My thirteen-year-old son made an interesting and unprompted observation as we were out running errands in the\u00a0car the other day.<\/p>\n
“Dad, at the Open House (for his school) I noticed that\u00a0the Student Council candidate at our school is\u00a0sort of like Barack Obama.”<\/p>\n
“How’s that?”<\/p>\n
“Well, he’s really nice and enthusiastic and promises things that he can’t do and are completely out of his control; to get people to vote for him.”<\/p>\n
He went on with examples.<\/p>\n
“Like\u00a0vending machines in every room, and no bullying ever <\/em>in the halls, allowing video games in school, to make sure school lunches are a lot better; less homework.”<\/p>\n Smart kid. It made me think of Obama’s speech the other night.<\/p>\n “Well, (Obama’s) really nice and enthusiastic and promises things that he can’t do and are completely out of his control; to get people to vote for him.”<\/p>\n I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.<\/p>\n I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America.<\/p>\n I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars.<\/p>\n And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy<\/p>\n …five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.\u00a0<\/p>\n I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support<\/p>\n …help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.<\/p>\n I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I wonder if Barack Obama ever ran for student council? I wonder if all junior politicians take their lead from liberals these days (and I include GW Bush in that hogpile)?<\/p>\n In all fairness to Barack Obama, his speech didn’t sound that different from G.W. Bush’s State of the Union a few years back. Promises, promises. Program after program. I don’t think any of them happened.<\/p>\n At least now, with Sarah Palin on the McCain reform ticket, there is\u00a0hope. Albeit a sliver of it. Hope that someone will go to Washington, and once there, wake Americans up to the fact that our Federal Government needs to go on a diet. Needs to do less, and with less. That the American people will have to do more with less. That we will actually have to go back to “being our brother’s keeper.”<\/p>\n Someone’s gotta do it. The question is will it be now, when we have a choice, or later when we don’t?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My thirteen-year-old son made an interesting and unprompted observation as we were out running errands in the\u00a0car the other day. “Dad, at the Open House (for his school) I noticed that\u00a0the Student Council candidate at our school is\u00a0sort of like Barack Obama.” “How’s that?” “Well, he’s really nice and enthusiastic and promises things that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}