Gary Hubbell at the Aspen Times has an interesting piece on the angry white guy voting block. Give it a read and you’ll be surprised how much you like AWM. I liked his description so much that I have reprinted his article in its entirety here for posterity.

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

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To see the impact that Iowans had we need to recap the polls and the standings. Going into the Hawkeye Cauci the latest polls had candidates here:

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll
Obama 31%
Edwards 27%
Clinton 24%

Mike Huckabee 31%
Mitt Romney 25%
Fred Thompson, John McCain and Ron Paul tied at ~10%

Here’s where they finished:

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John Coleman is the guy that put weather on the map. Or at least on 24/7 cable TV. He’s a Meteorologist’s Meteorologist and he’s speaking out against global warming. Do you think he has enough credibility to overcome all the celebrities that have proved global warming over a soy latte?

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990’s to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremist, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

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The demographic reality is that, in America, the Democratic party is the new “party of the rich”. More and more Democrats represent areas with a high concentration of wealthy households. Using Internal Revenue Service data, the Heritage Foundation identified two categories of taxpayers – single filers with incomes of more than $100,000 and married filers with incomes of more than $200,000 – and combined them to discern where the wealthiest Americans live and who represents them.

Democrats now control the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.

This new political demography holds true in the House of Representatives, where the leadership of each party hails from different worlds. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, represents one of America’s wealthiest regions. Her San Francisco district has more than 43,700 high-end households. Fewer than 7,000 households in the western Ohio district of House Republican leader John Boehner enjoy this level of affluence…

It should be noted that income and wealth are often confused.  Due to the IRS income data is much easier to come by, but not a reflection of “wealth” or net worth. For instance, you could make $120,000 in southern California and be financially unable to purchase a home.  You could also have a net worth north $100 MILLION dollars, but show an IRS income of less than $100k. (Which is actually how we got saddled with the AMT).

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I got this from a source close to the Tennessee Valley Authority:

Anne Paine, Reporter for the Tennessean in Nashville, asked if there has been an increase interest in the Green Power Switch Program because of news stories about Al Gore’s electric bill for his Nashville residence and his use of green power to meet most of his energy needs. She also asked about TVA’s generating sources of green power and when Gore first signed up for GPS. We said there has been a significant increase in GPS signups for the month of March 2007 over March of 2006. We provided information on the GPS generating sources and referred her to our web site. We confirmed that the first request from Gore officials about GPS was August of 2006. We told Paine that TVA completed the GPS process for the Gore residence in August 2006, but she would have to ask Nashville Electric System when the first electric bill with GPS charges was sent to the Gore residence.

FYI - Gore bought the property in ‘02, so it’s not like he just moved in and wanted to do his part to save the world nor did the Green Power program only begin in August 2006 - It’s been around for awhile. The timing of it all - the request in August 2006 - I’m sure it had nothing to do with him thinking about running and wanting himself to look good or with his movie that is going to save the world.

- The TVA “Insider”

Here is a great example of Government efficiency:

We are taking TCAPS this week and there was a problem with a question. Now evidently, instead of just throwing the question out when scoring the test they chose the MUCH SIMPLER option: Notify every single middle school in the state of tennessee, and then have the message relayed to every single middle school
teacher in the state of tennessee.

Here is the simple solution offered by the TN Department of Education:

Teachers,
Once you have completed testing this morning. Please have 8th grade students with version 7 test booklet make the following correction. Have them check page 62, question #36 in math and make sure they bubbled on the answer sheet correctly. If a student chose an H or G as the answer to question #36 they need to do the following: (G and H are reversed–have students bubble H in H and G in G) If a student did not chose and H or G answer, then they do not need to do anything. Please read the attached e-mail from the state department. Please let Mr. XXXX know if you have further questions regarding correcting this test booklet and answer sheet error
Thanks
[administrator]

- XXXX (TN Middleschool Teacher)

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Rob, a Middle School Teacher, sent me an email regarding the difference between the parents at his new School verses the more, uhm, urban School where he worked last year:

Well, the parents here are a little different than say Tony’s mom last year (the 250 pound woman with 3 inch red fingernails, that came to school, yanked tony out of his seat by his collar, with a barage of profanity, pulled him into the hall, pulled off his belt, and popped him 3 times with his own belt).

I caught a kid stealing his lunch yesterday. I had him write a confession, "I, Kevin xxxxxx stole my lunch on 1/9/07" and sign it. our Discipline Principal told me that his father came in to a manditory meeting, very upset that the school used and continued to use the word "stealing" to describe his sons actions. He felt his son merely, "circumvented procedures" end quote. Even after, showing his son had clearly understood procedures the previous 15 days that he bought his lunch, according to computer records (they can buy lunch using a pin number). the father still refused to say that his son "stole." Yup. This is for real. Unbelievable.

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Attorney James Bopp Jr is on a crusade. A crusade to free Judges to actually say what they believe, so that voters have some idea of whom they are electing. All judges are elected either directly (through the polls) or indirectly through appointment by an elected official. Here are the high points from a recent ABA Journal Article (November 2006):

"I think there is a limit on what judicial candidates can say, that does not apply to the other braches of government," [Bopp] says… Judicial candidates can be prohibited from saying ‘I’ll throw all drunk drivers in jail’ or ‘I’ll overturn Roe v. Wade if given the chance’, but they should be able to say ‘I’m pro-life’," [Bopp] says.

Bopp says that while his clients want to know a candidates personal values on issues such as abortion, they expect judges to follow the facts and law whereever they lead. He also knows htat judges make common law. And their personal values cannot help but influence them in those endeavors.

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 Some perspective on Big Oil from guest writer: Jeff:

Can you believe this?! Time Warner made $1.46 billion profits in the first quarter. That’s a 60% increase over last year. And just who, you might ask, is a part of Time Warner? Well, those evil capitalist pigs CNN, and Time (among others) of course. Can you believe that they are making such obscene profits reporting the news? I mean, the news is an essential part of life. Asking people to go without news is like asking them to go without their catheter bags. Besides, reporting the news is supposed to be a noble profession, far above the evil influence of profits. How can this evil conglomerate continue to exist in America, when it is obviously gouging innocent citizens? Get this: the CEO made $16 million!  Here’s an idea: they should take those profits, and re-distribute them to the American people. Let’s see, $1.46 billion divided among 311 million gouged citizens (don’t worry, 11 million undocumented workers included), equals $4.70 a person! Send the checks today!

OR, the CEO could donate his pay to lower our cable TV bills: $16 million divided by 311 million people is $.05. I want MY nickel, how about YOU?

Why does the same rhetoric seem perfectly logical when applied to oil companies? I guess because we HAVE to keep driving? Well, are you going to turn off your cable (and maybe even go to the library)? Time Warner also owns the Atlanta Braves…

• Time Warner Earnings

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Bob Parks has an interesting piece on the current illegal immigration issue.  He also has a nice counter-protest to the "Day(s) With (illegal) Immigrants" that keep filling the news. He suggests a "National Day Without Citizens" on Cinco de Mayo (May 5th). A tempting plan to be sure, though, I will need to gain steam if it's going to work.  I'd hate to see only a few people do it and then have to explain to their bosses why they weren't at work on Friday… of course American's have been known to call in sick… ;)

“I'm going to sneak into your house. Once I'm inside, I'm going to find a place to hang out. I'll sneak around and take whatever money I can find. I'll use your computer and sign myself up on your family's health insurance. I'll help myself to whatever food is in your fridge. And should you catch me, I'll protest and demand that I not only stay in your home as long as I want, but that you call the police and have all charges against me dropped. Oh, and by the way, my family will be moving in soon.”

As over-simplistic as that may sound, that's where we are with this whole illegal alien thing. The very people who use our laws as toilet paper and violate our sovereign border, are now taking to our streets by the hundreds of thousands, seemingly daily, to tell us stupid, racist Americans that they are here, deal with it, and give them what they want… or else.

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