(Pat Caddell outlines the shape of a rigged game. Photo AIM.)

I already voted. Why wait?

I tried to stay away from it, but the weight of the evidence this morning is that something is very, very wrong. It is almost overwhelming.

I am NOT a Republican- I am way “left” of them on every conceivable social issue, though I don’t consider that to be a matter of ideology as much as adherence to the perfectly serviceable Constitution that served us pretty well over the last couple centuries.

Wait, there is more. I find the rise of the National Security State that began on the Bush watch to be extremely troubling, and now, taken to an entirely new level on virtually every front- including the social level that is no business of Government.

I don’t know why I feel obligated to say that I am not a member of what Mr. Pat Caddell, former Jimmy Carter advisor calls “the Stupid Party,” except for the steady drumbeat of managed facts from the organs of the other one- what Pat calls “the Corrupt Party.”

We already know what will come with the debates, and can already write the headlines, if the media hasn’t already filed their copy prior to the actual debate tomorrow.

The encounter in Denver will feature that cerebral man who occupies the White House and his strange diction- the one where his  “g” sounds disappear, depending on which audience to which he is pandering.

It is staggering when you look at what is laying around waiting to be reported. Did you know that a million free cell phones have been distributed to the residents of “battleground” Ohio?

They call them Obamaphones. Before anyone screams at me that the idea that welfare should include telecommunications was actually a bi-partisan program originated in the Reagan Administration, I would note that no one before has ever given free communications to one-out-of-four of the 4.5 million households in the must-have Buckeye electoral votes.

I have issues with my kids still being on my “Friends and Families” phone plan. I can’t imagine why we are subsidizing a quarter of the homes in Ohio.

Or the patent nonsense from the Labor Department yesterday, calmly directing that lay-off notices should not be sent (as law requires) by the Defense Contracting Community to those who are soon going to be out of work due to the looming Sequestration disaster.

Forgive me if I take it personally. Defense companies had said with massive budget cuts slated to take effect Jan. 2, they are obligated to send out notices notifying employees of potential layoffs 60 days in advance, under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or the WARN Act.
Instead of notifying people- I can’t use the word “folks” with a straight face anymore- that they are facing job termination, Government will make everything all right if the law is ignored and nothing troubling shows up in the mailbox before election day.

This is breathtaking. Oh, hell, it is not. It is business as usual.

Pat Caddell presented a matter-of-fact discussion of the media’s butcher’s thumb on the scale of public debate the other day at the Accuracy in Media conference here in DC. He had some revelations regarding the content of the drumbeat of positive news for the Administration. Sorry, it set me off.

Mr. Obama jetting to Las Vegas when terrorists are murdering American diplomats? Bush Katrina moment, but ignored.

Senior White House advisor David Plouffe and his hundred grand honorarium from a terrorist front organization for two speeches. Check it out. He should be dismissed and prosecuted.

Serious negotiations with the Egyptians about the release of the Blind Sheikh who masterminded the first bombing of the World Trade Center. It is more appalling- more visceral- than the debate over that worm Jonathan Pollard. Outrageous.
Secret Service protection for senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett? WTF? This is the equivalent of Karl Rove getting a security detail from Mr. Bush. The press would have been all over it.

Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor and leaker-in-chief. I have said right along that the worthless flack was a PAO officer, not a freaking national security expert. Everyone, including the Attorney General and the New York Times, knows who the leakers are. Maybe we will find out officially sometime when it no longer matters.

Shoot, that is just this morning.

I am betting the media outlets are all over whatever is said by Mitt tomorrow, and Mr. Obama will get another pass.

As I have tried (and largely failed) to articulate, I do not have a candidate in this race, only the choice between lesser or greater disappointments. I think Mr. Romney is a decent fellow. He is a bit tone deaf at times, but likable enough when not the target of an orchestrated smear campaign, just as his father was.

I remember the “brainwashing” thing that sunk George’s run for the White House in 1968. His comment was a perfectly accurate assessment of General Westmoreland’s Vietnam Wonderland tour for visiting VIPs.

George Romney was right. I think his son is a competent man, and we might want to try that for a while and see what happens.

Nor am I spooked by the strange religion of which the Romneys are members. The virtues of the LDS church marginally outweigh the demonstrably bizarre mythos that underlies it.

Wait- if I say something about religion does that mean a mob of outraged Mormons will come over to Big Pink and set the place alight and murder me? Never mind, I forgot. There is only one group of people who get that privilege. We can bash the LDS folks with impunity. Freedom of speech and all that.

I do know this: a good LDS family would never come over to your house, rummage around in your refrigerator and pronounce upon what you may- or may not- eat.

They would, instead, ask if you had enough dry foodstuffs to get through a tough year. Then, they would offer to help you out if you did not.

Here is what some kids in Kansas think of the new food regulations, passed in the lame duck session of the Congress in 2010, with Madam Speaker Pelosi still in charge of the House:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IB7NDUSBOo

“Let them not eat cake!” and “Off with their fat!” This is madness.

(President Obama signs the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act that seems to have irritated the kids, who are hungry. Photo C-SPAN.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Oh, the Pat Caddell video and transcript is available at:
http://hillbuzz.org/pat-caddell-the-media-has-become-a-threat-to-democracy-48228