Weeding Through the 2008 Presidential Candidates

I will admit it. I'm not a political fanatic by any stretch of the imagination. I'm one of those voters who files the election date in the back of her head and puts off the choice until closer to time to enter that little booth. When I say closer to time, I mean about a month or so out. That's when I start reading the literature and learning about candidates.

So I guess I'm right on time since California's Primary has been moved to February 5th.

This early in the game, I hadn't really given more than a passing thought to the candidates. Until Mike Huckabee caught my attention on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 3, 2008.

How did Mr. Huckabee do such an amazing feat, you might ask.

He crossed a picket line to appear on the Jay Leno show.

On the surface, the man looks great as a candidate. He's a former Baptist pastor. So is my dad, so I totally know where he's coming from there. He talked about his parents sacrificing to buy him a guitar for Christmas and his determination to play it to show his gratitude. I can relate there. He's a former governor so he has experience. He's charming and witty and talks a good game about his concern for the economy.

But it will be 30 below in Hades before I vote for the man.

As a writer, I know that what a character says is nowhere near as important as what a character does. This holds true in real life. Crossing the WGA's picket line tells the country that Mr. Huckabee really doesn't give a furry rat's behind about its working class citizens.

But how else was he to get exposure?

Both David Letterman and Craig Ferguson's talk shows forged a deal with the Writers Guild so that they could legitimately return to the airwaves. Why couldn't he have gone on one of those shows?

His excuse that he thought all the late night shows had forged the deal just doesn't wash. Does he really expect us to believe that his staff is so incompetent as to not inform him that Jay Leno's show was still struck? If they are that incompetent, do we really want to trust them to assist him in running the country?

I'm thinking a hardy NO is in order here.

Okay, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment and go with the incompetent staff theory. How is it possible that he missed the writers in their snazzy red shirts picketing NBC when he arrived? Perhaps his staff blindfolded him on the way in and turned up the radio so he wouldn't notice.

So Mr. Huckabee, I hope your time with Jay was worth it. He's facing the threat of expulsion from the Guild for his actions. As for you, should you become President, I can guarantee that you will face four long years of writers skewering you on both the big and small screens.

Your actions publicly supported an entity that has cost the Los Angeles economy nearly one BILLION dollars over the course of 10 weeks with its greed. The AMPTP has refused to even negotiate with the WGA much less budge on their refusal to pay the writers an additional 4 cents - 8 cents total - out of every $22 they receive for a DVD.

To the hundreds of thousands of people who now find themselves out of work due to the strike, I urge you to vote for Mike Huckabee at your own peril.

To the rest of the country, vote for Mike Huckabee only if you're comfortable putting a man in the Oval Office who'll put a little publicity for himself above the financial welfare of America's Workers.

Until next time!! May you be in peace and prosper.