Gettin' that feeling good feeling again.

I'm thinkin' I could get used to all this hope and optimism. Feels good after the last eight years, doesn't it? I couldn't help singin' along with Pete Seeger on this one....



Monday morning postscript: Do kids learn these American standards in school anymore? A while back, When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again (Hurrah! Hurrah!) came up on my Ipod. (Thank you Ken Burns.) My kids, 10 & 15, hadn't ever heard the song before and frantically rolled up the windows while I marched out the tune as we drove past the Arcata Plaza.

Do the public schools still teach the music of our collective heritage? Do kids today open dog-eared music textbooks after morning recess to learn America the Beautiful, God Bless America (favoring Kate Smith's Broad Street Bullies rendition over the Bronx Bomber's 9/11 Irish cop tenor), This Land is Your Land, The Star Spangled Banner, America America ("Oh beautiful for spacious skies"), and We Shall Overcome? Have these standards fallen victim to music program budget cuts and political correctness? Did I just answer my own question?

Sure, some of these songs glorify war, or a particular god, or contain subtle racism in the second or third verses, yet they are essential elements of the American soundtrack, no? And, I believe, there is tremendous value in learning our collective history behind the music, including its sordid or shameful elements.

It's lonely (not to mention hard on the ears) being the only one singing along with our national heritage as we drive along those ribbons of highways. Lord knows I need the accompaniment. Do I sound curmudgeonly enough yet?

Final VP Debate Preparations

Two overripe avocados, skinned, pits removed, and mashed but still chunky.

One diced poblano chile. (Keep the seeds and veins if you like it extra spicy.)

One diced roma tomato.

Juice squeezed from one lime.
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely diced.

Combine all the above in a cool ceramic bowl and serve with blue corn chips.

From the grille, we're also serving up steamy hot Cincinnati Chili Dogs (made with healthier ground turkey and turkey dogs rather than the beef), complimented with piles of grated cheddar and yellow mustard. Add in a box of frozen TGI Fridays Fried Cheese Sticks and we're ready for the big game.

My friends, tonight the good people of America have the opportunity to witness one of the most anticipated political events of all time. I'll be there, or here actually, in front of my TV, bringing out the munchie menu we usually reserve for the Super Bowl or the final game of a Red Sox World Series championship. (I'll have to do this all again in a couple weeks, I suppose.)

The candidates are finishing up their final practice sessions, listening to tight-assed aides whispering last minute punch lines into their overtaxed brains, and mumbling incomprehensible tongue twisters to loosen their lips before tonight's verbal joust.

The pundits are in a tizzy, predicting and prognosticating the plausible outcome after the 90-minute debate. They say, let Sarah be Sarah, and that tonight we'll see someone other than the bumbling, ignorant, unprepared colonial governor we've seen interviewed over the past couple of weeks. They say that Biden must hold his tongue and his snark to avoid the appearance of picking on a girl or being condescending. They say he'd be best off keeping quiet and letting her humiliate herself as she's proven so capable of late.

I, for one, am hoping for more from Joe. I'm hoping for a "Jane, you ignorant slut" moment where he calls her out on her inexperience, incuriousity, and intellectual incompetence. I believe the McCain campaign has already sunk itself anyway, beginning with the Palin pick and then by letting her out of the Arctic Circle to talk on record to anyone at all.

Americans love a good crash, thus the popularity of Nascar and pairs figure skating. We've got a good one in the making here. 6pm on all the major channels.

Caribou Barbie Reads Good

I got home late last night after a thrilling softball playoff game (losing in our last at-bat, goshdurnit) just in time to catch a replay of Sarah Palin's address to the Republican National Convention. I briefly fantasized that she'd announce, "I'm honored to be nominated, but woefully unprepared for this awesome task," then gracefully withdraw from consideration for the good of the nation.

But no, with a sparkle and a grin, Ms Palin blew us a kiss, denied her sordid past, and turned us all on. I'll admit it, she was good, especially if you enjoy red meat political sarcasm and cynicism wrapped up in a tight bun tossled with a healthy dose of resume fluffery and a few out'n'out lies.

But, then again, give me a professional wordsmith, three days of lockdown practice with a team of political image coaches, and expectations so ridiculously low following five days of embarrassing revelations about my family and (brief) political career, and I think even I could've lit a fire under a few thousand previously passionless partisan white folks with exaggerated tales of my hardscrabble suburban middle class life and limited executive experience.

Sarah Palin's highly touted and subsequently lauded speech was, of course, not of her own creation, but the carefully crafted words of bush aide Matthew Scully, read from the rolling screen of a plexiglass teleprompter. In fact, Palin's speech was originally written for an unknown male VP nominee (Romney perhaps?) and later dolled up to fit the new gender and family fairy tale that is McCain's hail mary choice for a ruling partner.

"Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch." (Washington Post, 9/03/08).

That modern day political speeches are often ghosted by others more clever with words than the candidates themselves, is certainly no secret. But in the midst of her able recitation of Matthew Scully's script, this self-styled pitbull in lipstick had the cajones to attack Barack Obama for writing two books which thoroughly outline his own life story, his political philosophy, and his vision for the nation. Obama has also written all of his own major speeches that represent, (from Palin's lips and Scully's pen) "the idealism of high-flown speechmaking in which crowds are stirringly summoned to support great things".

I'm a lover of words and what words can do to provoke and inspire. Presidential campaigns are most certainly more than mere words. But I prefer knowing that the words coming from the mouths of those who yearn for my vote and my trust, emanate from their own thoughts, their own experiences, and their own dreams, not wholly created by clever underlings to be poured into the mouths of polished and pressed political mouthpieces.

Let us begin the work together

All of you chose to support a candidate you believe in deeply. But at the end of the day, we aren’t the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard. You didn’t do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else. You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – we cannot afford to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future. And for all those who dream of that future tonight, I say – let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.

Barack Obama, June 3, 2008

The Definition of Bitter (or, Why ABC News really really sucks)

What an embarrassing night for ABC, and more importantly for a nation theoretically founded on the principal of intelligent discourse, in their conduct of tonight's phony made-for-idiot-TV campaign "debate". Nearly an hour devoted to rehashing trivial comments on sidebar People Magazine issues, issues that no one outside the joke that is the American coporate media cares a damn about. Jeremiah Wright. Lapel pins. The meaning of the word "bitter". Well, I'm bitter now dammit.

It's probably a good thing my girls shuffled me and my culturally elitist organic Petit Syrah out of the TV room. After an hour of unrestrained cursing and ball cap throwing at political flacks and coprolitic media pitchmen Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous, the three of 'em wisely and carefully escorted me out the door, favoring the half hour of mindless American Idol commercials presaging the narrowing of the faceless karaoke pop star wannabes down to six to the sight of la casa's lone male sputtering and fuming at the silvery-screened orb inside a faux antique cabinet.

Damn. I really wonder sometimes about the future of this country. I'm pissed and frustrated. I'm grieving and, yes, bitter, but without guns or religion to soothe me. And I'm wonderin' where a middle career guy with a mortgage and a 70 mile daily commute on 4 buck a gallon gas goes to make sense of it all.

People are dying in a needless war.

Millions wander the streets homeless.

We can't, we won't, pay our teachers a decent salary for the most important jobs in the whole damn world.

We're selling semi-legal dope on the plaza to professional panhandlers on phony medical pretenses.

Our planet is rapidly melting itself into oblivion.

And ABC thinks we should give a shit about whether Obama wears a half inch composite metal American flag facsimile made in Taiwan on his friggin' suit?!? Go to hell ABC. If I actually watched any of their programming I'd boycott it, but I suppose they're not really gonna miss me since there's nothing there to watch anyway.

I'm not gonna sleep well tonight, am I? Someone pass that wine cork puller thingie over here. This bottle's empty.

On and on, on and on, on and on.

She wins Rhode Island. He wins Vermont. She wins Ohio big, then edges him in the Texas primaries. But wait! He wins the Texas caucuses and earns a bigger piece of the delegate pie. And so it goes. On and on.

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I watched Field of Dreams, the one movie that consistently makes grown men choke up and sniffle like women watching a Renee Zellweger flick. Then baseball's Spring Training kicked off on Valentine's Day, a day when two loves are satisfied in one sitting. Toss in the past couple weeks of Humboldt sunshine which brings our own gloves and balls out of the bottom of the sports basket in the garage. The scent of aged glove leather and the pop of balls in reformed pockets announce the beginning of spring.

Then on one of my thrice weekly browsings of Northtown Books, a copy of W.P Kinsella's magical novel, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy pops up on the sales table. It's the story of a 1908 exhibition game between the Chicago Cubs (Tinkers to Evers to Chance & the last Cubs' World Series) and the semi-pro Iowa Baseball Confederacy All-Stars, a game lasting 2000 innings, replete with albinos, feisty dwarves, Hall of Fame names from baseball's glory days, floods, Indian spirits, and windows in time.

200 pages in with another 100 to go, the epic game's in its sixth day and somewhere around 300 innings. Day after day, the players slog on. When the visiting North Side nine score in the top of an inning, the hometown Iowa farm boys inevitably pull out a run to knot it in the bottom frame. They break for hot, full-course meals served by local Christian cultists, and for sleep, only to return to the field at dawn. And the game goes on.

Page 199 introduces Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem who's summoned from the Majors to umpire the game when the local man in blue misses a call that would've decided the game in the Cubs' favor.

"How long will you let the game go on?" calls a dapper, white-haired reporter.

"The game shall continue until it is resolved," says Klem.

"But why?" asks the reporter.

"Sir," says Klem, drawing himself up until he is as tall as the reporter, who is not very tall. "I need not justify my decisions, any more than I need to justify a call of ball or strike, safe or out. The game will continue because I believe that it should."

America's Democrats are not quite ready to see their epic game end either. While some grow weary of the back and forth, up and down, nasty and nice, We the People have spoken, and need not justify our actions. The game goes on as it has, as it will, until it is resolved. Perhaps it will take a 40-day flood, or the magical rub of an albino's mane, or the chanting of a long-dead Iowa Indian, but there will be resolution. As there should. We're on page 199. But there are 111 pages, and 10 states, left to our story.

As Stephen Bishop once crooned....

On and on
I just keep on trying
And I smile when I feel like crying
On and on, on and on, on and on

On and on, on and on, on and on
On and on, on and on, on and on

The Romney Rules: A campaign strategy for 2012

“…there was a special feeling in my heart when I realized that the three places Ann and I lived have all voted for us — Michigan, Massachusetts, and Utah.”

Mitt said it most clearly last night in claiming favorite son victories in all three of his home states. All the other candidates did just as well among their own hometown folk. Huck and Hillary won Arkansas, with Hillary adding the ol' Chappaqua family homestead in New York. McCain took Arizona. Obama won Illinois, Hawaii, and the ex-pats in Indonesia. Hillary did manage to lose her childhood home to the sitting Senator from Illinois, however, in the only contested hometown race.

Based on those results, I hereby officially announce my candidacy for the 2012 Republican nomination for president.

Why Republican? Simple political expediency. The winner-take-all primary format guarantees I win all the delegates from anywhere I once called home, and provides the clearest path to victory. (This proportional thing the Democrats are doing is much too confusing for me and the national media, and anything too complicated for the blown-dry hairpieces of mainstream journalism just isn’t shared with the public at large since we’re more easily entertained by Brittany Spears' underpants and cute photos of the world’s ugliest dog, which should not be confused as one in the same thing.)

Plus, Republican positions are much less complicated, more black ‘n’ white (literally) than are the nuanced and convoluted Democratic positions that no one ever quite understands. (See the prior parenthetical comments about complexibilityness in the national dialogue.) Simple is good in today's America.

So if you’re lookin’ to invest your future campaign contributions in a winning crusade, I’m the perfect national candidate. For the record, I’m only claiming hometown status in places I (or my parents) actually resided and had US Postal delivery.

Here’s the math:

Rhode Island	Humble birthplace	19 delegates
Maryland	Pre-school	37 delegates
Illinois	K-3 (and an early Cubs fan)	70 delegates
Massachusetts	Grades 3-7 (Go Sox!) and 2 years workin’	43 delegates
New Jersey	Garden State Pkwy, Exit 142. Discovered the female vote.	52 delegates
Pennsylvania	High School amid the birth of the supermall	74 Delegates
Texas	3 years of college, a fundamentalist Christian college to boot	138 delegates
Washington DC	More college	19 delegates
Colorado	Yet another college	46 delegates
New Mexico	A college degree (finally) + 12 years careering + wife + kids	32 delegates
South Dakota	A summer of workin’	26 delegates
Idaho	2 summers of workin’	31 delegates
Virginia	A winter of workin’	63 delegates
California	6 years now and growin’	172 delegates

By simply claiming favorite son status, I have 822 of the 1191 delegates necessary for victory before the race even begins. If I can pull in my wife’s home state of Florida (113 delegates), Maine where I’ve spent many a summer (20), and both Ohio (88) and Arizona (52) where I have deep family roots, I’m at 1063 committed delegates. Another 128 delegates shouldn’t be difficult considering my Obama-like charm, Hillarious intellect, Romneyesque good looks, and liberal use (though that may not be the proper Republican phraseology) of Huckabee’s holy bookcase in my campaign commercials.

So, attaining the Republican nomination won’t be an issue, especially now that being pro-choice, anti-Bush, anti-gun, anti-war,and of squishy religious beliefs are no longer screen-out factors. The same math guarantees an Electoral College victory in Nov 2012.

The bigger questions come as we slip into the lame duck years of my administration (which I hope come quickly since I’m not really interested in workin’ that hard) as to where to locate the Bob Flame presidential library and which of my former homes is designated Bob Flame Boyhood Home National Historic Site. Both of those questions, though, should provide ample opportunities for corporate fundraising graft as my tenure as your 45^th president draws to a close.

A flawless plan, don’t you think?

My Endorsements: Super Sunday & Super Tuesday

Not that anyone of sound and independent mind should really care, but here are the crucial picks for the crucial issues of the day from one middle-aged, middle-class, middle-mortgage, mid-level bureaucrat, husband, and dad.

Super Sunday: I grew up just outside of Boston in the ‘70s, back when they were the Boston Patriots led by QB Jim Plunkett, RB Sam Bam Cunningham, and WR Randy Vataha. The Philadelphia Eagles supplanted the Pats as my favorite team in high school, but I continue to follow ‘em, and, quite honestly, the Patriots have provided a few more opportunities to cheer in recent years than have the Birds.

After an impossible and impressive run to 18-0, it’d be a shame to see ‘em lose this last and championship game. While I usually run with the underdogs in the Super Bowl just to see top dogs get knocked off the roof of their dog house, Fate demands a Patriots victory today. A season-long streak like this comes along once a generation. And it’s time to witness a little perfection in our world, don’t ya think? I’ll be grinding up some salsa and guacamole, frozen mozzarella sticks, and boilin’ up the chili dogs by 3pm today. It’s the Patriots’, all the way.

Super Tuesday: I will stand in line on Tuesday morning and color in my voter's bubble for Barack Obama…because it’s time to change. I have no doubt that Hillary would be a solid, formidable, effective president. If she emerges victorious at the end of this process, I will support her with all I have available to give. The positions taken by Clinton and Obama are not all that radically different. In all fairness, I’m having a hard time figuring out what they would do differently than the other when elected.

But……

I’m so tired of the language of politics today. So beleaguered by the pettiness, the crassness, the obnoxiousness, the shiftiness of the dialogue. I’m exhausted by right v left, blue v red, east v west, Hannity v Colmes, Carville v Matalin. For 16 years, this country has done nothing but holler at each other across increasingly rigid lines. You can blame talk radio, the insipid corporate media, and the internet, but we are no longer one country, indivisible. We are not united to stand; we are divided to fail. Another four or eight years with the Clintons in the White House just prolongs the angry, short-sighted, politically expedient rhetoric, not only in Washington, but in our own communities across the continent.

It’s time for America to speak with a new voice. It’s time for someone who can lead us with a vision for the future, a vision that includes justice and opportunity for everyone. The only one in this race capable of changing the nature of our national dialogue is Barack Obama.

I admire the way Senator Obama has kept his campaign focused on the future, on changing the framework of the debate, and generally steering clear of the name-calling and blame-placing brought upon the race by the Clintons. I was among the hundreds of star-struck fans at Bill’s Eureka performance a few weeks ago, but the Clinton campaign proved itself that night, and continues to prove itself today not only capable, but eager to sink into the political muck to reach a political victory, and not of reaching up to take us to a new place.

Perhaps my vote is a vote against something as much as it is a vote for something. And it’s likely that my vote for Obama will be cancelled out within my own household. But, and it’s become cliché, it’s time for a change. For the country’s sake, we have to end the politics of polarization, stop this rhetorical inanity, and move forward, to a new future, a future we where can are proud to be United States and united Americans again. Barack Obama is the only one standing in the campaign capable of leading us there.

What about all the ballot initiatives, Bob? I oppose the entire ballot initiative process in principal, so I probably won’t vote on any of ‘em, out of pure spite. This is idiot special interest democracy run amok. I’m tired of being hustled at the Farmer’s Market and the Safeway parking lot by students and ne’er do wells who don’t understand the nature of what they’re asking us to sign on the dotted line for, and who are almost always paid by the signature by some corporation, special interest group, or billionaire. How about doing away with this ridiculous ballot initiative process altogether and making the legislature do the job we send ‘em to Sacramento to do for a change?

And while we’re on the topic, we already have a term-limit law in place, folks. It’s been there since the founding of the state and the US Constitution. It’s called an election. If you don’t’ like your congressman, vote him/her the hell out of office. There’s absolutely nothing stopping you.

Enough ranting. I’ve got guacamole to create.

Oh, what a night! Bill Clinton comes to town

About 6:45 last night, as we waited inside the cozy fairground hall in humble Humboldt County for the former leader of the free world, I saw him. Briefly. Through a gap in the temporary white privacy curtains at the north end of the hall. The dark blazer, the shock of white hair. "He's here! I saw him" For a few brief moments, I was standing less than 20 feet from frikkin' Bill Clinton.

Yes, it was a long afternoon of waiting in a brisk north coast winter breeze. I planted my chair on the concrete around 130 in the afternoon when there were only about 70 people in front of me and precisely in the center of the shade shadow created by the Redwood Acres grandstand. By the time the scrap paper and highlighter tickets were passed out, my wife and 9-year old daughter were tickets 119, 120, 121.

Rumors and gossip rolled up and down the line like ocean waves, and were fun to follow all afternoon. Only 377 people were gonnna get in. Then only 240 would have seats. There was a sign-in list and if you weren't on it you weren't getting in. No, wait, there wasn't a sign-in list. Hold on, yes there was. A required Secret Service questionnaire...passed out by a 10 year old boy which looked suspiciously like a Hillary campaign flyer to gin up emails and addresses of potential donors. The tickets mean nothing. Oh, yes they do.

In the end, even though many of us had stood in line for several hours, kept our places, organized ourselves in numerical order as the event volunteers had asked us to, there were many people who pushed their way to the front, forgetting the Democratic ideals of fairness to others and concern for their fellow citizens, and cut the line into the hall since those numbered tickets that had been handed out to the first few hundred of us never mattered anyways. (My great thanks anways to all of you hardworking Dem volunteers who pulled off this massive event on just a couple days notice....despite the whining, you done great!)

But that's all prologue. Once in, the excitement of anticipation permeated the place. Smiles. Laughs. A rolicking gospel choir.














Then Bill showed up. I kept thinkin', "This is Bill Clinton...in Eureka. What the hell is he doin' here?" I remembered having the same thoughts 10 years ago when Willie Nelson came to Carlsbad, New Mexico, a town of 20,000 in the backwaters of the southwest. Why? It didn't matter though, cuz the big dog was here.

Bill's hour-long speech was fun as spectacle, though probably typical of campaign stump speeches. He pumped Hillary as the only logical choice in this race. He promoted her as someone who not only promotes change but as the only surviving candidate that has actually changed people's lives.

His not-so-subtle digs at Hillary's most prominent competitor came in the question, asked several times, (and I'm paraphrasing) "Does it make sense to promote change by tossing away all the candidates who've spent their lives making real change and starting over?" He tossed in his admirations of Sen's Biden and Dodd, and Governor Richardson to bolster his case.

And he made a good case. My wife, a Richardson then Obama follower before 7pm last night, is almost convinced. Me? It was an effective argument, though I'm gonna withhold judgment 'til the stars in my eyes have a chance to clear. As effective as Bill was last night in garnering new Hillary supporters, I wonder what happens if Obama or Edwards shows up to turn on a Humboldt County crowd. Will we follow them and their star power just as eagerly into the fray? That bouncing from inspiration to inspiration in such close proximity to our real political superstars must be what it's like living in Iowa or New Hampshire, eh?

The moment of the night came after the speech. While Bill walked the cordoned line at the front of the stage, shaking hands, hugging crying women, passing autographables over his shoulder to his handlers, my 9-year old daughter managed to squeeze her way underneath and through the throng of giddy adults who were pushing and jostling for position to shake the president's hand.

She got not just a handshake, but a brief conversation with the president. OK, so it was just him asking her name three times since it was loud and she's on the quiet and shy side. But Bill Clinton, the former leader of the whole frikkin' free world, Democratic party saviour, most famous guy on the planet, leaned down, put his hand on my kids' shoulder, asked her name, and signed her now-not-so-worthless piece of scrap paper with the orange highlighted number 119, as Mom and Dad giggled like schoolkids behind her.

Oh what a night!

Three Presidents Visit Humboldt County

News of Bill Clinton's visit tomorrow has me wonderin' how often we get visits from this pols of this stature in the hinterlands of northern California. A few quickie Google searches begs the following question: Has it really been 38 years since a US President found his way to Humboldt County?

As near as I can tell, not since August 27, 1969 when President Nixon (before The Fall), former President Johnson (Lyndon, not Andrew), and then-Governator (and future president) Reagan gathered in a 300 acre redwood grove a few miles off the highway in the newly minted Redwood National Park, have we witnessed American royalty this high up the north coast. (And those of you who've been here much longer than me, please, don't hesitate to correct my attempt at county history.)

For 'twas on that cloudless August afternoon that three presidents - past, present and future - deplaned at the Arcata Airport, took the short drive up Highway 101, breezed through the little town of Orick to dedicate the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. Lady Bird herself had already visited the area in November of '68 to formally dedicate the National Park. This day's visit named this one grove of ancient redwoods in honor of the former first lady and her "Beautify America" efforts.

August 27th just happened to be LBJ's 61st birthday, and for the occasion the Nixons had flown Lyndon, Lady Bird, and the girls all out to San Clemente for a roast beast feast, a lemon birthday cake decorated with yellow roses and bluebonnets, and a 19"bonsai tree with its requisite "Bonsai for Beginners" handbook. Tossed in were a couple hours of meetings between the two presidents and dastardly notable Nixonites Kissinger, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman.

After lunch, the party retired to Air Force One, trusting the military's finest designated drivers to find their way northward the redwood coast. It was not a direct flight however. The revellers pit-stopped at Orange County's El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to pick up Governor Reagan, the good Reverend Billy Graham and soon-to-be House Majority Leader (D) Hale Boggs , better known today as the father of NPR's Cokie Roberts.

A signing ceremony, a few quick, mostly forgettable remarks (check 'em out here if you like), and some great pictures of three American presidents, side by side, literally, in our neck of the woods. I know we can all go on about the three President's debatable "greatness" as we will about Bill and Hillary when their run is done, but a great day for the county nonetheless (or at least for our local historians and chambers of commerce).

***

For the record, Herbert Hoover visited the county on a few occasions after his presidency ended in '32, including a night camping under the redwoods on Bull Creek as well as occasional fly fishing forays on Redwood Creek and nights at the Orick Inn on his way to his private fishin' cabin on the Klamath.

Were there others?

Mr Hillary Clinton on his way to Eureka later this week. (Wednesday)

Carol and Greg are reporting that Bill Clinton, husband of presidential candidate & former 1st lady Hillary Clinton is coming to Eureka....maybe. Word has it that Wednesday is the day, noonish the time. KHUM was interviewing Milt Boyd, Humboldt County's Democratic Party Chair a little while ago, who said the rumor's true, and they've been talking to Bill's people, though there are lots of details and likely lots of schedule changing possibilities between now and then. Even if I'm not firmly in the Hillary camp (leaning Obama now that Bill Richardson's returned to Governoring) but if the big guy's coming to our neighborhood, we'll be there to holler out our loud and proud Democratic cheers from somewhere in the teeming crowd.

Updating around 820pm: Looks like it's pretty much gonna happen, though sometime between 4-5pm according to the NCJ Blog and other sources. See y'all there.

Updating again, Tuesday 2ish: The afternoon guy on KHUM was phone talking to someone, I believe from the local Dems office, saying the hoopla happens between 400 and 630 tomorrow at Redwood Acres. (I'm hoping someone else can confirm this before too long so me and the 2 readers of this tripe aren't the only ones showing up there.)

Tuesday, just after 5pm: Over at the NCJ Blogthing, they're sayin' the gates open at 4:30 for a 6:30 event. Perhaps my girls will get to watch the boys play basketball and see Bill after all. It was gonna be a tough call for them, though boys in shorts were winning the debate last I checked.

Humboldt Democrats finally have an "official notice" up about the visit. They're sayin' gates open a 5:30, but I'm thinkin' there'll be a couple others in town wanting to witness the spectacle so we'll be there early I suppose.

Findin' a candidate

I'm three weeks shy of four and half decades now and been politically aware and occasionally active (at least in presidential election years) since my mom took a 9 year old me out leafletting for George McGovern in '72. Yet since my first presidential vote - Jimmy Carter in '80 on the day before my 18th birthday no less, I've never contributed actual money to a candidate. Sure, I've donated plenty of time to candidates...at the DC headquarters and New Hampshire for Gary Hart in '84, and in local phone booths, envelope stuffing, and voter turnout stuff for all the Dems from '88 through '04. But I've never handed over any pocket change until now.

That streak ended tonight when I sent along a small sum to the guy from New Mexico, Governor-Ambassador-Secretary-Congressma

n Bill Richardson. Unless the Nobel Peace Prize coaxes Al Gore into the race, Bill's my guy through the primaries.

(Note: What follows is a slightly revised screed posted in an earlier blog incarnation on another site.)

They say all politics is local. No where did I find this more true than when living more than a dozen years in New Mexico. In a state of not quite two million people - a third of them in Albuquerque - opportunities for meeting and even having a meaningful conversation with significant political folks were plentiful.

At the one politically connected hotel in our little town or at rallies by the red, white and blue rocket slide astride the Pecos River, I met both of our US senators (Bingaman and the dottering Domenici), two governors, and buffet tables full of state incumbents and candidates. And I actually had a brief conversation with then-congressman (though not from our district) Bill Richardson. In his standard rumpled sport coat, sans tie, he said talked briefly with me and my daughter...a cool moment for me, but absolutely lost on a three year old. Those were years when I felt that the common folk - like me - might actually have the opportunity to influence the political life of the nation.

Then I moved to California and I lost that personal touch with our national politics. Tucked away in a distant corner of a monstrously huge state, far from the seats of power and money, we are neglected here by anyone of national interest or importance. No one wants or needs to come by this corner of California, including our own US senators and our cartoon-character governor. It's easy to become cynical about the state of national politics when you're so far away from the conversation. And the local politics of fast food regulation, flouride paranoia and agricultural zoning, though essential for maintaining the loopy and free-form character of our neighborhood, seem petty when people are dying by the thousands in wars of choice led by liars and thieves.

So, I'm supporting Bill Richardson this time 'round. He's the only viable candidate with a brave stance on ending the war in Iraq. He has experience in bringing disparate people together, be they dictators and democrats (small d) or Republicans and Democrats (big D). He's got the resume in congress, the state house, the UN, and the cabinet to see the picture from so many sides.

And, because I once shook his hand. Because he came to my little town and took a few moments to talk to me one afternoon and ask me what I did for a living, and what I thought was the most important issue he should be thinking about. Because he asked my daughter's name and flashed a smile and a hello to her.

Yes, he's a politician, and we could rightly question the sincerity of it all. He didn't invite me to join his party of local fat cat fund raisers. He was then the big fish in the small pond that is a small state. He would not remember our conversation, nor would I harbor any fantasies that he would.

In many ways I'm supporting an ideal by supporting Richardson. For me, for now, he represents the ability of real live Americans to touch those who want to lead us. His wrinkled sports coat, casual demeanor, simple and plain conversation reveal the possibility that our leaders might want to come to our little towns and meet inconsequential people like you and me (and I mean that in the kindest way), and they'll ask how we're doing and what matters to us....and that they'll genuinely care about our answers.

Of course, campaign teams work hard to make us believe their cleverly crafted photo ops are really the candidates reaching out to the little guys. They want you to think that Hillary Clinton really is on a listening tour. they think we'll fall for the joke that Bush is pondering a new way forward in Iraq, that Giuliani has courage, that Thompson is awake, or John Edwards would just as soon work in the mill as be our next president.

I know it's all a bunch of ad company driven hooey colorized by nameless news anchors from empty suited media corporations who have bankrupted their news departments, pantsed their journalists, and are driven by money, not a journalistic fervor for truth, justice and the American way.

But for a brief moment nine or ten years ago, someone who mattered in the higher echelon of national politics, seemed to think my daughter and I mattered to him. That's the ethos of politics we must have again. We need the casually dressed, rumple suited real guy who knows how to work with normal people, not just how to work a room of corporate donors. That's the sort of representative democracy I think this country was founded upon. And I'm bettin' a few bucks that Bill Richardson is the guy who can bring us closest to that silly little dream of mine.