My Travels in the Heartland
Sorry blogging was light, but I just got back from a long weekend in blessed, deepest red state America where Mrs. Baseball has taken the Baseball tykes to the grandma/pa homestead. A couple of observations...
First, this part of the country right now is a roofer's paradise. This hail storm f**ked up everybody's roof (and I mean everybody...cars too, you can tell who doesn't have insurance and/or just doesn't give a damn by all the windowless cars driving around). I sat next to a roofer from Florida on the way down and met another roofer from Texas in the airport. Roofers have come from all over to meet the demand. Another small testament to the flexibility and responsiveness of the American private free market system. People are not having to wait to get their roofs repaired and there have been no reports of widespread price gouging because prices have remained low. It all reminded me of Katrina and who actually was able to get much-needed supplies into New Orleans days before any government - state or federal - could.
I watched a little of the boob tube and thus saw almost all the major candidates' TV ads. Now, maybe a Democrat from down there is to the right of even a Republican from up here, but I could not tell who were the Democrats at first. Not one of the candidates identified themselves as a Democrat and every one of them was pushing "local values" and the amorphous ability to "fight" (for you, for the elderly, yadayada, although, very curiously, not for the poor). One Democrat was even standing under one of those awesome six-story American flags that you see quite a bit down there talking about how much he just loves the military (granted, that's smart politicking down there, but this guy was overdoing it). Conversely, it was easy to tell who was running on the Republican side and it was amusing to see candidates out-promise each other on opening up a can of whoop-ass on Nancy Pelosi when they get to Washington DC or out-duel each other to "keep Obamanomics out of the statehouse." For a state that some pundits consider "purple", you wouldn't think there was a single person in the entire state for whom the standard Democratic Party plank was appealling, judging by the commercials. Obama and the Pelosicrats are deeply unpopular in them there parts.
First, this part of the country right now is a roofer's paradise. This hail storm f**ked up everybody's roof (and I mean everybody...cars too, you can tell who doesn't have insurance and/or just doesn't give a damn by all the windowless cars driving around). I sat next to a roofer from Florida on the way down and met another roofer from Texas in the airport. Roofers have come from all over to meet the demand. Another small testament to the flexibility and responsiveness of the American private free market system. People are not having to wait to get their roofs repaired and there have been no reports of widespread price gouging because prices have remained low. It all reminded me of Katrina and who actually was able to get much-needed supplies into New Orleans days before any government - state or federal - could.
I watched a little of the boob tube and thus saw almost all the major candidates' TV ads. Now, maybe a Democrat from down there is to the right of even a Republican from up here, but I could not tell who were the Democrats at first. Not one of the candidates identified themselves as a Democrat and every one of them was pushing "local values" and the amorphous ability to "fight" (for you, for the elderly, yadayada, although, very curiously, not for the poor). One Democrat was even standing under one of those awesome six-story American flags that you see quite a bit down there talking about how much he just loves the military (granted, that's smart politicking down there, but this guy was overdoing it). Conversely, it was easy to tell who was running on the Republican side and it was amusing to see candidates out-promise each other on opening up a can of whoop-ass on Nancy Pelosi when they get to Washington DC or out-duel each other to "keep Obamanomics out of the statehouse." For a state that some pundits consider "purple", you wouldn't think there was a single person in the entire state for whom the standard Democratic Party plank was appealling, judging by the commercials. Obama and the Pelosicrats are deeply unpopular in them there parts.
posted by Donny Baseball at 4:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home