Horse Sense

A wise person once wrote: “Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on what people will do.”
   This past week I got into watching the Iowa caucuses on TV, and I figured it looked like a good process to choose a candidate, as one almost gets to meet every voter. For the past few months I have completely giving up watching any TV news, both national and local – I just got sick of all the “spin.” Someone will say something, and then for the next week a dozen or so cable personalities will tell you what they think that person meant, or if they were right or wrong. So, if I watched TV, it was just sports, and it didn’t hurt that it was football season. Looking back, I don’t think I missed anything.  
    I did learn that if you want to win in both Iowa and New Hampshire, you need to get out and meet the voters one on one. That is kind of how it works in Wyoming, except we don’t have the national press in the state. That’s too bad, because I would like to see them all try to get to Rock Springs from Cheyenne or drive over South Pass in a January snow storm. That would get them back to talking to God, wouldn’t it?
    Someone recently said that they “were not convinced that the world is in any worse shape than it ever was, it’s just that in this age of instantaneous communication, we bear the weight of problems our forefathers only read about after they were solved.” I guess that could be both good and bad. I look at the field of Republicans running for President, and I think to myself that I’m not too impressed with any of them – none of them really stand out. Then we hear that maybe one candidate will break away and run as an Independent, and that would really split the conservative vote. Also, there are a couple people standing in the background who are not saying much, but they’re making sure they’re on enough news shows to keep their names out there, just in case they decide to jump in the race.
    It’s like every candidate has to publically dissect, in a negative way, the other candidates who are running, and then later on in the process ask one of them to be their running mate for the general election. Getting elected to national office is never easy in America. Considering the alternatives, we do have the best process in the world, but we just wish the process could have a little shorter timeline. To some it’s a form of entertainment, and the almighty dollar seems to rule, but that happens in a capitalistic country so we’ll take what we’ve got.
    Instead of just beating up on the conservative candidates, we need to promote them all. Almost any one of them has to be better in the White House than what we have now, and it is not who is right, but what is right, that is important in these days of financial crisis.
Dennis