Cox Crow

“The Impossible Planet” settles it. This season Doctor Who is fighting the Elder Gods.

The Poughkeepsie Journal quotes a spokesman for Sue Kelly’s campaign who seems to have forgotten how representative democracy works around here.

Kelly’s campaign spokesman, Jay Townsend, said nationwide voter dissatisfaction with Republican control of Congress seems to have hurt Kelly’s bid for re-election.

I was under the impression that citizens in New York’s 19th Congressional District voted last Tuesday, not a nationwide sample.

One of the topics under consideration for prompt action once the 110th Congress take their seats is the minimum wage. The discussion so far has assumed that the incoming Democratic majority will raise the Federal minimum wage. I would like to suggest that instead they remove the Federal minimum, and allow, to such an extent as allowance is necessary given current interpretations of the commerce clause, the States to do what they will in this area.

The problem I see with not having a minimum wage is that it will aggravate the effects of monopsony, but that does not make setting the price floor a Federal responsibility.

The final results in New York’s 19th Congressional district have not been certified yet, so it’s still too early to compare the numbers, but the preliminary results are pretty revealing.

A whole lot of voters decided they couldn’t vote for either candidate.

Table 1 shows Sue Kelly vs. the Democrat from 1998 to 2006. Table 2 needs some work, but will eventually be similar, but broken down by county.

About 20,000 more people cast votes for either the Democrat or the Republican this year, compared to the previous two mid-term elections, in 1998 and 2002. However, none of those additional voters cast their ballot in favor of the Republican candidate. Assuming that all of those who voted for the Democrat in 2004 voted for the Democrat this year, the additional 5,085 votes for John Hall were all annoyed former supporters of Sue Kelly. The rest couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat and abstained.

While driving the Bigger Sister to school this morning after I had voted, I tried to explain the election.

Suppose you have a pie. Further suppose that you have to give the whole pie either to someone you like, or to someone you don’t. Who do you give it to?

My friend.

Now what if you had to choose between giving the pie to someone you don’t like or someone else you don’t like?

I’d keep it, and eat it.

Yeah, I’d keep it and eat it too, but that wasn’t on the ballot.

In an effort to prevent those of us who have voted for her before from voting for John Hall, Sue Kelly’s campaign is pulling out the big guns. I received a robo-call from the National Republican Congressional Committee the other day, warning me that John Hall would roll-back the tax cuts this Republican Congress has enacted. That might bother me, if I were a billionaire looking to prevent my estate from being taxed, but I’d really rather that this so-called conservative Congress bring their spending in line with their income. I understand the necessity for deficit spending, but it’s become wholly unrealistic. Maybe nobody will notice how many zeros there are if we say “all figures in billions.”

Then last week we got a piece in the mail alleging that if Mr. Hall is elected, then Kim Jung-Il will drop The Bomb on the United States. Judging from the pictures, Mr. Hall’s lack of support for a missile defense program that has been subject to an appalling lack of success is because he’s a puppet of Dear Leader.

Perhaps Rep. Kelly should, instead of these attempts at fear-mongering, give us an adequate explanation of why she has consistently voted against civil liberties and for an increase in Big Government.

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