Catching up on the last couple weeks (blog was down)… We launched on our next tour, heading south in our 1978 motorhome. A couple spark plug wires shook loose around Cincinnati and we were cresting hills on I-75 at 40 mph, with everyone leaning forward… Then the tail lights went on the fritz, but the folks at Sechrest Automotive in Williamstown, KY, took care of that. I gave “Brad” there a campaign card. He said he’d get it blown up and make a yard sign out of it… That afternoon, we stopped at a YMCA just outside of Lexington, Kentucky. The local ABC News affiliate was doing some filming at an anti-smoking display they had set up here this day. I told the reporter I was running for president and had some views on smoking. He said great, and did an interview. (And we continute to do this all without an advance staff.) Among a number of things, I said I was onboard with the new Surgeon General allowance for graphic pictures (black lungs, people with emphysima…) that will be included on the sides of cigarette packs this year. Only 20% of people now smoke in this country because, in part, because of agressive advertising against it. Smoking leads to so many attendant health problems in this country, including a form of slow suicide. That is everytime someone lights up, it’s like putting a little tiny gun with a little tiny bullet in one’s mouth. Note: Our healthcare platform is heavy on prevention.
Consistent Life Ethic talk; Haysville, Ohio; Pennsylvania Turnpike stumping…
Catching up… This last week I gave a talk at the Consistent Life Ethic 25th Anniversary Conference just outside of D.C. I said that I saw abortion, global warming, world hunger, one billion people living in slums without clean water or adequate housing… all as “pro-life issues.” This was preaching to the choir here… I also did some campaigning on the way out to D.C. While Romney and Santorum were battling it out for all of Mississippi and Alabama, I focused on Haysville, Ohio (pop. 1,000). While in Haysville, I stumped with a guy named Rich on the street about the economy, then passed out some campaign cards at the local barbershop with an actual operating candy cane poll, the whole thing, and then put up a “Joe flyer” at the Route 30 Inn. Since my sidekick, Matt, and I were already in the Inn [notice the play on words], we decided on a couple fish sandwhich platters. Instead of $1,000 a plate, they were $3.95 a plate, and that included fries! Incidentally, a trivia note about the restaurant: The seats at the counter are metal milk pails with John Deere tractor seats affixed to the top of them. They were actually quite comfortable, and definitely distinctive. (I’m obviously trying for the rural vote here.)… After staying at a small motel in Lisbon, Ohio, later that evening — 35 bucks a night and a view of a motel sign that was missing a few bulbs — we headed further east onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We stopped at a plaza at one point, and I passed out campaign cards to people coming out. The great thing about Turnpike plazas is there are people from all over. Who needs those millions of Super PAC dollars in TV advertising money, huh?
Bluffton press, Joe the painter/plumber, pampered pets, Tawa Indians… and sin
Busy week… A story about the campaign ran in the Bluffton News (circ. 2,000) yesterday. Well if you don’t carry Bluffton, you’re not going to carry the country. The story noted that I was being billed as “average Joe the painter” who lives on, of all streets, Main Street (literally). “It doesn’t get much more populist than that,” was my quote. Oh, and “Joe the Plumber” just won his Republican Primary bid yesterday — so there’s hope for us populist kinda guys… With the Super Tuesday Primary dust settling yesterday, I went to Ottawa, Ohio, to campaign. While passing out campaign cards downtown there, a woman approached and asked if I was on the same page as Ron Paul. I said I was when it came to simplifying government and getting back to the basics of the Constitution. I mean, common sense says the federal government has gotten way too complex. For instance, the recent Financial Reform Bill of 2010 was: 907 pages long. The whole Social Security Act of 1935 was: 28 pages long. C’mmon… Another thing that’s getting out of hand? Pets in America. While in Ottawa, I saw a “Pampered Pets” van go by. This week the AP carried a story explaining in 2011 we passed the $50 billion (that’s b, as in baboon) mark for: pet care. I’m sorry, but a good deal of countries in the world don’t have a GDP that high for a year… Note: Downtown Ottawa also has a “Lord’s Park.” There is a stone cross in the middle that says this is “…dedicated to Jesus who died for our sins.” Near the front of the park is a historic marker that explains that at one time the Tawa Indians inhabited the land here. In 1833 they were forceably removed to a Reservation in Kansas and the land was auctioned off to white settlers. The village was then called: “Ottawa.” I couldn’t help but think this was one of those ‘sins’ Jesus died for — but the marker doesn’t exactly say that. Maybe it should.
Brazil
We met with Becky and Ben Gambrell this week. For three years they were missionaries in Brazil, currently one of the poorest countries in the world. The Gambrells said in Brazil there was little in the way of medicine and little in the way of material goods, and so on. Ben said he found the transition hard coming back to the States because he’d hear people here complaining about what he now perceived as tremendously small things — in comparison to the plight of the people in Brazil. For instance, I’d just read that some 2,000 orphaned children in the slums of Brazil are tortured and killed every year (by police) because they’re begging for food, for instance, is a nuisance. Meanwhile many American kids are living with touch I-Phones, X-Boxes, three full meals a day and snacks… and regularly wanting more to boot. We would all do well to take some “cross-cultural” trips to impoverished countries, to not only put life in America in perspective, but to make these other peoples’ plights a lot more real — so we’d feel compelled to help more. Our foreign aid is currently 4%, and a lot of it goes to countries to help protect our interests (read: things like oil). Some 57% of our budget goes to our military — which is more than: the next 17 countries combined. You read that right.
bulletin board etiquette; Dixie Highway campaigning; brain trust; deductive logic…
Catching up on the last few days… Spent the end of last week going around Bluffton making sure our campaign fliers were still posted on various bulletin boards, in store windows, and the like. I’ve found you can’t just post them once and forget about ’em. Not everyone, for instance, adheres to “bulletin board etiquette.” They’ll put up fliers over yours, or move your flier to a less visible area, or… I mean, someone covered up half of one of our fliers with a flier about a “Gluten Free Seminar.” Of course this was on the local Health Food Store bulletin board, so natural food flier competition is going to be stiff… And I haven’t just kept my fliers in Bluffton. Over the weekend, I took a trip down the Dixie Highway, Route 25. This was the first roadway that stretched all the way from Detroit in the north to Florida. (Highway 75 now runs parallel to it.) At the “Dixie Diner” on the outskirts of Lima, Ohio, I had a cup of coffee and put up a flier on their bulletin board. I did the same at the “Meeting Place on Market Cafe” in Lima (getting a “homemade” brownie there). I’ve come to find “bulletin board etiquette” also entails buying something at the establishment where they’re going to allow you (hopefully) to put the flier up. This could get to be an expensive campaign for us, Super PAC money notwithstanding (or even on the horizon). After posting the fliers, I went to a nearby McDonald’s where I approached a table of men who looked like “regulars.” I opened with: “It looks like you guys are the brain trust in the town…” They all smiled. I then passed out some campaign cards and we talked politics for a time. It was noted that Rick Santorum had sponsored a car in the “Daytona 500 Race” this weekend. I decided not to tell them I was sponsoring (and even riding) a “bicycle in Bluffton” this weekend. I sensed they were conservative Republicans, so I thought I’d steer clear of global warming talk, and such. Typical politician. Note: I sat in on a graduate history class at Notre Dame University a couple years back. They were discussing when Saddam Hussein “gassed” the Kurds, and how we responded with a military strike. During the class, I noted that our country releases the most carbon emissions on the planet. If global warming is real, and it is setting in motion super-charged hurricanes, super-charged-typhoons, more drought and famine in arid countries… aren’t we, well, “gassing” the world? And if we follow this “deductive logic” (I used that terminology to impress the graduate students) through, wouldn’t that mean there should be a military strike against: us? It got kind of quiet in the class for a minute.
Student Senate Debate, op/ed piece, never giving up…
The heck with the Republican Debate this week, I went to the Bluffton University Student Senate President Debate instead. The two candidates squared off on, of all things: jobs. Just can’t seem to get away from that subject this year. There’s a policy here that students can only take one on-campus job a year. But both candidates “pledged” to lobby to broaden that. I, on the other hand, would have lobbied to split each job between two students, seriously (sort of). Actually, I had an op/ed piece run in The Courier newspaper in Findlay, Ohio, yesterday promoting: “job sharing” as a way to help the five million who are currently unemployed in this country. The concept is simple. Someone works from 8 a.m. Monday until noon Wednesday, then the other person comes in the rest of the week. Or, you could split the days in half, or work every other week, or… During our campaign travels out west, we learned the Monterey School System in California allows teachers to alternate half years, or even years. Some people who are currently employed are financially capable of doing this, tomorrow. Others might have to be a little life-style savvy and cut back in various areas. Either way, for some (like 5 million) this would definitely be doable. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “It’s not what your country can do for you, but it’s what you can do for your country (including your neighbor up the street whose out of work).” Note: Our Sarah’s homeschooling basketball team, the Eagles, soared (sorry) to victory in an eight-team tournament over the weekend. The Eagles beat their “arch-enemies” (their words) the Cougars. A team they’d lost to every time in the past two years, since the rivalry began. It was a real story in “…never giving up.” Something we’ve known well in the campaign.
Indiana basketball, #0s, JoJo(e)’s, wind farm…
Our family drove across the border into Ft. Wayne, Indiana, last night for our kids’ homeschooling basketball games. It was at a recreation center that featured everything: “Indiana basketball.” There were pictures of Larry Byrd, Bobby Knight throwing that famous chair onto the court… (Actually, there’s been a few times when I’ve felt that way during the campaign.) Cutest moment: Our Jonathan, who is eight-years-old in a league that’s for 10-to-12-year-olds, is usually the shortest kid on the court. His number is: “O.” This night he was matched up with an opponent who was actually as short as Jonathan His number was also: “O.” As they lined up for the opening tip-off, you could just kind of hear all the parents going: “Awww…” Just before going to the Rec Center, we stopped at JoJo’s Travel Center in Ft. Wayne for some coffee. While there, I put up a campaign flier. I thought: ‘Vote for Joe… JoJo’s… yet another consonance marketing coup.’ Note: While driving to Indiana on Rte. 30, some 300 wind turbines come into sight in rural Van Wert, Ohio. These just recently went up, and make up the biggest “wind farm” in Ohio. On a campaign tour out west several years ago, I told the Tehachipi News in California (that town is rimmed with wind turbines as well) that our administration would push renewable energy to the max in the face alarming levels of global warming now. [Because, well, you want all those “# Os” out there to have a world left to grow up in. I mean, what sane parent wouldn’t want that?]
a button, carrying Bluffton, contraception controversy
I have spent the week campaigning around our hometown, Bluffton, Ohio (pop. 3,875). Well the way we have it figured, if we don’t carry Bluffton, we aren’t going to carry the country. (To reiterate, we’re doing this all without paid political consultants.)… Last night I wore my campaign button to a “Community Meal” at the Senior Center. During some discussion at our table, the current “contraception controversy” came up. There was concern about the complexity of the issue. I said it seemed pretty simple to me. As an “accommodation” to religious institutions, the Obama administration has shifted the burden of providing free contraception to the insurance companies. Since this will cost more for the insurance companies, they will pass on those costs to (Guess who?) the employer who is paying for the policies. That would, by the way, mean (among other employers) CATHOLIC HOSPITALS, CATHOLIC COLLEGES… Although religious views on contraception vary from denomination to denomination, Mike Huckabee said: “…this week we are all Catholic.” Note: A more basic issue: Should the government be able to do an end run around an established “Conscience Clause?” Common sense says it wouldn’t seem so in a democracy, would it? Columnist Cal Thomas wrote that this would be akin to forcing a “conscientious objector” to engage in combat, even though there’s a Conscience Clause to exempt them. It’s the same principle.
fliers, the Congo
The last few days I’ve been going about Bluffton, Ohio (pop. 3,875), putting our new flier up on various bulletin boards (coffee shop, laundromat…). And we’re asking our supporters to do the same in their towns, counties, etc. Amidst the swirl of Super PAC million dollar ads, and major Party candidate million dollar ads, well, we thought we’d come up with a different approach. Call me a minimalist… Besides, we think all that money could be better spent on, oh I don’t know, maybe the people of The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Seriously. In doing some foreign affairs research on that country this week, I learned the grinding poverty and overcrowding there — among 19 million people in eastern Congo — is leading to starvation, disease, extreme violence… The crisis here has largely alluded world attention, in part, because people in America, for instance, are so fixated on all the over-hype around: a presidential campaign. Just think how far, say, that Super PAC money would go in feeding the Congo’s hungry, bringing medicine to the sick, and helping quell the violence… Note: During a talk to a student group at Mississippi State University, I said our administration would focus on bringing a lot more help to the world at large.
fracking…
I was going over some Earth Science homework with my daughter Sarah yesterday. The subject this assignment was about the natural formations of rocks, which have all kinds of intricate dynamics and take extremely long periods of time. As coincidence would have it, last night I picked up an Ohio State University Alumni Magazine that had an article about “fracking.” This is a relatively new process of pumping chemical-laced water into the ground under high pressure to break up rock and release fossile fuels (oil and natural gas). For eastern Ohio, where exploratory drilling has begun, this could mean hundreds of millions of dollars and up to 200,000 jobs in related industries. Oh yeah, and it was also noted there is serious concern groundwater, surface water and wildlife habitats could be significantly damaged in the area. So, how often have we let this sort of “gold rush” mentality in this country trump things that, sustainably, are way more important? And when are we going to learn?