I am not psychic, nor do I play a guy who is pretending to be a psychic so he can work for the Santa Barbara police for laughs nor a guy who is through pretending to be a psychic so that he can work for the California Bureau of Investigation for serious, but I swear this morning as I was watching CNN, I heard the Church Secretary in my head and he said, “Oh, sure, we have to hear from third-party candidates Barr and Nader about the economy but nothing from McKinney?”
I mean, neither Barr nor Nader is any more likely to ever be president than McKinney, so I’m confused about why they get airtime and she doesn’t. Does Nader even have a party backing him?
I mean, I like the idea of hearing from third-party candidates every once in a while on these kinds of important issues because they have nothing to lose. They can say exactly what they’re thinking, which is useful to me as I try to understand what’s going on.
I’m just curious about how it gets decided who is important enough to take semi-seriously and who is not.
Also: Speaking of CNN this morning, have any of you seen that Korean Air ad? There’s a lingering shot of a blue high heel shoe on a woman’s foot and then a man has a bottle of champaign right by his crotch which he then lets off with a “pop.” I was dying! I mean, usually the vagina penis symbolism is not so blatant. (Or much more.)
Tiny Cat Pants 
While I agree with you on the whole, to be fair, she’s only going to be on 32 ballots it looks like, whereas Barr and Nader are both at least in the 44+ range (some still pending lawsuits and such I think). And I’m guessing they also didn’t include Baldwin, who’s on 37 and has the Paul endorsement?
So yeah, I agree that all four should get a voice, but if one is going to prioritize, there is some reason to pick Nader and Barr first.
Or to put it another way, if you include McKinney, you almost have to include Baldwin, and that guy is a certifiable fruitcake.
I have always liked McKinney. The moment you put her on TV, though, she sets her agenda back several steps. ( From a marketing perspective)
I agree, Mack, but only as far as I believe the problem is more with the market than with the product. There is no such thing as a perfect human being, so there is no such thing as a perfect politician. That said, I have watched over the last six years or so as Cynthia McKinney has been directly and obliquely labeled a nutjob, a fruitcake, or worse in corporate and in democratic media (by the right and the left). Given what the bipartisan clusterfuck known as our federal government has given us up to this point, I’d say we need far more nutjobs and fruitcakes of McKinney’s caliber at the highest levels of government if we are to survive (much less improve) as a nation.
I believe McKinney’s record– if one desires a democratic society– is far more impressive than that of any of the four candidates currently representing the two major parties.
The reason our economy is going to shit; the reason we’re trapped in two bloody military cockups; the reason our constitution has been reduced to a cruel joke– well, it’s all the same reason. We’re a piss-poor electorate, and we continue to get the piss-poor government we deserve. If we’d grow up and stop electing politicians with less intellect than we apply to voting on American Idol, we’d have a country moving in a better direction.
http://www.americanblackout.com/
Oh, and B., you don’t have to be a psychic to figure me out. Especially on this issue. As I said already, look where the bipartisan con job has gotten us. (I thought the Iraq debacle was bad, and it is, but can you get any more brazen than the impending trillion-dollar bailout of the greedheads?) I think most of us are content to ride this illusion of democracy right into hell, but I’m going to keep putting up the fight. If I’m still around when this shit devolves into bloody, open fascism (or something similar), at least I’ll have the grim comfort of knowing I made an honest effort.