Saipan\u2019s fortunes are largely tied to policy in Washington, D.C., so the Commonwealth business community is wondering if relations with Washington are going to be singing the same song, or if a new administration might change the music. It\u2019s worth glancing at this topic once, maybe twice, but I sure don\u2019t intend to dwell on it. But it is a topic of discussion these days, so we\u2019re forced to heed it even if we don\u2019t want to. Next week we\u2019ve got to drag a hairy eyeball over the Commonwealth\u2019s energy woes.<\/p>\n
But this week, yuck, politics. <\/p>\n
My pals pay closer attention to the political side of things than I do, but there is certainly a consensus that, barring some weird or surprising developments, President Bush appears to have an edge. President Bush\u2019s message is loud and clear. Sen. Kerry\u2019s, by contrast, seems murkier. What\u2019s more, Kerry has been defined (fairly or otherwise) by his political opponents via the Vietnam stuff, and those who lecture me about such things say that Sen. Kerry appears to be on the defensive and has not yet demonstrated that he can turn that around. On this note: Advantage, Bush.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I think the news media are soundly in Bush\u2019s corner. This may not make a big difference to committed voters, but it\u2019s said that about 6 percent of the electorate is up for grabs, and this thin sliver is going to swing the balance one way or the other. You may note that three major magazines\u2014Time, Newsweek, and the U.S. News\u2014are simultaneously, or nearly so, featuring flattering images of the president on their covers. Image is everything, baby. So, once again: Advantage, Bush.<\/p>\n
What would an election be without meaningless polls? There\u2019s always an epidemic of those. I have yet to see one, not one, that appears to be statistically sound and that points to an advantage for Sen. Kerry. I\u2019m always amused when some wonks go out and poll \u201cregistered voters.\u201d What does that have to do with anything? <\/p>\n
No, the real issue is \u201clikely\u201d voters. The fun comes in when you reflect that lazy people who want to vote themselves more welfare are often too lazy to actually go and vote…at least until they invent a welfare check with an absentee ballot printed on the back. Hey, pretty cool idea, now that I think of it…so vote for me, I\u2019ll give everyone more welfare, free education, free health care, free medicine, free food, free job training, free unemployment money, free retirement money, subsidized rent, subsidized mortgages, free child care…oh, wait, that\u2019s now status quo. OK, back to my Free Beer platform then; could we put a ballot in every sixer of beer? Maybe a tag line… \u201cThere\u2019s a little bit of Ed in every bottle.\u201d I can\u2019t lose with that, eh?<\/p>\n
Mind you, I am not predicting the outcome of the U.S. election, since that is simply not in my realm of professional expertise. I\u2019m just saying that the current factors seem to favor President Bush, and people competent to judge such things have given me the thumbs up on that insight. <\/p>\n
On one hand, these factors will inevitably change. On the other hand, what is past is prologue. <\/p>\n
On the other, other hand, you might as well enjoy happy hour today, since looking at Saipan\u2019s energy situation next week is not going to be a happy event. So, enjoy that Friday evening brewski. And think of me, dear constituent…and Free Beer for the masses. Power to the people, baby. Power to the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan\u2019s fortunes are largely tied to policy in Washington, D.C., so the Commonwealth business community is wondering if relations with Washington are going to be singing the same song, or if a new administration might change the music. It\u2019s worth glancing at this topic once, maybe twice, but I sure don\u2019t intend to dwell on it. But it is a topic of discussion these days, so we\u2019re forced to heed it even if we don\u2019t want <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}