Thursday, January 10, 2008

A Definition of Insanity - Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results!

Case in point are the fine citizens and government of New Albany. Now I won't include all of them, but those that voted to put Doug England back at the helm may fit the definition. Mayor Doug promised that he wouldn't need to hire anyone for economic development because he could handle it himself. Then after he was elected, he decided that just maybe a friend of his was a better economic developer than himself, so he announced the hiring of Carl Malyz. His title will be deputy Mayor and head honcho of developing the economy. His salary for both of these important jobs is a mere $85,000 a year for four years. A small price to pay for his expertise in this area. Well it's only about $10,000 more than the mayor himself will make. Then there is an assistant economic developer yet to be named that will only pull about $60,000 taxpayer dollars out of the treasury. Did Mr. England really get voted out a few years ago or is my memory failing? Now the mayor says he will retain the former mayor James Garner for a month as a sewer advisor. You know, just to bring the new mayor up to speed. It will only cost $6000 for the month. Mr. Garner didn't know much about the sewers during his four years as mayor, but that shouldn't matter to the good citizens. What's $150,000 in the fisrt couple of weeks in office? After all, it's not his money! It is all business as usual in this sleepy river town that has even my liberal friends wondering when it will wake up.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Barack can bag it up and that aint Good

by Daniel Short

Barack Obama has a unique chance on Tuesday to put the Democrat Presidential race out of reach. He is polling up over double digits against Hillary and the lead is growing everyday. He definitely has the big "MO" on his side and here is how I see things coming down. First, Obama wins New Hampshire by 14, heads south and eats up South Carolina and Florida. Hillary's contributions start to dry up and the prose of Barack continues to ooze change to the American left. How can Barack win so big in New Hampshire? Over 40% of voters are independents and can choose which party they will vote for in the primary right before they enter the booth. A lot of independents have polled for McCain, but will choose to rock the boat by making a statement for Obama. I fear that what is left is an even stronger Barack with enough money to ride it out.

This all has great implications on the Republican side of things. If the Democrats rally around Obama this early and the right struggles through super Tuesday without a true leader, valuable time will be lost. National polls show Rudy and Huckabee tied at 19%, Romney at 17%, McCain at 15% and Thompson at 14%. This is a dangerous scenario for the GOP.

Now let's remember that Bill lost the first five states in 1992 before going on to take the nomination and the White House. So maybe Hillary can drag it out long enough to slow the "O" train. Will Hillary take the VP job. Oh you betcha she will. If she doesn't, that's it for her. If she does, she still becomes the first woman to hold that office and will be 69 years old in eight years. That is three years younger than McCain is now. An Obama/Clinton ticket will probably wrap it up, unless we see a McCain/Lieberman ticket. Then there is Mayor Bloomberg! OK let's not get ahead of ourselves! Whew

When we said anyone but Hillary, we didn't exactly have Barack Obama in mind.