one week to go!!!

I shall refrain, unlike other widely read media sources, to actually give endorsements to any candidates running in next week's elections. I would, however, like to relate some observations from the past week.....now that we are down to the wire.

Our congressional district: Pucket vs. Donnelly. Pucket being the new kid on the block, vying for a congressional seat against the incumbent, Donnelly. One of the saddest things I think I've seen to date, on Pucket's yard signs is this statement "DRILL HERE. DRILL NOW. PAY LESS". How incredibly unfortunate that someone would base their campaign strategy on our gluttonous, short-sighted demands on our natural resources. I also think he underestimated the economy's impact on gas prices. It hardly is a factor now, is it? Simple factors of supply and demand......the GOP should be the last to insist we tamper with the free market by supplying more oil to our lifestyle addiction.

Our state senate district: Charbonneau, the incumbent, vs. Balmer. While I wasn't certain who I would vote for in this race, Charbonneau had acted with class, kept his campaign clean....until the last week. We've received to mailers, the first was humorous in that Charbonneau wanted to make me believe that somehow, in his state senate roll, he could/would have prevented the federal $700 billion bail-out......unlike the "other guys"........saying that "Hoosiers were right to have been against this". Well, it didn't stop there. Over the weekend Charbonneau continued his now misleading campaign style by actually making the statement that his opponent, "Balmer was quiet when it came time to have a property tax relief plan". My gosh, are people this stupid? Hello, Charbonneau...Balmer isn't my state senate representative-YOU ARE. And his misleading ad continued on the back with random questions that would make idiots think that Balmer was somehow asleep at the wheel as Indiana's economy was in shambles. Balmer isn't elected to anything. Well, Charbonneau certainly lost my vote now. My only guess is that he went negative because (1) he's well financed (2) with a week to go, it's hard to respond and (3) his tele-data may be telling him he's in trouble and (4) WE ARE IDIOTS!

The presidential race: While in southern Indiana we heard an awful lot of misleading, incendiary NRA supported anti-Obama ads being run......the most disturbing one was when a good ol' boy made this strong, guttural statement........"WE LOVE OUR GOD AND WE LOVE OUR GUNS". Oh geesh, what Bible has this guy been reading out of? The Koran? (that's right, I said it). My wife was at a party during which a friend of ours commented how pleased she was with her six year old son saying "Obama is a baby killer". And I'm afraid to say, they go to our church. Why would you teach your six year old to hate? Where is that in the Bible?

Something is desperately wrong in our society.........in our churches, in our government, in our business world.......in our homes. We have so degenerated our integrity to the point where we believe it is ok to make money at anyone's expense, it is ok for politicians to make completely false and misleading ads "because all is fair...." (ie. Mitch & river city mayor), and it is ok to instill hate in our children so long as we marry this hate to our faith. I didn't mean for this to become a sermon, just a political update.....but SOMEONE needs to start preaching this.