done.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reinstateromney/ind
ex.html

Write-in Romney for the Republican Nomination!
Write-in Romney in the General Election!
Write-in Romney, Regardless!

Make them handcount our votes, that will show em!

Apparently, despite claiming on multiple occasions, during debates and rallies in IA, NH, and SC that he had a theology degree, and should thus be considered the religious expert on subjects...

HUCKABEE DOES NOT ACTUALLY HAVE A THEOLOGY DEGREE!!!

Huckabee has done his best to drum up the Evangelican vote in Bush's wake, to supplant actual politics with religious zealotry.  However, making false claims that he posesses a degree which was never awared, nor completed, should be exposed for what it is -- FRAUD. 

What happened to the commandment "Thou shalt not lie" Mr. Huckabee?

Now, several mis-steps by Romney on his campaign trail have made front page headlines and national news broadcasts.  Why has this gross mis-statement of fact not been exposed?

Romney has been scruitinized for obscure position stands from newspaper quotes from 15 or more years ago.  Additionally, when Romney said that his father marched with MLK, that trivial claim was scruitinized on end.  While it might have been a false memory, it was not a known falsehood claimed.  Huckabee has to know he does not have a degree.  Why would the magalomaniac make such a claim then?  To lie in order to gain the religious zealot vote. 

To intentionally lie, and claim you're something you're not in order to garner votes seems like a top news story in a political campaign, especially of this magnitude.

However, in order to find the story, you need to resort to backpages of papers, and relatively obscure websites.

Here are google searches for "Huckabee does not have theology degree" and "Romney says father marched with MLK", and you can compare/contrast the quality of coverage on each story, and see which is being swept under the rug.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Huckabee+does+
not+have+a+theology+degree

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Romne
y+says+father+marched+with+MLK

(this one somehow includes a blog for the washington post, and phoenix, two heavily circulated national papers on the first page of results)

This story needs to get more press nationally!!!

 

“Strange....You're going to comment on someone having multiple posts? Are you kidding me? You clog up everyone's posts with you blah, blah, blah, intellectual spin. It takes you 12 posts to say what most of us are capable of saying in one.”

I’m not commenting on his having a lot to write. Everyone should be allowed to contribute at length (I think many would agree that having an open ended initial post, and then a very low limited response is a little uneven).

However, it was not the length of his posts… it was how he put out about 15 separate ones over just two days all regarding the same topic.

This makes it so half the main page is his comments, leaving no room for others. Then you have to go digging through the backlogs to find something which you were discussing with someone a day or two ago.

Why could he not just address them on the same thread? Is that asking too much?

Plus, while it may seem to you that other people are saying the same thing I say in one, I beg to differ, as I find most of the arguments posted here riddled with holes.

When someone really feels strongly about something, they too write an extremely long amount of wording as well, to try and fill in those holes so as to prevent their argument from being defeated. That is how my discussions with friends typically go.

Sorry if that is something you aren't used to, but I am just as unused to discussions of assumptive 1-liners as you are of my style.

“I think you're just suffering from a huge case of sour grapes.”

You couldn’t be more wrong about that miscricket! Think about it… my candidate was around 10% (+/- 3) of the polls the whole time… you think I’m suddenly shocked he lost and upset by it? In the last 3 elections I've voted for 3 different parties. Don't make it seem like I'm angry at chris because he is happy a democrat one, and is rubbing it in the face that republicans lost... I'm not a republican!


“Oh yeah, and I feel sorry for your girlfriend that she's involved with someone who made her feel like she wasn't good enough to vote.”

Once again jumping to conclusions miscricket… you are becoming as bad as FD with that... perhaps worse...

My girlfriend made the decision by herself!

I was on my way back from the booth with our daughter and she passed us on the street on the way home. I said, so are you going to vote… she said,

‘I was thinking about it but I don’t really know anything about what’s on it… the only thing I would vote for is the governor thingy, and I don’t really care about that… and the question 1, but I’m not too sure how I feel about it… and my legs are tired from walking up the hill’.

Then my daughter grabbed her hand and said ‘mommy, are you gonna come home with us?” As a result she melted, as anyone would.

So I said, 'but you gotta vote, you only get to do it this one day, you can’t decide you want to do it another time…' to and she continued into how she didn’t know anything about it, and she was tired. Then she started walking home with our daughter.

I never told her how I thought it was good she didn’t vote. I typed that here. It wasn’t until as I was composing the post that the feeling of pride built up inside me that she had the maturity to admit when she didn’t know something, a quality very much lacking in this society.


“That girl needs some friends and some intervention.”

Yeah… because shes making baseless accusations at someone over the internet that she has no clue about… oh wait… that’s you, the one on the high horse… intervention? Are you one of those people?

I think anyone who has the holier than thou attitude that they should be intervening in someone's life to judge their actions is the real person that needs an intervention...

You as the avowed Christian should know no judgement before "God". So why would you judge others like that?

“You talk about your manhood??”

what, you want to fight now too… hehehe

“Geez..takes quite a man to make a women feel inferior. You should be so proud.”

I’m very proud. I’m so proud I’m with someone who has the maturity to admit when she doesn’t know something and thinks it should be left to others to decide. How many people do you know are willing to do that?

In my last few jobs I have worked with extremely stubborn middle-schoolers who think they know everything, and 50+yr olds who thought they did as well, three times as old, but no more mature. It was shocking to them after working so many years in the businesses with the feeling that 'there is no way some hot shot kid is gonna teach me anything new about this stuff', that within months I had already come up with numerous ways to do what they were doing faster and more efficiently. Were they willing to accept that… no. They fought it tooth and nail. It was only until the owner of the company caught wind of it, and began pushing that they begrudgingly adapted to it.

So I could be with someone as stubborn and ignorant as those people, or I could be with someone who knows her limitations, and how to cope with them.

Shockingly, as stupid as everyone says ‘dub’ya’ is… that is a trait he possesses, which they do not. He knows he isn’t the brightest president. However, in doing so he knows to seek the advice of the experts on each matter, and then echo what they have been telling him.


As far as my effect on her voting, she was not even registered to vote until she met me, and I egged her on about it. The last presidential and mayoral elections were the only ones she’s ever voted in, and in those she only filled out the bubble for the presidential and mayoral races, since she was unaware of the other issues going on as well.

So don’t give me this bull’ about making someone feel inferior and not good enough to vote…

This is also the 3rd or 4th post in a row, in which you have attached my comments to being gender biased… when they are clearly not. Maybe that non-profit you work for is a men-hating organization, but that does not make me a sexist in anyway.

If you have any proof that I did something wrong then come out with it… otherwise stop the baseless character assassinations…

"The most outrageous thing that I have seen on Election Day is a neighbor or relative, rush into the election booth and vote for anything and everything Democrat. Not because they agreed with a candidate on the issues, but because JFK was a Democrat and a Catholic. " - Patriot3A

I agree, that is one of the scariest things that the voting population of MA still does... vote "the Party of JFK". However, don't act like the same claim isn't true for Republicans who claim to be voting "The Party of Abe", in fact that is even worse so, considering Abe Lincoln represented the North, and those states which are now 'Blue' against those Southern areas, which now claim him as their own. I have also seen members of ‘the black community’ just voting solely down the line for black candidates and democrats in any race they don’t know about (is it any wonder why there was a huge voter turnout in those precincts). These problems are also much larger than MA, effecting every race around the country.

To me, each case of voter ignorance is just as scary as any reason someone would vote down the line for any 1 reason or another... that is why we need election reform.

Therefore, I think the D, R, and I, etc. need to be taken away from in front of the candidate’s names. If you cant remember the candidates name you are voting for... you don't belong voting for him! People should not be encouraged by a political party to go into a voting booth, and filling in any bubble next to a D... (It must have killed people in 2005, having to chose between Hennigan and Menino, both D's) that just endorses running a system where there are uneducated voters, who don’t vote on issues, but on image. It also enables a system where people are elected on likeability and popularity, rather than on principles, and how they effect the population.

Another long time political trick (mostly of the Democrats these days) is to have dead people vote, or people vote multiple times… For that, I think they need to update the voter registration regularly, and I also think they need to check for two forms of ID at the polls to verify the identity of the person. It would also protect the identity of the voter, as they would only need to present the ID, as opposed to saying out loud who they were and what their address is.

For this and other reasons, I think we need to begin looking at how we measure the weight of each vote as well. I think there should be a series of criteria to weight each citizen’s vote. Obviously everyone’s vote should be counted, but there are certain ways we can prove which people’s opinions truly do matter.

The opinions of those who are either more aware of the political process, more responsible, and impacted more by the decisions made in the state, should be weighted higher. Here are a series of possible criteria I think could work for a voter registration change ballot, that would weight people’s votes more along the lines of those principles;

1.) Everyone that is a citizen, and registered to vote, should get 1 ballot.
2.) Anyone that can verify a full-time job in the region, should get 1 ballot.
3.) Anyone that owns property in the region, should get 1 ballot.
4.) Anyone legally responsible for at least 1 child in the region, should get 1 ballot.
5.) Everyone that can pass an election awareness test, should get 1 ballot.
6.) Anyone that can verify obtainment of a Bachelors, Masters, and/or Doctorate when majoring in political science, government, or related field should get 1 ballot for each degree obtained.

How it would work is, each election year, you would update your registration, if you felt you qualified for more than the single ballot. That would give you a voter registration ID. When you went to the voting booth, they would ask for two forms of ID, one of them being the voter registration card, which you had. It would indicate how many ballots you were entitled to be issued, which would also be indicated next to your name on the list.

Perhaps there are others, and perhaps some here need to be either removed or rethought before being included. I would like to know how you feel about adding weight to the votes, commensurate with awareness, responsibility, and impact and what it’s effect on the election process would be, as well as the other suggestions I’ve made to improve the election process, such as removing party indications from being next to the candidate’s name on ballots, requiring an ID at the booth, preventing the release of any pre-election polls, etc.

No, that is not a typo, it is not meant to say 'unfortunate' passing.

I mean no disrespect to the man, his friends, or his family. He truly was a great, and has done more for this city over the past 50 years than all but a small handful of people.

However, truth of the matter is, he was in poor health, and was no longer that man. Now he was suffering to a painful end of what otherwise was an illustrious life. Now the suffering ends.

Although, there is another suffering which I hope will end with his passing. It was almost as if his being there, and that success he had, hung over the current Celtic teams, staring them in the face, and taunting their inability to win a championship prevented them from actually doing so. It was almost as if the Lord said, “Red... you've won enough, time to let someone else win for a change”.

Now with his passing, it truly becomes time to pass the torch to the new era of Boston Celtic teams. Now it becomes time to redefine the team of the modern era.

It is time to see if the Celtics can win a championship without Red around.

Now maybe, instead of focusing on the sidelines during the game, for the list of stars from times past, it will be time to focus on the current stars before us, who should not be constantly compared to Russell, Bird, etc.

Now maybe, instead of always asking Red what he thought about the team, we will ask those who have actually played it in the post Michael Jordan era, who will better understand the intricacies of the modern game.

It is time to say goodbye to a great man, so that now others too can become great.

"It bothers me that, under the existing system, I (with my taxes) have to pay the slackers and the incompetents ... pay increases to support the hard working majority."

Chip, this is the logic you display that earns you the word ignorant in my book! Only those who do not teach themselves speak of ‘slackers’ or ‘merit pay’. What is that merit? You are going to judge a teacher on how kids perform on standardized testing, and bad standardized tests at that.

I worked in Dorchester, where you have multiple 13 yr old kids who can’t grasp the basic concept of what a fraction is. Often times these children are children of children themselves, with no knowledge of who their father is. These same kids could teach you everything about 50 Cent's life, but could care less about anything school related. If they ever got to college, they would be the first one in their family to do so, and it likely would be a community college, with very low standards of acceptance.

I personally worked with 1 particular girl on explaining 1/2 of something and 3/4ths of something... not difficult fractions in any way... I did it over 2-3 weeks in as many ways as I could come up with... she didn't get it.

Suddenly I am not eligible for merit pay, eventhough I’ve gone through all the effort working with her to try and get her to do it, using lessons incorporating all learning styles, and brining in other students who excelled at it to try and show her.

Yet someone out in Deluxebury with much more able kids who are driven by their parents to work their behinds off in school, and are on them daily about their homework, that person can show up, open a book, and sit their feet up on their desk and do nothing… yet their students excel on the standardized tests, which their parents stress that they need to do well on or else they won’t get to college.

Come time to measure for ‘merit pay’… the teacher with the better, brighter, and more highly motivated students gets the higher test scores.

This doesn’t even begin to consider the added threat of violence which teachers in the inner-city schools have to face, that the pampered Deluxebury/Marblehead teacher faces. The kids are entering in through metal detectors to try and prevent them from getting guns and knives into school, which they still get in anyway. Doesn’t that ‘merit’ some form of ‘pay’? That is not the way it works though.

Deluxebury as a community is fairly affluent, and it’s citizens value education highly. When it comes to hiring teachers, they know they need to pay high salaries to get the more qualified applicants, so they appropriate the amount of money needed to do so. When they speak of more highly qualified, they aren’t speaking of people who have had a ton of experience teaching monkey to do tricks… they are speaking of people with big name colleges on their resume. So they can afford to hire name-dropping elitists from Harvard, etc.

Whereas, in Dorchester, the overwhelming majority of people are at or below the poverty level, and they are in a city that has glaring education needs, which it has not been addressing for decades, since White left office. The facilities are in major decline. The population is of an increasingly Hispanic background, and can’t speak the language well. Even when the children can and do learn English, any communication to the parents has to be in Spanish. There is an even more trouble of a decline in morality and value on respecting one’s elders or anyone in an authority position. To the people in this district there is no reason they should be listening to the teachers, the teachers need to be going out of their way to address them with respect. All signs point to no, when it comes to will these kids succeed in school, on standardized tests, and in life in general.

So when it comes to hiring out employees, they are not looking for those who are most qualified, they are looking for people who can speak Spanish, or people who are willing to go into a war zone to teach people whose IQ’s are often below 90, for a small compensation of 30K per year, when they could take the same degree to any business within the Boston metro-area, and get a job with far less stress and expectation making nearly 3 times as much.

In essence, this is a case of the rich getting richer… nothing to do with ‘merit’ at all.

HOW MIHOS STANDS A BETTER CHANCE TO WIN THE ELECTION THAN HEALEY

Let me first display the ignorance I am responding to…

"Strangehose..the second leading candidate withdrawing from the race ot back the third leading candidate who only has 8% numbers....you gotta stop smokin' crack, bubba....."

Apparently ‘Chip’ thinks this is an athletic contest where the points are on the board and don’t come off. He thinks Healey being only 26 points down is something she can make up with a Hail Mary pass… it’s just simply not like that.

She is a conservative running in a very liberal state. It is no wonder that they are leaning towards the liberal candidate in this election. Mihos on the other hand, he is right down the middle, but his numbers are low, because not enough people are willing to part ways with the 2 party system. To many, that makes him the back-up conservative candidate to Healey.

However, knowing you are a conservative, and a Healey backer, who fears what could happen with Patrick in office, I can say that I can sympathize with that. So if you are an opponent of Patrick’s, here is how you need to look at things.

If the Pats are down 21 points in the 4th Quarter… is it unheard of for them to put in the back-up? They have no chance of winning. The starter hadn’t been getting the job done. Things are already bad… they couldn’t get worse, unless a player gets injured. At the end of the day a loss is a loss.

Why not go to the back-up, save some players for next game, and see if this up-and-comer could gain some experience. Who knows… maybe the other team hadn’t scouted the guy well enough, and he can mount an otherwise unimaginable comeback…


Healey isn’t down 21 points… she is down 26 points, and can not make points up as easy as throwing a ball 50 yards down a field, or forcing a turnover. It is a near impossibility for her to even make a showing at the booth. At this point she is mere moments away from finishing with less than half of what her opponent has, what an embarrassment that would be. It is also an embarrassment the Republican Party might not shortly live over… as the concept of Republicans as negative campaigners is resonating deeply with MA voters, and will continue to as long as she is in this race.


In order to make a dent in the campaign, she would need to double her support in a couple of weeks. No stand or issue would do that. Nothing short of Deval Patrick passing out after a night of drunkenness and debauchery and ending up all over the news in his birthday suit covered in feces would enable her to close the gap between the two… and he still might even win if that happened, since people in this state currently hate Romney and Healey that much.

Is she going to double her support if Mihos drops out of the race? Not even close. She would still be down by huge numbers, with little way to make them up.


Mihos on the other hand, has been gathering support all campaign long. He has a solid base of polling supporters. He has a number of supporters who aren’t being polled because they are not ‘likely’ or ‘typical’ voters. He has strong support. Very few hate him, and those who do are typically the Republicans who don’t like the way he attacks Healey.

The one knock on him has always been, well Mihos has some good ideas “but he doesn’t stand a chance of winning because he is not from one of the major parties, and I want to make sure Healey does not get elected, because I hate Romney”

If Healey drops out, and endorses Mihos (as should almost every conservative minded person in the state, who is concerned for what might happen if Patrick were to win), Mihos would triple his poll numbers, and would suddenly be one of the two major parties in the race. Suddenly he would be thrust into a new position into the race, MAKING VOTERS HAVE TO RETHINK THEIR POSITION ENTIRELY.


Now at that point, Mihos would couple his 10 points, with Kerry’s 28 points, and be at 38, Patrick would be at 53… and that would still leave 15 points to make-up…

But Patrick would suddenly lose a lot of votes from the Healey haters.

Add Mihos now attacking Patrick the way he attacks Healey… On illegal immigrants, on MCAS, on lack of a plan to fund what his plans are, etc.… all the issues which people disagree with Patrick on, but were willing to excuse him for, just to make sure a Republican wasn’t in office.

Add to that the fact that Mihos could legitimately make the point to MA residents that we should not be voting for someone who looks likely to become another drive-through governor, the way Romney has been.

Now it’s a new race entirely, with Mihos attacking Patrick, with a lot of the same reasons that people are motivated to vote against Healey with.

Suddenly, the candidate who stood no chance to win, has large enough numbers to be a player, and would take votes away from both candidates. Afterall… he is the centrist candidate in the race.


The ultimate understanding of this requires knowledge of the political spectrum. There is more to it than this, but for your feeble mind, I will equate it to a scale of 1-10.

On that spectrum the people are not divided evenly, but bunched up in the middle, but with this state being a left leaning state… most MA voters are in between 4-5. This breaks down like most curves, where the majority of voters are in the middle, and then gradually decreases towards the outsides. Therefore between each 10th of this spectrum there is a certain percentage of the vote to be had. It breaks down similar (but not exactly) to this;

0--(2.5)--1--(5)--2--(10)--3--(20)--4--(25)--5--(20)--6--(10)--7--(5)--8--(2.5)--9--(1>)--10

On that scale Grace Ross is a 1, Patrick is a 3, Mihos is a 5, and Healey is a 7….

Typically this is cut 50/50 with two parties, and no alternative candidates. So if Patrick is a 3, and Healey is a 7… that leaves Patrick the 62.5% before 5, and Healey the 37.5% after 5. That pretty much mirrors what the early polls of this campaign said, until the debates gave more attention to the alternative party candidates.

That is where Grace Ross and Christy Mihos come in.

Grace Ross represents an adamant liberal crowd who want total liberal ideology, and are let down by the non-active Democratic Party candidates. She has taken 1-2 % of the vote on the far left from Patrick.

The overwhelming majority of us are in a middle ground between the Democratic Party and Republican Party, and are sick to death because neither suits our needs. That is where Christy Mihos comes in. Mihos is right down the center, sometimes slightly left or right, depending on the issue. He is for the most part with the majority of MA voters on every issue. Mihos has siphoned off a small amount from Healey and Patrick, but still the majority of people are so used to playing party politics, they are not willing to abandon their lean to the right or left. Mostly this campaign, they describes the liberals who are unwilling to vote Mihos instead of Patrick, for fear of a Romney/Healey victory. Most people I have talked to have said they are voting no to Healey, the way they voted no to Bush in 2004. They don’t have that same resentment of Mihos.

Then there are those ‘undecided’s. They come from all areas of the spectrum, but usually that middle ground where neither major candidate has appealed to them just yet. They usually vote on momentum. If Mihos suddenly jumps in poll numbers, they will likely go along with that.


If Healey dropped out, and it were left to Patrick verse Mihos… then you have to split it differently. The gap between 3 and 7 is 5, the gap between 3 and 5 is 4. Therefore, Patrick would get the 37.5 before 4, minus the 2.5% from Ross, and Mihos would get the 63.5% after 4… theoretically atleast.

Currently, everyone says Mihos can’t win because his poll numbers are at 10%. That is because at present, he does not have the votes of those who are aligned with him on the issues, but only those 10% so fed up with the two-party system they are willing to vote for a 3rd party candidate who does align with their views. Add the Republican votes to Mihos and he gets to be a formidable candidate. Take votes away from Patrick and give many of them to Mihos, as many centrist democratic voters who were so adamant anti Romney/Healey now slide to the center or don’t vote at all, and you at last have the possibility that Patrick does not win the election.

It’s all about shaking up the election.

If you are mature enough to concede Healey has no chance of beating Patrick, then you have 2 options 1.) lose doing the same thing you have been all along… or 2.) try to do something about it to change the result.

It is time to take a chance on backing a centrist candidate who stands a better chance of winning right now, than the conservative minded candidate that trails by over quarter of the vote in most polls.

Backing the centrist is the only way you could eat away at the liberal Patrick’s enormous lead in the polls.


Do you go down with the sinking ship like a self-righteous blowhard, or do you wisely jump onto a newer one which can sail you to safety?

Again I urge anyone who is anti-Patrick to adamantly insist Healey drop out an endorse Mihos, and do so yourself.

In response to FD's horrid idea of why people are leaving, I felt compelled to explain to everyone why he is so Ducking Wrong about this.

I grew up in Plymouth as well, but on the other side of Manomet... the untouched and unspoiled one. The one where I was surrounded by forests (not just the large state forest) cranberry bogs, and lakes on the other. There were many dirt roads surrounding where I grew up in Plymouth. It had everything you mentioned. Yet still people are leaving.

You speak of more than economic reasons, and that is partly true. The weather is the huge factor that has been driving people out for years. They get sick of the cold, and use the money they have earned here to go buy a house where they can afford one, down south, and stay relatively warm in the winter. These settlements are in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Arizona.

That has been going on since I can remember, however, it used to just be the elderly. What is alarming is that the new loss of people is not just old people.

The weather and surging fuel prices have exacerbated the costs of living. Now you have to add in the atrocious heating bills which people who are struggling to get by have to pay, and it makes the cost of living here that much higher than elsewhere. This compels people to want to move out even more so.

Now instead of just the elderly moving south, it is young couples struggling to make ends meet to buy a $200K small house, which they realize they could afford the same house for $80K elsewhere, and not have to work as hard to pay off their bills. They are moving to many of the sprawling southern communities with nicer weather, and cheaper living.

My friend did just that. He worked for Filenes’s. Noticing they were in economic trouble, he began shopping for a new job. He moved to a southern state, where he was able to live in an apartment that was twice as large for 1/3rd of what he was paying here, and in order to do so he only had to take a 15% reduction in pay. Do the math, and it works out extremely well in his favor.

That’s all it takes, basic math, not a mathematical genius to figure out why people are leaving the state. The cost of living is drastically higher in Boston, than almost anywhere in the U.S. and comparative to places like London and Tokyo.

He is not alone, there are large numbers of people who either lost their jobs, or couldn’t ever find work to begin with, that have been enticed to move elsewhere. They are going in large numbers to areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta, N.C., or Florida. This is wholly related to the souring of the state's economy, and the piss-poor weather we had over the last several years (which has also had its effect on the economy).

It is not just happening to MA. All the northern cities/states are experiencing it. The old factory/mining towns are losing jobs, and losing inhabitants. Buffalo, Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Albany, Rochester, etc. are also seeing the same thing Boston and it's surrounding communities are seeing.

To borrow the phrase… "It's the economy, stupid!"

This is a serious crisis for the state. If you hadn’t notice, it isn’t just a few small companies, it is all the major companies.

Unfortunately, only 1 candidate has made this situation his #1 prior, Christy Mihos, and the other candidates supposed solutions to the problem would actually end up making the situation worse. Mihos’ plan in itself is not the tell-all-end-all in the situation. Yes he would strengthen support for those areas of the economy that will never leave the state, but you need more than just that.

The one large northern city that is not losing jobs/population is Chicago. The reason why is simple… cost of living, based on supply and demand. In Chicago, they have built up. Here we have sprawling communities of triple-deckers and duplexes. Therefore when you divide the number of housing units per square mile, Chicago has an advantage.

We have shot ourselves in the foot on a number of occasions in this state by failing to build skyward. At the turn of the century although Boston had been in the forefront of building design, and developed the techniques for building skyscrapers, we had but 1 skyscraper, because it was a federal building, exempt from Boston’s archaic height limitations. Therefore we lost out on the massive boom in population which NYC, Chicago, and Philly experienced at the time. This has left us the scar of several small buildings in our city core, which still to this day hampers out ability to provide adequate housing for our residents.

Compare Dorchester and Roxbury to the inner-city suburbs of most American cities, and you will see a major problem, a complete lack of high-rise mixed income apartment complexes. What you see in Boston is more what you see in Europe.

In Europe there are sprawling urban areas developed before the ability to build a skyscraper was available, and they have high costs on living in those cities. Comparatively in much of Eastern Europe, or parts of Europe destroyed during the second world war, they have built modern high-rise apartment complexes, and are much more affordable to live in that the older areas of Europe.

However, Boston had not been developed before the high-rise, it just failed to do so. Today, we continue to replicate this mistake.

In many recent plans for urban development, the city/state have encouraged building modern duplexes or “multiple family homes” around the public transportation units. The Public Transportation system is so small comparatively to the larger cities, that this means putting a 3-story home, where most cities would have a 10+-story apartment complex.

The math is simple. Triple-deckers and duplexes support 3 families at best. In the space of 8 triple-deckers you would get only 24 families living there. In that same space of 8 triple-deckers, a 10+-story apartment complex would support more than 3 times as many people.

So when it comes time to price the spaces, on supply and demand, a city with ample living spaces available is not going to have high cost of living, whereas a city like Boston, in which space is at a premium, the cost of renting those units is going to be through the roof.

Let’s also add into this equation the factor of efficiency. In Massachusetts, most of these triple-decker units are old, and build in horribly inefficient manner. This means they have poor insulation, with enough cracks throughout the house to equate to a medicine ball sized hole in their front door. They often have inefficient heating systems, like poorly operating radiators, which come the time you have rising fuel prices, drives your bills sky high. Many of them also have rotting wood, mold, asbestos, lead paint, carbon monoxide, radon, and other dangerous chemicals, which contribute to ones health problems and overall quality of life.

In other cities, you are living in a fairly modern built high-rise, which itself may not be perfect, but is certainly far more efficient in regards to heating and health factors. So not only are their rents lower, but their bills are lower too, which contributes to a comparatively large gap in the cost of living.

Both Patrick and Healey support building triple-decker, and duplexes around the public transportation. That would only cap the few existing places where we could build high-rise apartment complexes within range of the public transportation system, which would sew the roots of an even larger cost of living increase in the future, as the natural expansion of the local population occurs.

We need someone who is instead going to come in and expand the public transportation system outward, such as Mihos is suggesting he would do. We need more building like the McCallen building in S. Boston. That building does not fit the description of Healey and Patrick’s plan, and would not be zoned or eligible for the funding and tax breaks they speak of. That is why I seriously doubt they would lead us in the right direction. The guy who built the McCallen building, unfortunately not a 1st time home buyer, not building a small duplex near public transportation. To Patrick and Healey he is not doing the right thing.

To me he is one of the few saviors this state needs, a private investor willing to go through the effort to build a green building that is a mid/high-rise apartment complex along public transportation.

If Mihos gets in office, expanding the MBTA would be an issue of his, which would allow a lot more buildings of this type to be built all the way up to Lynn and out through Roxbury.

Mihos would also increase local aid drastically, so that cities and towns could lower their property taxes, which would encourage businesses and large property owners to move to those cities and towns. This would contribute to lessening the cost of living.

If you are concerned about the high cost of living, and the effects it has had on the economy you should be voting for Mihos.

THE BIGGEST MYTH IN THIS CAMPAIGN!!!

“Healey is running negative ads. because she can’t speak for what she has done”

First off, comparatively with most campaigns, Healey's ads are very, very mild. She states what she has done, and intends to do, then shows how her opponent differs in that regard. Whereas, 3/4ths of Patrick's ads are negative about Healey, with Patrick smiling at the end, or name-dropping. Those are the real negative ads. The thing is Patrick has his dirty hands wiped clean of it, because there are two sources doing it for him, a PAC which is running brutal negative ads against Healey, and then the MTA running ads against Romney (who they might not know is not running for re-election, from their ads it's hard to tell). He thus looks this less negative than the PACs.

This is not by chance. This has been the clear strategy of the Democratic Party in this campaign.

Democrats have learned a very important lesson from recent elections. The person who applies the label first wins the election.

The recent Presidential elections show this as a pattern. Bush Sr. labeled Dukakis as the bleeding heart massachusetts liberal who was soft on crime, with labels of Taxachusetts and then dropped Horton's furlogate scandal as proof. Clintonites labeled Bush Sr. as too old and out of touch with society, and Bush Sr. proved it everytime he breathed. Clinton labeled Dole as the guy who was gonna take prescriptions away from seniors (which makes no sense as he is a senior), but it won Clinton FL. and the election. For what it's worth Gore was labeled as boring. Most appropriately Bush labeled Kerry the flip-flopper, and said right or wrong you know where I stand, and not enough people knew where Kerry stood to vote for him. That won a seemingly unpopular moron of a president his re-election.

Locally, Celluci was attacked by Harshbarger about his personal bankruptcy as an indicator of how poorly he would manage the state budget (which turned out to be so true), and Celluci stamped down the label that Harshbarger was attacking his family, because he was forced into bankruptcy as the result of loans he took out so his daughter’s could get into good schools (as in not the MA State colleges, hell of a thing for a candidate running for Gov. to say in regards to the schools he is running to take over). This was inaccurate, but Harshbarger was labeled by Celluci, and anytime in the debates where he tried to raise Celluci’s mismanagement of funds, he was labeled as attacking Celluci’s family. Celluci ends up winning, and a lot of negative feeling was left about how mean spirited Harshbarger was.

That is what Patrick is doing now, applying the label, and beating it home.

Deval Patrick labeled Healey as running a campaign of negative ads right from the outset. In his acceptance speech of the nomination he labeled her as running a negative campaign (and she had not run a single ad yet, not even knowing who her opponent was). He then shelved the 'child of a single-mother', 'went to Harvard', and 'worked for Clinton' smiley face ad. The next day they were airing a commercial in which he blatantly accused her of running a negative campaign, before she had even run one. However, she fell into the trap, as the day after he won the nomination she ran her first ads, and since they contained the slightest negative criticism of Patrick, she was thus labeled.

The truth of the matter is, anyone who saw the first debate saw how bad Patrick was discussing the issues, because he can’t talk about what he has done, which is defend criminals, and work for large corporations. He has shown several strong patterns which should negate him as a viable candidate, by siding against the mainstream Mass resident on nearly every issue, consistently siding with criminals or making it easier for people to become criminals, little to no knowledge of how local and state government actually works, phony speeches which lack substance (like yes we can... what? how?), and absolutely no plan to fund anything he claims to support. Whenever he is attacked about these things he usually deflects the criticism to the “negative ad” or reverts back to name dropping names like 'Clinton', 'Texaco', 'Coca-Cola', which all prove he knows little about this state.

Kerry Healey actually is part of an administration, which recovered the state from a huge fiscal crisis, and now has a large budget surplus. They have done so shrewdly by cutting redundancies and raising fees without having to go to the legislature to get it done. She has been there to sign major legislation pieces (even before Mitt decided not to run for re-election). This same administration, under the advice of the Massachusetts Taxpayer foundation, submitted a budget proposal which would put 40% of the state’s taxes towards local aid to make up for the inflation adjusted loss of funds they had seen in balancing the budget. Unfortunately things got political, and instead of backing their own plan, the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation instead of siding with the guy for proposing what they had suggested, then decided to bash him on the questionability of keeping such a proposal long term. This was eaten up by the legislature, saying there was no way that the state could afford to roll back the taxes and give back 40% local aid (although there is if you stop giving out huge patronage contracts to former employees and kickbacks to large special interest groups). So the Romney/Healey administration tried to get 40% back to the cities and towns, but the democratic legislature prevented it. Now they are running a campaign which says the Republican administration cut local aid (which they needed to do because the democratic legislature nearly bankrupted itself with spending) and that they intend on restoring it, but no where near 40% which the MTF, and thus Romney and Mihos have supported doing.

She actually has a lot to talk about, and tried to do so. Unfortunately for her, he refused to do so, so she couldn’t engage him in that sort of discussion.

So she benefited from the local newspapers bringing out catchy headline stories, and bash her as you will, they are the only reason Patrick’s numbers have slipped, so kudos to her for capitalizing on it.

Still Patrick refuses to waver. He will not discuss the issues. He has no plan to speak of. He will continually just use the label ‘negative attack ads’.

Unfortunately, Mihos was labeled too. Mihos was labeled as the guy who ‘doesn’t stand a chance’. Which is also inaccurate, but mostly floated out by Republicans who refuse to part ways with the sinking U.S.S. Healey and are going to go down with the ship. So they are as guilty of labeling as the Democrats.

Mihos is more central than any of the other candidates, and doesn’t have the Mitt Romney baggage over his head. He sides with the overwhelming majority of Massachusetts voters on nearly every issue except for gay marriage, which, he is for, but does side with the majority of Massachusetts voters who want the issue to go to a state-wide vote.

I would love to see Healey drop out, and then put all her support behind Mihos. Then what is Patrick going to do? He has no labels for Mihos. If Healey dropped out, Mihos would no longer be the guy that stood no chance, he would be the guy that forced Healey out, and now has her support.

I strongly urge anyone considering voting for Healey to realize that she has been labeled, and thus stands little chance of winning, since her only weapon is that which she has been labeled for. Thus your only recourse of action if you want your issues represented is to fully back Mihos. At this point Patrick has been labeled, and Mihos hasn’t. That could give Mihos the edge, and the only way to stop Patrick’s apparent landslide win.

Universal Health Care has become the latest buzzword political issues that the donkephants will throw around during debates. The trouble is, no one ever debates the validity of it. They have already labeled it as the utopian dream situation.

As normal I see things very differently.

Everyone starts at square one. We all go to schools of some form when we are children. Some may be from poorer school districts and some may be from wealthier school districts, but we all have a chance to make what we want of ourselves from that point on. Putting the socio-economic differences aside, let's look at what occurs within one individual school district.

1st kid shows up to school as if it’s a social gathering place. He clowns around in the hallways, does not do much homework, makes wisecracks in class, and never takes his learning or the opportunity to better himself seriously. When he graduates he either takes a job right out of school, or goes to an avg. college with an avg. major, and goes to work for a business.

2nd kid goes to school with the intent on acing every single class he/she ever takes. The intent is to get into a great college, so they could then participate in one of the better institutions, one of them being the field of health care/medicine. This person works hard all the way through h.s., college, grad school, and up to a doctorate. After all that studying and schooling (which comes at a high price, and several loans which need to be paid off) the person then possesses a special skill which few people on this earth possess.

If that service were traded on an open market like a jewel, it would go for the highest price possible. The rarer the practice, theoretically the higher it would cost.

Not so anymore. These doctors are now being told that they are charging too much. 2nd kid works all their life to get somewhere, and now they are told that they are charging kid #1 too much, because kid #1 has developed health problems by not taking care of themselves. Kid #1 is in need of services, so Kid #2 has to bend over and do this for a lower price.

Basic capitalism encourages those who wish to become successful to do so. In order to do so they must strive to be the best in their field. What pushes them to that is the reward of wealth at the end of the journey.

If we are no longer going to reward them for that journey, how many more people are going to wish to become doctors? How great will our health care and medicine fields be, when our best and brightest are no longer being rewarded for trying to push the limits of success in those fields?

Universal Health Care goes against everything we stand for in a society.

If someone smokes, and gets lung cancer, why should our tax dollars go towards a plan, which then requires our best and brightest to provide their services (which they worked hard for out of their own merit on this earth, and still have school-loans to pay off) for less than a fair market value for them?

If someone eats junk food their entire life, and ends up having heart attacks, why should our best and brightest be obligated to bend over backwards for those who never cared 1 iota for their health throughout their lives?

Why should we as a society be obligated to fund the exploits of these lazy SOB's like Kid #1?

The reason health care isn't affordable, is because health care comes at a huge cost. One needs to study for nearly a decade before becoming able to provide that service. In doing so they need to be in a sanitized building with state of the art sterile equipment, which also come at huge costs. The medicine they practice does not come out of thin air either. It comes from the hard work and effort of other scientists who work with specimens more expensive, in buildings even more expensive. Then on top of that, there are several bureaucratic levels of administration, which oversee this process.

It amazes me that someone will go to a store and have no problem dropping a few hundred dollars on some 'bling' just to get a shiny piece of metal, with a clear rock embedded in it, all for the sake of simple pleasure. Yet that very same person then complains when they have to spend money to get the benefit of the aforementioned health services when they are in need of it.

Then to top it all off, Kid #2 in providing these services is then held libel for them in case they make a mistake on a difficult diagnosis, because anyone with any knowledge of the medical field knows that so many problems share multiple symptoms, that many are extremely easy to mix up. Kid #1 then goes on and sues Kid #2 for all he is worth.

If Kid #1 at their work makes a slight mistake, it usually goes in the wastebasket, or is easily redone at no extra charge. Kid #2 after working their all for 15-30 years makes one slight misdiagnosis, they are them sued for all their worth, which then goes to Kid #1, who was their with the health problem they contracted, most often out of their won carelessness to begin with.

This system is not right, and Universal Health Care is going to worsen the problem.

What we need to be doing is limiting the amount of money Kid#2 can be sued for if direct criminal intent can not be proven.

We should also be allowing kid #2 to earn as much as they can for their services, so that kid #1 and #2's kids when they go to school will both know that one of the highest paying, and thus "most rewarding" jobs is that which is most needed in our society. Therefore, in order to become successful themselves, they must then bear the torch of advancing the science of medicine.

The drug companies everyone loves to bash spend millions of dollars and hours working on coming up with a cure for a common ailment. When they find it, why should they be required to sell that formula to generic companies? How does that reward people for their work and success in advancing the science? If all that work is rewarded by generic companies undercutting your profits... why would a company than push to come up with a new medication?

Then there is the whole libel issue. These drug companies work to test these new medications before releasing them. If they work on 99.4% of the people who take them... they are not permitted to be sold. Scientists hold a very high standard of 99.5% or greater accuracy. Then when one of that .05% of the population dies, they become distraught and wage a campaign against the very company, which set out to help them in the first place. That .05% of the population unites, and files a class action lawsuit, and suddenly, after all that work, all that effort to come up with the cure, to test it, to market it, and to help 99.5% of the population, the cumulative efforts of the .05% end up suing you for everything, and your company falls under.

After 9/11 people had a huge anthrax scare and wondered why there were no vaccines ready for them. The reason was, the few companies, which made the vaccine no longer could afford the risk of what would occur if there were side-effects to the vaccine. All but 1 company in America stopped making the vaccine, and the one company which did, lost their licensing to produce and sell the vaccine, because they could not afford to pass the extremely high cost of the inspection standards. No one needs an anthrax vaccine until an outbreak occurs. If you can't sell the product, how can you make the money off it? Now zero companies make the vaccine in America. The only vaccines come from abroad.

Does anyone really think Universal Health Care is going to assist and encourage companies to produce these vaccines, for anthrax, and other more readily occurring illnesses? No, it will not. Who wants to go through all the work for them to be undercut by federal regulations?

Democrats have been long-time enemies of U.S. society, and champions of communist insurgencies (Vietnam, Nicaragua, etc.). It does not surprise me that the Democratic Party platform pushes for "Universal Health Care", since it fits right in with their communist ideals. It shocks me that they have not seen the horrible disfunctionality that goes on in communist societies, which require militaristic dictatorships to enforce them, since most people wish to rebel against it.

However, shockingly, Universal Health Care has become now an issue that the Republican Party is championing as well. When the conservative party, which used to signify capitalism and nationalism now begins to betray our own society in hopes of adopting a more communistic society, we are all in for it.

Where can you turn to find the backbone of America, those willing to stand up to these parties of ignorance, and in favor of the American ideal competition driving business and rewarding people for their success on this earth?

To me the only answer is to vote for independent party candidates who will buck the system, and toss out both these parties, and enforce the true will of the American people.

But, that caveat needs to be met with some limitations. Those independent candidates need to be centrist candidates who back the public on popular issues.

When we go supporting the Nader's of the world (which I have to admit to doing, as a much better candidate than either Bush, Gore, or Kerry), we then support candidates who say ridiculous things like "we should use the Canadian system for the U.S."

I am sorry, but the Canadian system has not been responsible for the overwhelming majority of health care advancements in the last few centuries. That would be here in the good old U.S.A, Ralph.

However, those centrist independents will usually stand up for the will of the voter.

Christy Mihos is such a candidate. Every one of the policies he has stated is right in line with both the voting populace, but the outside independent bodies of experts who state their stand on those very same issues.

Christy Mihos is the only candidate in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial race who does not have a strong stand in favor of "Universal Health Care". The issue is not even razed on his website. The one health issue he lists, is that he supports the over the counter sale of needles, so that drug users will not spread diseases. Notice, he he says "over the counter sale" of them... not taxpayers should be providing them for users, like the Democrats would argue. It also shows his lean towards a free capitalist society over a communist one.

He may or may not support the issue, however his plan is to give back the money to the local cities and towns to provide services like police, fire, and education. That is a clear indicator he does not wish to waste your tax dollars on an over-bloated plan to make you have to foot the Health Care bill for Kid #1's mistakes.

Please, vote Mihos in the upcoming election!
The People's Candidate, not the People’s Republic!

Christy Mihos has found yet another way to express his views on hot-button issues in a way I have to agree with.

Mihos was talking some flak by detractors because Christy's Markets sold CITGO products.

He came out and announced that Christy's Markets would no longer be selling CITGO products as a result of their ties Chavez's Venezuela.

How can you not think this guy is going to do what is in your best interests?

Top 10 Reasons NOT to Vote For Patrick
--------------------------------------

#10 - Wearing a hearing aid in the debate might suggest he is in it just for the Health Insurance coverage.

#9 - Claim's he wants to run an attack free campaign, yet has a party airing well funded attack ads against his opponent regularly, and did little to prevent Healey from being bashed by Mihos... so much for the honesty...

#8 - Claims he would lower property taxes, which is actually done by the local city/town governments. If he doesn't know the difference between a Mayor and the Governor, should you really elect him to the position?

#7 - Gotta wonder who he had to blow to get a job in the Clinton administration.

#6 - Deval meet the Devil, Devil meet the Deval.

#5 - Failed to accurately point out Grace Ross has a gap between her teeth wider than David Letterman's.

#4 - Favors rights for illegal immigrants, and a whole host of insanely liberal policies which are out of line with the consensus opinion of the residents of Massachusetts.

#3 - Can we really afford yet another administration whose eyes are on the national political scene, using Massachusetts as a springboard for a future position?

#2 - Together We Can.... What? How?

...and the number one reason not to vote for Deval Patrick

#1 - Claims to be a uniter not a divider... how can you vote for someone who steals campaign slogans from George W. Bush.

Lesson #1
---------
As an imcumbent, try not to get put in your place by a 3rd party candidate, who you claim has no shot at winning. Especially one that has better polling numbers than you.


Lesson #2
---------
Don't ignore it while it is going on right before your eyes, and expect people won't notice the arrogance, and the snobbish and elitist attitude which you tried to ignore it with, like he had no business sitting at the "cool people" lunch table with you.


Lesson #3
---------
If you have more opponents than Deval Patrick... don't keep saying "My opponent, Devall Patrick", especially when one puts the issues point blank right in your face, and your only response is to turn away from it.


Lesson #4
---------
If you are seeking to be the top executive officer of the state, don't go whining to the press and asking mommy for help to get away from the whooping you are taking. If you have lower polling numbers than a 3rd party candidate, you just look silly saying they don't belong in a debate. Especially since they got those numbers from out-debating you. Hoping a broadcast network will defeat an opponent you can't proves the fact that you can't beat him. If you can't beat him, you don't deserve the position (oh and psst... if you can't beat him, you might as well drop out, and join him, he obviously stands a better chance at getting the viewpoints you stand for through).


Lesson #5
---------
If you're not going to have sexual relations with that woman, atleast have the decency to acknowledge her name is Grace Ross. Plus, even she even made you look silly.


Lesson #6
---------
If you claim your opponent is Deval Patrick, then you might want to atleast make a dent in his armor... or a scratch... something at all will do... Don't just say "Me too" with him on the issues.