The other day I was driving over to the Post Office and noticed a bumper sticker:

“I wish we still had President Reagan”.

I’ve got my own bumper sticker:
“How come it took you 5 years to figure that out?”.

A while back I asked an acquaintance, a retired military Republican why he had backed Bush over John McCain. I said, “On the one hand, you’ve got McCain, a war hero, a guy put his life on the line many times, has decades of experience in government and he seems honest and true to his convictions. On the other, you’ve got a guy who was basically a draft dodger, an alcoholic and a religious nut, who held a post as governor which in Texas was pretty much ceremonial, and he doesn’t seem all that forthcoming.”

“McCain isn’t a real Republican”, replied my acquaintance.

I wanted to get into what he thought a real Republican was, not to argue, but for my own curiosity, but I let it go. I’m not so much of a McCain guy any more, because I felt that as a conservative with convictions, he should have supported Kerry in the last election. I know, it’s politics, but I was still disappointed. From what I can tell, John McCain idolized Barry Goldwater, and based on his record, I’d call him a Goldwater Republican. Barry Goldwater, “Mr. Conservative”. Well, based on my military friend’s criteria, my own parents wouldn’t be considered “true Republicans” today either. Sometimes they voted for Democrats.

I don’t know. I’m pretty sure an old friend of mine is living in Cuba now. When I last spoke to him he still lived in Ithaca, my old home town, and about as Blue as a place can get. I’ve known him to have few political convictions and I doubt that he ever votes. He told me he was moving to Cuba before the 2004 elections because, “it might be the one place the US hasn’t fucked up yet”. I thought about it, and ended up thinking he was probably right. I doubt that it’s a “workers’ paradise”, but it definitely hasn’t been fucked up by the US since the early sixties. Go through the list, Canada, Mexico, Italy, France, Nova Scotia….find one that hasn’t been fucked up by the US. It’s hard.

Tucker said, “here at Cornell, everybody thinks Kerry is a shoe-in. But I’ve been out there in the rest of the country, and I know different. I’m getting the hell out while it’s still possible.”

Hmmmmm….the last time I checked, his phone was out and emails were bouncing back. Hell, a couple of years from now (or sooner) you could have all US troops out of Iraq, a Shiite puppet regime in control with Iran pulling the strings, Iran with nukes in charge of all that oil and thousands of well-financed terrorists just itching to set bombs off in American shopping malls. A guy wanting safety could do worse than Cuba, a place nobody gives a shit about surrounded by ocean.

Which gives me an idea for a bumper sticker that might make sense around about that time:

“I wish we still had Saddam Hussein”