Word of the Day: Quixotic

Let me get this out of the way first: No St. Patrick's Day bullshit here. I'm married to a girl from Ireland. Every day is motherfucking St. Patrick's Day in my house. No, let's talk politics! Oh yay.

Two days ago I was walking home when two guys coming the other way stopped me and jammed a flyer into my hand. It was for a guy running for Nancy Pelosi's seat in the House. I said, "Well, good luck with that," because Nancy Pelosi has about the same chances of losing an election in her district as Castro does in Cuba. They sailed past me. "Yeah, we need to get rid of that witch," one of them called over his shoulder.

When I got home, I looked the guy up. It's this guy, Summer Shields. He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. Then I remembered where I'd seen him - in front of a big poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache, at Civic Center Plaza one day. That's the way to win votes in San Francisco! Oh wait, here's a picture:



This is what someone who's not electable in San Francisco looks like.

As it turns out, Summer Shields is a follower of Lyndon LaRouche. A taste of what that's all about:

For those unfamiliar with the range of his thinking, Mr. LaRouche also claims that the Queen of England “personally runs the military and intelligence services” of the United Kingdom, and recently suggested that “top circles in London, who are furious at President Barack Obama for flubbing the British demands to impose fascism on the United States,” may soon “attempt to assassinate the President.”

And so forth. Let me be out in the open here and say that I'm not a huge Pelosi fan and I don't think she's a particularly effective Speaker of the House. Even my Dad and I agreed that if we still had Tip O'Neill in charge, the health care bill would have been passed and signed about a month after we started talking about it. But that's beside the point. The point, which should be blindingly obvious, is this: You cannot march around SF with pictures equating Obama and Hitler and expect to be elected anything, much less unseat the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Maybe in Texas, but not here.

In other political news, Unfortunately-coiffed Meg Whitman is in a virtual dead heat with Jerry Brown in the governor's race. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that her TV ads are on every 30 fucking seconds and Jerry is doing his best to keep his candidacy a secret from everyone except his closest advisors. I don't know. Want to know why Meg can't win? Read this.