99

So I'm subscribed to 99 blogs.
Who wants to be #100?

Song in the head

Some of you probably know that I often have a soundtrack to my dreams. I wake up a lot of times with a song in my head. But yesterday's was weird: I'm Henry the 8th, I am.
I really wonder what I was dreaming about.

the GOP regrouping at homebase

I can't believe that I'm about to write this entry.

The GOP needs to regroup and needs to do it fast. Among the leadership of the party down many, many republicans that I've talked to, there seems to be a lack of continuity of idea. The party needs to gather around strong leaders that represent the best of the GOP, leaders who have a vision of the future.
Man alive, am I going to write this? The GOP needs to rally around Mitt Romney (and people just like him). The reason why is that his basic political beliefs are exactly the core ideals of what the GOP has had as its backbone for the last I don't know how many decades.

The political stances of the bulk of the members of American political parties tend to clump together in a moderate middle. By that I mean a moderate position within the party's ideology. The bell curve below shows the Republican party circa 1998. The party was fairly united on many core Republican issues. Because of this unity, the ideology of the Republican party looked a lot like a good bell curve:
There are obviously some going to be some people who are more the right or the middle of the party. But the majority will be found in the middle.

People in the W. Bush administration (note, not necessarily the President) pushed a political stance that was much farther to the Right than the so-called "base" of the party.
i.e.
It was a very sly movement on their part, and not totally perceptible, but it happened.
Because of this movement, it made the Democratic party look farther Left than it really was:
The Dems actually were much more of a standard deviation bell curve this whole time. If anything they were leaning toward the middle because it gave them more political clout and helped them to keep their Congressional seats. But it looked skewed because of the Administration's movement.


But what happened to the Republicans? Well, eventually this movement to the Right became obvious and very unsettling to many member of the GOP. In an effort to reestablish the middle ground, people started to look for political positions and ideas to help fix the problems in America. Because there was no longer a firm foundation in the middle, the GOP started to look like this:
There were calls for this and that from all over the spectrum of political opinion. Do you remember hearing anything during the GOP primaries/caucuses and national campaign that carried a solid theme that had actual planning and information behind it? Rarely was there a constant ideology. Senator McCain was trying to rally a disparate Republican party that had no unity in their ideas. This unfortunately made his campaign struggle in their message to the American people as a whole because they didn't know how to calm down the party.

So what's to be done? The GOP needs to examine the basic difficulties in America today, then look at its core ideology and come up with unified front of ideas. These plans must be worked on and then explained to every senator and congressman, who must then clearly explain the ideas to their constituents.

We'll see if this happens. The GOP needs a plan for America, yes. But first they must rein in all of the outlying ideas and move the party back to its center. We'll see if the RNC can do this. We'll know by February.

44

That number has always been a cool one in our family, anyway.
But I especially like it tonight.

Thanks for everyone who GChatted me congrats, left a comment or texted me. It's as if I won myself. It made me smile.
Laurel and I broke out the fake Mormon Champagne and had a jolly good time.

When I saw McCain's speech, I ached for him though. I really wish that he had gotten the GOP nomination in '00. He would've won easily, I think, that year. I would've voted for him then, too, I'm guessing. Oh, how these last 8 years would've been different.

But my craziness of the day? Yes, I wrote in my mom's name under County Commission - Seat C
I usually don't vote for someone who's running uncontested, but this time I pulled a trick.

But I'm pretty overwhelmingly excited as all get out. Yep, stoked.
Whoop!
It's a new thing for me, voting for a winner.

Another possibility ------------->

For those of you who aren't hyped about voting for different candidates or sundry issues, you can vote for your favorite muppet in the poll I created for a friend in a similar predicament.

**Sorry that I forgot Miss Piggy. Totally spaced that one.

My Blues and Reds

First things first: I wanna have a big party tomorrow, all blued and redded up. What should I do?
Also, I'm going early tomorrow morning to vote. I haven't voted yet because I get all cheesy romantic about voting on Tuesday and wearing around my sticker. I really should just get over it.

This is my guess for tomorrow (maybe Wednesday?)

States that I think will go Blue for Obama
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Maine (1 electoral could go Red)
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Vermont
Virgina
Washington (state)
Washington D.C.
Wisconsin
The total for Blue? 338

States that I think will go Red for McCain
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska (1 electoral could go Blue)
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
West Virginia
Wyoming
The total for Red? 200

My crazy prediction? Utah could be at only 59% for McCain! This percentage would be seismic.

Anyway, here's the map:

States that I'm not really sure about: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio

This is why I like him so much: College football playoffs


As soon as I find Senator McCain's, I'll upload it. It was pretty funny.
Found it:

the founding brethren

I almost always accidentally refer to the Founding Fathers and "The Brethren." I've done it before. It's very embarrassing.

Anyway, I can't remember who I promised the comparison of basic political platforms to. So if I promised it to you, will you let me know. I should really write these things down. And if I haven't promised it to you, and you want it, let me know.

Anyone else annoyed about Falling Back? I'm a big fan of making Daylight Savings the standard. Time to start counting down to the 2nd Sunday in March. I love sunsets occurring after 9pm.
You know, I was really happy when the dates were changed to extend Daylight Savings during the year. But I really miss President Monson's reminders during April Conference.

BYU and Colorado State played a game today that was more reminiscent of the crazy scores from the Wacky WAC. Seriously, where'd the Cougars defense go? 45-42?

I don't know how much this will help the Senator's presidential campaign, but it's pretty darn funny:


And one more: