A Cure for Blogger's Block

Ok, so I'm back. I have not been able to think of anything that seemed worthy enough to say recently, but tonight I found something that may have re-motivated me to start writing again. Yes, it's political, and it's local (but national, too), so anyone local (from the 951) who pops in here as a result of my blogwhoring may actually care, but I'm not going all-political-all-the-time again. I can't take that -- and I'm sure you can't either.

Anyway, the 2006 mid-term elections are now 48 days away. Of course, every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is up for election (2 year terms, remember that from Jack Moore's Civics class?). The vast majority of the time, these elections are won by the incumbents, probably because no one really cares or gets involved enough to know who the "other guy" is, and the voter might recognize the sitting Reps name from a newspaper story, or a wanted poster, or something. Regardless, here in the CA-44th District (of which I remain in by about 500 feet, from the best I can tell), our Representative, for the last 14 years, has been Ken Calvert (R). As far as I am concerned, Ken Calvert is the worst kind of politician. Of course, I don't agree with him on the great majority of his views (support for the Occupation, the idiotic fence around the border, etc.) but I think his 100% rating from the Christian Coalition is the most important thing.

Here's why: Mr. 100%-Christian-Values-Calvert has prided himself on his righteousness and belief in 'family values'. However, Mr. Calvert was also caught by the Corona Police, in 1993, receiving oral sex from a prostitute while parked in a car on Howard Street (not the nicest neighborhood). He explained to the police (who recognized him, of course) that he was merely ministering to a distraught woman. Of course, at the time of his explanation, his pants were down, and when the police first observed the car, the prostitute's head was in his lap.

This is not conjecture -- the story was reported by the Riverside Press-Enterprise (check the archives for 1993/1994 -- there is a charge to actually read the whole story) and is verifiable here, here, here, here, and here, among other places.

Now, to be clear on this, I don't care that he was getting blown by a hooker. Not so great that it was in his car, but... I guess that's his thing. As long as he was on vacation, I don't care if he was screwing two guys while methed-up on the roof of Wal-Mart. What I care about was that he lies about it, not just by his words, but by his actions! This is a man who voted to impeach Clinton over the same act. Remember, as the Republicans said, "It's not the sex, it's the lying." Indeed.

This year, it appears that we have a candidate who wants to make a serious effort at unseating Calvert. His name is Louis Vandenberg. Here is his website. To drive this point home even harder, and get people totally insane, here is his post on Daily Kos!

We like him. We like his views (check his website, I'm getting tired). We are endorsing him (go fig). It's our second endorsement ever, and our first local one.

(Imagine a pretty graphic here, like the one we ran for Lamont. We don't have one for Vandenberg, but if they gave us one I'm sure it would be super-nice.)

To reiterate: LOUIS VANDENBERG (D) for U.S. House of Representatives, CA-44.

(Programming note: Be sure to check future posts for our twelve-part series examining the intense power struggle in the election for Comptroller of the Lee Lake Water District, and the potential effects on the thirty-nine people who live here.)