Mayor’s Row……….by Ned Mitchell

            Ho-hum, is there an election coming up or something like that?  Folks on the street that I run into I already fed up with robo-phone calls, junk mail, yard signs blocking the view at intersections, television and radio commercials and all the things that politicians do to try and convince us to vote for them  It seems as though every election cycle gets worse than the one preceding it.

            I rarely watch television and don’t listen to the radio a lot and am notorious for not opening my mail for weeks at a time, and don’t have a home phone anymore, so I am somewhat immune from a lot of this activity.  I even ran into a friend a few days ago that went and voted early just so she could tell the callers, door knockers, and other campaign pests that she had already voted.  Talk about raining on a politician’s parade!

            Despite all the activities though; we all have a duty and responsibility to go vote; so I suppose we are fair game to those running for office.  We should wade through all the hype, study the candidates and their stand on the issues and make an informed decision before we vote.  Sadly there are democrats and republicans alike who would vote for a stop sign if it was the nominee of their party.  I used to be one of them so I know the feeling but I figure that if our great reformer/unreformer governor who is a democrat can proudly proclaim that he voted for Ronald Reagan not once but twice, then we all should be able to cross party lines once in a while!

            The presidential race gets most of the attention these days and if you listen to any of the talking heads you will notice they have already made the decision for us by anointing Barack Obama the winner.  This could come back and bite them as some folks figure why go vote if the election is already over?  Others who might be leaning to Republican John McCain might stay home thinking their candidate has already lost or they might vote for the winner instead of staying with someone who the experts say is going to lose.  Everyone wants to vote for a winner!

            The Obama campaign has done an outstanding job of tying McCain to President Bush who is one of the most unpopular Presidents in the history of our country.  The recent down turn in the economy is not helping McCain even though he is putting a lot of distance between himself and President Bush.

            On the other hand the McCain campaign is putting the heat on Obama by calling out his ties to the Illinois embarrassment known as the Democrat Party.  McCain has called on “Joe the Plumber” to help and this guy actually goaded Obama into making the statement that he was going to “redistribute the wealth” in this country.  Obama would like to have those three words back right now as this has become the rally cry for the McCain campaign.  Does it mean that Obama is proposing taking mine and your hard earned money that we work for and give it to more social hand out programs to those who will not work?  I refer back to last week’s column where my doctor friend states that 70% of us in this country don’t want to work but are instead looking for a handout.  If you don’t believe him, look around!

            This campaign like all campaigns also gets into our religion.  I read over the weekend that Joe Biden, a Catholic, has been called out for his pro abortion stand by officials of his church, even to the point that he was advised to not attempt to take communion.  There is no question on the abortion issue that Obama is the most liberal and pro abortion candidate to ever run for the nation’s highest office.  He has a long history of being for abortions for anyone including under age children. 

            Both candidates want to end the war in Iraq and both have different ideas on how we go about doing that in a graceful manner.  Both candidates want to cut taxes and both have a different idea on how to do that.  Both candidates are driving home the point that we need jobs in America.  It makes me wonder exactly where both of them have been while the jobs have been leaving America.  There is one bit of good news however and that is the fact that all indicators point to a record turnout of voters this year so it could be that we have more people than ever before heading to the polls to make their choice.  In keeping with tradition I won’t waste time and ink trying to tell you who to vote for.  Who cares about which candidate I am for and that is exactly the way it should be.  We should each make up our own mind about the choices and then do our civic duty and go vote!

            Locally we have a couple of ballot issues to choose from, one that is meaningless, and the other very important.  The meaningless one is the question of whether or not we want to see a concealed carry law passed in Illinois.  This is nothing more than a joke being played out on the electorate in some Illinois counties.  Most of us think we should have a concealed carry law just as 48 other states have done.  I have written in favor of it before but the only problem with this is that Chicago politicians, Democrats, I mean won’t ever let this pass in Illinois.  We can’t even have a vote on the matter unless we do call for a Constitutional Convention.  It would be interesting to see what candidate Obama’s Illinois voting record on concealed carry is but I can assure you that local democrats pushing this issue will not want to go down that road.

            The most important local issue involves the question of whether or not we want to add a three quarters of a cent sales tax on goods purchased in Franklin County to fund emergency services.  This tax is being touted to pay for an ambulance service and there is no doubt we need that.  The problem that I am hearing from folks on the street however is that nobody in official capacity can seem to nail down exactly how much money this will generate and who all will share in the pie once it is cut.  Is three quarters of a cent too much to ask or not enough to fully fund the proposed ambulance?  Now is the time to be asking questions on this issue before you go vote.  We all need to make an informed decision here too.

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