Has the McCaint campaign jumped the shark?

Folks-

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that with the most recent TV ads comparing Barack to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears that the McCaint campaign has hit a new low. The desperation is palpable to everyone. McCaint has no message worth listening to, so his campaign is going to throw everything they can at Barack in the hope that something sticks well enough to him, and doesn't bounce back at them.

TV fans hace had a term for a long time, called "jumping the shark". The term comes from an event on "Happy Days" where Fonzie jumps over a shark while surfing. It simply means that a show had an event that forever changed all episodes of that show afterwards. It is often interpreted as an event that pretty much wrecked the show. Although I have never heard of this term being applied to a political campaign, I do think the Paris Hilton ad is a good example of a campaign jumping the shark.

The level of desperation on display right at this moment from the McCaint campaign is incredible. He dared Mr. Obama to go on a world tour, visiting Iraq and Afghanistan, and other world powers, and he did so, looking much more Presidential than Mr. McCaint did on his trips. Mr. Obama attracted hundreds of thousands to his speeches overseas, when McCaint has a hard time attracting hundreds to his at home.

I won't say that Mr. McCaint doesn't have a chance, but his cances right now aren't good. We will see if their desperation can muster something that can prevent real change or not.

This blog entry is also available at my.barackobama.com. I recommend anyone who is interested in positive change in this country register at that location and makes a donation to Mr. Obama's campaign.

A new Pledge

By Ed Smallwood

Here we are on the eve of Independence Day. I promised earlier this year to be more topical, and oddly, I found this one holiday easy to come up with an opinion over.

This is the time of year that we all show off our patriotism. We wave flags, we set off fireworks, we have concerts and barbeques. But how often do we think of the document that matters most to our country?

Yes, the Constitution. It’s not as old as the country itself or the flag, but it’s the document that defines our country. That has to be at least as important as the flag. I mean, without the Constitution, there would be no Republic for the flag to stand for.

So, why do we pledge allegiance to the Flag but not to the Constitution? No, I’m not against the Pledge of Allegiance; I’m just wondering why we don’t pledge to uphold and protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

Honestly, I would feel much better about the education my children are getting if they had to pledge to uphold the Constitution on a regular basis. This would give their teachers a good opportunity to bring up the rights and limits afforded by the Constitution, and hopefully, improve their civics education well over that afforded to myself at their age. And honestly, isn’t that what we all want? A better education for our children than we ourselves got?

How do we get something like this started? Personally, I believe that it should be started at the school district level and then carried up to the State level. If Congress wants to get involved and standardize the pledges being used, that would be fine, but not absolutely necessary.

Really, this seems so obvious to me that I don’t understand why it hasn’t been in place for the last two-hundred years. Am I the only one that thinks this way?

If someone knows of a pledge already written, or would like to write one that would be appropriate for all age levels, I would love to hear about it.