Well its going to be hard for Obama...

But at least McCain is working as hard as he can to make it easier....




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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

candidate McCain vs. Senator McCain

The best speech Kerry has ever given.



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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

This week... each one of you has a homework assignment...

I jokingly tell people I've quit as Chairman and as someone trying to be active in the Democratic Party about 20 times this year...

I'm sacrificing a lot... and in many ways and for many reasons I see it as futile. So many Democrats don't walk the walk and put their money and time where their mouth is.

Everybody has a job, everybody it tight on money, everybody wants to watch American Idol (okay... no I don't... I've never seen the thing.)

The National Party and State Party are in my opinion in a wreck and aren't doing the things they need to do to fix their sturctural problems.

Am I just sustaining something that will never do anything but people me into a life where I don't get to do what I do best which is thinking, reading, and writing...

I'd love to go back to throwing house parties on human rights issues that nobody goes to...

I'm tired of always watching my message... (yes people we need to raise taxes to the levels of other industrialized nations if not more...)

I came across something this morning..

John 21:18

I tell you the solemn truth, when you were young, you tied your clothes around you and went wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will tie you up and bring you where you do not want to go.”

I feel pretty tied up...

I don't get to spend the time with my fiance and friends that I want... I watch my GPA get get... I long to sit and just read... hell I crashed out about 7 pm and was just out... Deana had to clean up dinner and dragged me up to bed--I as always when woken up out of deep sleep just babble incomprehensably and stumble around...


I need to learn to laugh at the sacrfice...

"you don't know where I've been lou... you don't know where I've been" Tyler




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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

What i'm doing between now and Nov. 5th

If you need to find me between now and the election--I'll more than likely be here:
Jerry Brillant for State Senate district 16.

I am campaign manager and will probably not have as much time as I currently do--do I really have it now?--to blog on this site.

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

the last post...

My last post is going to need a few rewrites...

It doesn't read as well as it should. One thing that really didn't come out clear was that even where McCain/Obama are the same side of wrong I defer to my experience with Republican policymakers as opposed to Democrats. You empower one side or the other. On every single issue especially the ones that are huge to me...

health care
mental health
education
treatment of our soldiers
foreign policy

from Congress to sheriff I agree more with Democrats... Democrats will have coherent conversations with me on issues I care about while my Congressman Lynn Westmoreland is on many issues about as close as one can come to the Flat Earth society. He's a nice man... if he was hungry i'd give him half my sandwich but he does not need to be making important decisions that mean life and death.

So its not just Obama/McCain. Although the case is pretty substantial... but my passion might not quite convince... the commitment and refusal to hedge is that government is about protecting and empowering people. I'm not empowering people like Lynn Westmoreland into thinking that they have any kind of support.

So yes there will be some positions--American hegemony, corporate trade-deals "free-trade" deals that have nothing to do with free trade and everything about propaganda...

Got a run... going to meet up with a GA state senate candidate on the democratic side... because it matters....


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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

My election year manifesto?

I'm in an interesting discussion on comments page and wanted to pull it up for others who might have missed the post: Why would John McCain change his policy position on offshore drilling? Hope I articulate my response in a productive and helpful manner...

I hope you don't. Otherwise, I would be disappointed in you as a leader.

Here is the problem with trying to disconnect... as with all government policies I am interconnected in a way that makes it hard for me not to pick the lesser of two evils and work as hard as I can to stop the worst of the two...

* As a high school dropout the effects of our defunding of schools has been pretty substantial (in fact I am taking diagnostics for ADHD--would have been helpful way before the age of 28).

*As someone who spent the ages of 14-26 with untreated/under treated bi-polar, someone who very nearly died from it, I can talk about the effects of a defunded system where protection of shareholder profits for pharmaceutical companies, protection of insurance companies over the needs of patients, protection of Doctors from open market competition... throwing people on the streets or in jails. I watched people wither away and die. Ever slept on a bench... I have... ever blacked out and only have vague memories if any at all... I have. Ever looked a homeless person in the streets and saw them talking to themselves and you know in your gut you are amazingly blessed to have found a way back out of the hell of being locked in your head... I have

* My best friend died from Heroin addiction... the tough on drugs tough on crime pathology that has nothing to do with crime prevention or rehabilitation... and everything to do with scared people (due to the conservative economic policies) who will latch onto and lash out at anything and everything that is a threat.

* I hung around people who sold drugs... when they should have been in business school. Runaways, high school dropouts, alcohol and drug abuse... yeah I've seen the shit people live in and around

* As someone who lost their health insurance (crappy economy... crappy job prospects add on no high school degree) in a country that ranks 37th in the world for health care according to the World Health organization... who then has to face over $30,000 in medical costs... and was only saved by the grace of family who was able to some how pull enough money together to get me the treatment I required. As someone who's medical bills fluctuate between 800-2000 dollars in a month because I lack health insurance.

* as someone who is sitting on thousands of dollars in student loans

* as someone who has worked for nonunion workforce.. who has had to fight with all the other part-time employees to get enough hours to get part-time health insurance... who then worked his way up 4 promotions to a supervisor level only to lose it all because it was a choice of going back to school or keeping my job... two and a half years of giving 100%, giving my sweat and tears and they couldn't even find me 24 hours a week to keep my part time health insurance. Pushing carts, running a register... anything...

* as someone who has been a human rights organizer and activist since 2002.

* as someone who gets up at 1:30 in the morning to go load trucks so that he can get off of around 8:30am so that he can go to school and finish his undergraduate degree.

I do get a little passionate...I have my own pathologies I must try to overcome.

I'm happy to go down every single policy position... i'm happy to dig deep into policy discussion... I'm happy to adjust when I'm wrong... I'm happy to point out every single thing I find wrong with the Democrats (a list so long I could never finish writing it)

Yes democrats are the lesser of two evils (although evil is a perjorative term... I agree with some Republicans like Chuck Hegal more than many conservative southern democrats)...

yes there is hypocrisy... yes there is corruption. SHow me any point in history... any government... where this wasn't so. Thats why a Republic is a damn good choice for a governing process... free speech, free travel, free exchange in the marketplace... with the understood protection from destructive individuals who would raid the commons.

There is a difference. You get two choices and lucky for me I can spend all day going through the policy difference (okay not really 1:30am comes oh so quickly..)

I'm passionate in my belief that we make things about policy and not people. I hold others to that... and hold others to the task of point it out when I fall short of that.

But there is a difference--and this year an unbelievably substantial one so if John McCain sneezes the wrong policy I'm going to hit and hit fucking hard. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

It'd be a pleasure to have dialogue(and I appreciate your time and effort so far) since here in the south most people who want to talk politics don't want to talk policy... don't want to do the leg work. They want to talk about online urban legends... they want to talk policy with no bearing on the real world...

so yes i'm passionate but I try to be equitable and conscientious in my efforts to change every single mind between now and when every single person has a basic quality of life deserving of all human beings.

"To the least of these..." to some it was something you just say on Sundays... not me.

Obamania has not struck me yet. It reminds me of the Body Snatchers movie starring Donald Sutherland. If I sleep I will be taken over by the left and wake up with an Obama t-shirt and button.

Politics as a personality competition... as a cult of personality really... is politics as pathology. It is about policy...

But while on the subject... I think its awesome that Obama has inspired people to participate in the process. I was knocking on a door locally with our canvass effort. And this mid-twenties African American woman answered the door. She was so excited that someone with the Obama campaign was at her door... she called to her family watching tv and said "hey [ name ] the Obama campaign is out registering voters... you were talking about registering this morning... and the two others ran to the door with big smiles. The young woman was the mom and ended up assisting him to fill out some info because "he doesn't write very well."

That was an amazing feeling... that young man needs a government that is going to empower him and not leave him behind. These McCain tactics trying to attack obama for bringing in new voters says something about McCain and the supporters throwing about that as a talking point... it leaves the general public talking about Paris Hilton and Obamania... rather than the issues.

So its good you haven't fallen for Obamamania... thats the last thing I'd want of a voter. ANd its unfortunate that its the big issue/agenda in the current discussions...

Before I support anyone I need reasons.

came to the right place

I read the data on both McCain and Obama. I cannot discern which is the greater evil. McCain's war stance, or Obama's tendency towards socialism.

Issue by Issue McCain is by far the worst of the two on policy. Obama is no shining star... but you work with the world you got not the one you want.

And I don't know what you mean by socialism... you'll have to define that one for me. IF you mean an equitable economy that protects and empowers all people and makes sure that no one gets left behind, civil rights, civil liberties, a strong market system... then i'm a socialist... but thats a hobgoblin term... there are so many meanings that I come to find nearly 95% of the people I speak with are socialist by the definition just postulated... so define socialism and I'll get back with you on if he leans towards it or not.

Yet behind closed doors I am unconvinced he has changed much. After all, it is well known he and Senator Clinton are good friends.

I don't care what anyone does behind closed doors or in private... The libertarian in me... its not in my nature.

I care what he does in public as an elected official. I care about his votes... I care about his public comments and leadership... he ability to communicate and bring this country together for a united vision... these are things I care about... it doesn't matter to me any which way what he does in private or what he thinks and believes.

I"m not a mind reader and no talking head, or reporter is either... I'm not too worried about McCain's private life. I'm worried about the decisions he'd make in public that impact people lives all over the globe.

Do you really believe in Obama's rhetoric with regard to change? Is it possible to induce change within the very system our current leaders occupy?

I believe that he can inspire people to participate in the process... that he can bring this country back to the center... and away from the divisiveness we've had that has only gotten worse since Bush II got in office.

But the divisiveness has been a part of the conservative revolution... read John Dean's broken Government which gets more into the details of how the conservatives have tried to decrease the ability for compromise and collegiality.

Is reform possible... of coarse... society in the broad sense has become more equitable... quality of life has improved. Far greater struggles have been overcome throughout human history. Sure I believe in reform.

Will there be constructive change behind the scenes of big government? I am not so sure.

I don't know what you mean by Big Government. In a highly complex industrial society.. the government is going to be bigger than in agrarian colony in 1770's. Plus the market system depends on pretty substantial infrastructure and modest regulation for it to function and sustain itself (a recognition that Republicans lost after the conservative take-over of their party). So i'm not sure what you mean by big government...

I'm surrounded every day with underfunded and ignored infrastructure... market failures... its hard to make the case that the "small government types" are making things better. I'll make the case its getting worse with the "small government" folks in charge.

McCain will not be more of the same as many assert, except for his foreign policy.

economics, protecting women and families... others as well...

He is more prone to supporting an unjust war, despite the Iraqi Prime Minister wanting us out.

What about the Iraqi population whom have wanted the US out for almost three years now if memory serves me correct. Like substantially... not 51%... Middle east public opinion as well. Both of those items are important since these numbers on the Arab street help increase terrorist recruitment, empower terrorists networks, flame the conflict over Palestine, hinder the ability of our markets and human rights to get through and erode the fundamentalism we need to moderate. We're going to win with Ipods and coke-a-cola. Thinking you can bomb them back into the stone age... or occupy their country... lacks any historical narratives I've seen or heard. Feel free to make the case on that one... but I haven't found anything substantial from others...

With the exception of the war, McCain is at odds within the Republican Party. Hell, we both know he got the nomination purely on seniority.

He got the nomination because Romney is Mormon... which ironically speaks to the bigotries of the fundamentalists hurting their own cause. Romney would have won... moderate Republican... health care reform as Governor...

However, I am more of mind with our forefathers. I prefer neutrality.

industrial society in a technologically driven area with weapons that can wipe out the world is a little different than backwater agrarian colony that our founding fathers lived in. No disrespect to my peeps... they did some great things that I applaud... but couldn't disagree more.

There are currently 737 US military bases. This seems a tad much for a strong national defense.

I concur...

Then again, I prefer limited government, despite the impossibility of such a measure given the magnitude of the people's expectations.

I'd rather live in a Republic than ant other form of government... so I'd disagree on the idea that the filthy masses are asking too much when they want decent schools, decent jobs, and a quality of life that can provide enjoyment... rather than watching the rich reap all of the benefits of our economy. Plus the markets demand more government to sustain itself... too much would be bad agreed. But don't worry we're no where near the point of destructiveness... granted the government shouldn't stick its nose in everything... but thats the problem with the "small government" policy people... they are talking about something different and using hyperbole to make people think in much broader terms than is justifiable... without major clarification on the terms... your Obama socialist comment comes to mind (since I hear it quite often... and am perplexed by it honestly)

My basic values prevent me from openly supporting either McCain or Obama. Perhaps you can provide some hard data to change my mind. I'm looking forward to it!

Everyone has to make their own decisions for themselves... I'd love to work the data... it lets me learn it better--which is never a bad thing. My values say the purpose of government is to protect and empower its citizens. The everyman for themselves mentality of the Republicans has undermined our economy... made neighbors distrustful of one another... increased cynicism and apathy...

My values tell me to get up and work my ass off to help improve the world. But as I tell Democrats locally. If you think winning in November is hard... wait till the day after when you have to work to get affordable health care and quality schools. There is no magic bullet... there is no mystery that only certain politicians have the key to. It takes hard dedicated work... commitment by average people to sacrifice some of their time to build a community and hold their elected officials accountable. But yes stopping McCain would be a step in the right direction. But as Ice Cube said... "life ain't a track meet... its a marathon..."

Changing the world is not going to happen overnight. But you run a marathon one step at a time. So Obama is a step in the right direction...

Hope you stick around this year... I try to keep my passion in check... call me on my invective... also I tend to speak in hyperbolye especially on the fly and the thing about words online is it can sometime comes out more insulting than humorus...

I'll call you on yours. It should be a productive election year...

There are differences... it does matter

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Shocked?

The Media like having darlings... for a long time they thought they had one in John McCain.

Changing Lanes
by Elizabeth Kolbert

The past few weeks have seen a change in McCain. He has hired new advisers, and with them he seems to have worked out a new approach. He is no longer telling the sorts of hard truths that people would prefer not to confront, or even half-truths that they might find vaguely discomfiting. Instead, he’s opted out of truth altogether. “Well, that certainly didn’t take long,” the Times observed.

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Let the swiftboating begin...

Listen to Republican Chuck Hegal mid-way in who was dead on in regards to how innappropriate John McCain's recent attack on Obama was. 

Here is the real story via MSNBC

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl, despite the claim by McCain folks and others. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits because he had joined the campaign -- violating rules that it not be a political stop.

Obama had gone to see wounded troops in Iraq earlier in the week, without even confirming he'd been there. No press, no pictures. He has done the same when he goes to Walter Reed -- never any press.

Imagine if McCain hadn't voted against the New GI Bill?  Instead he stated that he was against it because it created incentives for soldiers to leave after one tour.

He could have said thank you for one tour of service! Which is above and beyond in its honor and valor.  He decided the paying for college for young men and women was too much to ask of tax payers.  Some of us believe one tour of duty earns them a good education and quality health care.  Imagine if John McCain did as well... 

Imagine if McCain was not still supporting a failed Iraq policy that was underfunded, poorly planned, and has only created a larger terrorist threat? 

What if he took the postion held by most forigen policy experts that the past 8 years of go it alone has harmed our national security, weakend our security across the globe, and left our troops to fight--with no sacrifice called for from the citizens at home. 

Taxcuts in a time of war is unprecedented... that is John McCain... that is what he should be talking about.  But when you are on the wrong side of issues it always good to throw mud...

Thats why he's attacking Obama...

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Amen...

RUNOFF ENDORSEMENT: AUG. 5: Martin the smart Senate choice (AJC)

By Jay Bookman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/24/08

The July primary culled the field of potential Democratic Senate candidates from five to two: Jim Martin and Vernon Jones.
Martin is clearly the better choice.

As a Vietnam veteran with a long and admirable career in public service and the law, Martin has the background and credentials to represent Georgia well. As a state legislator, Martin was known as a workhorse, someone who knew the issues and who could work with colleagues to get things done. That same combination of wisdom, hard work and collegiality served Martin well as head of the state Department of Human Services under Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and then Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Jones, a two-term DeKalb County CEO, is an intelligent man and has been a competent county administrator. Unfortunately, his temperament, judgment and behavior make him a bad fit for higher office. His style is confrontational, and he has shown very little ability or willingness to respect conflicting views. Put simply, Jones would not be good for the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Senate would not be good for him.

Furthermore, if Georgia Democrats nominate Jones for the Senate, a candidate who bragged publicly about voting twice for George W. Bush, they undermine their own party's broader critique of the Republican record in office. In Republican Saxby Chambliss, Georgia already has a senator strongly supportive of the president's record. If voters are to have a meaningful choice in the fall, Martin must be on the ballot.

—- Jay Bookman, for the editorial board (jbookman@ajc.com)

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Bob Barr

Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction

more to come...

So obviously the high-tech wi-fi all the time live blogging didn't happen. But it was interesting, fun, and highly enlightening to be at the board of elections on an enlection day...

got home about 11pm and worked until 12:32 on revisions that the fiance caught in my Sartre paper.

Its not 2:47 am and I'm going to work. Afterwards I'm coming home to sleep 2 or 3 hours. Then I have to make it to class--and have ANOTHER paper due by midnight!! Yeah I'm only taking two classes this fall semester... this politics stuff takes up a lot of time!!!
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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

first numbers coming in soon

satellite and absentee about to come in for Fairview and Stockbridge

7:23... I guess this is the way of the world... "shortly" is not time but a means of keeping us feeling like things are happening...


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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Live blogging from Board of Elections Henry County

I'm at the board of elections here in Henry County GA; the Democratic Party gets one observer along with all of the candidates.

They have a set up with 4 laptops.. So i'm on a laptop thought'd I'd be posting tomorrow.

Hope we get out early... I have to be at work at 3:30am!!! sigh...

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

predictions...

AJC is reporting, and everyone I'm talking to locally on the ground, are saying turnout is low. Here are my predictions... this hurts Rand Knight and Vernon Jones in the US senate race (Rand Knights target voters are new voters and liberal voters who are not blue dogs... Vernon Jones has high name ID with low turnout populations...)

In Henry County I think this low turnout hurts Fred Auletta in the Chairman of County Commission race, and Steve Davis in district 109 House race (Fred's honest and realistic approach to transportation is in opposition to Republican activists who tend to be conservative and tend to stray from strong market based approaches to the economy and fixate on a theoretical view of how the economy should work. Trea Pipken is helped because the Republican establishment here in Henry oppose Steve Davis.

For what its worth those are my early predictions.
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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

good move Obama

There have been mistakes from both of the two major candidates. This is a tough process and navigate. I know at a local level i'm learning to have a little more diplomacy and a little tougher skins when it comes to getting the job done right.

I'm glad to see Obama open to helping pay off Clinton debt.

We are going to win in November!!!

Help us out this year!! Come to www.henrydems.org to find out what you can do.

come back once you're done reading...

Ta-Nehisi Coates Sends Us to the Great Jon Chait On the Spiro Ted Agnewization of Hillary Rodham Clinton

of which I'll quote the Mankiw post on the gas-tax holiday at length because I like its point...
In Praise of Gas Tax Hysterics

Paul Krugman thinks all of the fuss about the gas tax holiday has become a bit hysterical. He agrees that the policy is a bad idea, but it is no big deal, so let's not focus on it.

Paul is right that the issue is, quantitatively, small potatoes, but I am nonetheless pleased to see it get so much attention. This issue is like the canary in the coal mine: No one really cares about the canary, but its condition tells us about deeper problems that lie below.

Many economic issues (e.g., health care, corporate taxation, the trade deficit) are vastly complicated, with experts holding a variety of opinions. When candidates disagree, it simply means that each is siding with a different set of experts, and it is hard for laymen to figure out which set of experts is right. By contrast, the gas tax holiday is not nearly as complicated, and the experts speak with one voice.

Why, then, are candidates proposing the holiday? I can think of three hypotheses:

Ignorance: They don't know that the consensus of experts is opposed.

Hubris: They know the experts are opposed, but they think they know better.

Mendacity with a dash of condescension: They know the experts are opposed, and they secretly agree, but they think they can win some votes by pulling the wool over the eyes of an ill-informed electorate.

So which of these three hypotheses is right? I don't know, but whichever it is, it says a lot about the character of the candidates.

Preach on Brother Herbert...

Seeds of Destruction

The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.

Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd.

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Mrs. Clinton.

There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.

Just to clarify... I did say I was going to stay out of the primary decision. THe gas-tax holiday fiasco changed my mind. So I guess I'm a hypocrite

I put my lot in with scientist, doctors, and chemists; who tell me to take medications to help my health. I put my lot in with scientists and engineers every time I walk into a room and flip a switch to turn on a light. I even put my lot in with (gasp) economists, psychologists, physicists, lawyers; and basically anyone who spends a lot of time studying these issues.

Maybe I'm crazy... but I turned in my membership card to the flat earth society years ago. We need leaders who don't use hard working Americans lack of opportunity, time, and money to learn about all the complex issues that modern man now deals in. It was one thing to come out with a plan (which created a null set) but to than attack the opposition for being right on policy (just cause you want to get elected) is how we get ourselves into things like Iraq.

I'm not very happy right now...

political pander

update: oh... my bad, did not catch her tax on oil company profits; this is like Obama/Hillary health care distinction both go for same thing in a different route. Some like the ad-hoc patch work method; others don't.... that in the end has to be a personal preference

Still prefer Obama's method personally...

Bob Barr quote

"They have this sort of idea in their minds, bless their hearts, that nobody should do anything to upset the Republican nominee. This notion that the political world swirls around two galaxies only, Republican and Democrat only, and anybody else who enters that fray is going to affect the other two and that's bad —- that's a very myopic notion." --Bob Barr **