Yesterday I was pealing off my Kucinich for president bumper sticker from the back of my car and I got to thinking about it.

Why do candidates choose the name they choose to put on their signs and stickers? And why is it the last name most of the time?

Ok there will be no great insight on this, but I found I was thinking about this most of the day.

Ok, more than one. But I've been talking to my Ron Paul soldier about yesterdays vote.  I don't understand how Obama did not do better.

I won't address Obama and Clinton's race because so many others have and I don't really have much new to offer. But even though Ron Paul dropped out of the race my soldier has still been working for his campaign. (what does it take to kill a campaign? a wooden stake in the heart of every supporter?) These guys are fanatics.

But even still, the fact that John McCain only got 73% of the vote in basically a one man race, really says something.

When 27% of your own party votes against the only canidate...

This is a part two about things the recruiter won't tell you because he is culturally unaware that this is the case.

Last one I did got some good feedback and I hope it gave some insight into the culture of the military. If you have not been in it, you don't realize it is different. In this I hope to explain some little things like "you really are a number." and "rank means nothing except when it does."

I've said before I won't tell someone not to join, but I will tell them to look at it closely and fill them in on a few things.

As always, I can only speak about the Army, but i'm sure a lot crosses over to the other services.

It has been a bit, we were training in PA for the last 45 days. Saturday we came back and it was interesting to see the change between when we went up and when we came back.

Off the cuff, biased off the number of yard signs, Obama is going to come out ahead by a good chunk. Of course I have to cover my statement. this is only true if yard signs really show support. I did not have the option to just drive around and most of what I saw was from main roads near Harrisburg/York area.

Sunday I took the time on the way back from church to do a "sign of support" count. You know, where you drive around and see who has the most support and is most likely to win the votes.

I am currently assigned to a post in Maryland so I was interested in how things are going off post. On post you can’t put up signs or banners, the most you can do is bumper stickers on your car. You won’t see many t-shirts that are not tan either.

I think Obama is going to do well here. Let me tell you why:

Before anyone gets mad, I refuse to support a candidate because I’m bad for them. I liked Dodd and Bidden but really liked Kucinich and supported him with Dodd and Biden as my "back ups". Kucinich did not do well and Dodd and Biden dropped out.

So I still supported Kucinich but looked closely at switching to Richardson and even donated a small amount. Then he dropped out.

Then Kucinich dropped out.

So I looked at Edwards...

From the "Political Derby" and Republcian leaning web page that covers the race mostly for that side, but does give views on Democrats. The bloger, SA Kalinich, gave a concise and only slightly partisan view of the debate.

The Ron Paul iMPLOsion continues.

RP supporters have been patting themselves on the back for almost a year now about how they are gaining ground all over the nation, raising massive amounts of money, and are going to show the polls how wrong they are in how they count support for Paul.

Then came Iowa, inspite of spending millions, campaigning, buying blimps, and standing on street corners waving at cars Paul came in fifth out of six. And within the margin of error for the polls. RP supporters blamed this on Iowa being a "state that gets massive federal ag-subdies and won't vote for someone who would end them".  But Wyoming, the free thinking west! That is where RP will do well...

It’s possible to find something good in anyone. We can see that Paul has some good ideas we can use. I’m not talking about going to a gold standard or preventing a war between the states with 1850’s era politics. I’m talking about his money bombs.

First off, I don’t like Paul. Mostly because he some how did what my preferred candidate (Kucinich) could not do. I will admit this made me bitter towards him and caused me to keep an eye on the guy. His ideas really bother me also. So I’ve been waiting for a reason to dance the “goodbye” dance and now I see it coming.

Paul’s amazingly bad showing in Iowa is the start. We knew it was coming but because of the support he has motivated in his fanatics and the money he has taken from them it’s nagged in the back of our minds: “What if the polls are wrong about his support?” Well now we know, the polls are not wrong.

your top supporters start pitching coming in 5 or 6th in a 6 man race as doing good in Iowa.

your supporters start explaining away what you said on Meet The Press with justifcations that only make sence to a KKK member.

your party won't let you attend a debate in the state you claim to be polling at 10% (in some polls) in.

when your hot air balloon only gets 60% of what was pledged and no press coverage and sparks infighting among your supporters.

And related: your polling ahead of the multi-millionaires, but your money bomb only gets $800,000 in pledges and then only brings in $87,000. (and you try to blame another losing candidate for spamming your pledges.

Holidays are great, you get to spend time with your close family and not so close family. If your like me you have some relatives that you would never spend time with if they weren’t related to you. Auntie "Prudence" and Uncle "Gil" are my two.

Last week I admitted I was wrong about how much money Paul was going to get for his “tea party” and how much Kucinich was going to bring in on Bill of Rights day. A reader had sent an email asking about some of my assumptions and provided some counter argument to them. In hind sight, I was wrong in my assumptions. I don’t think I was wrong 100%, but I was wrong.

Oh, and my soldier enjoyed his day off, I had promised in my first diary if Paul got more than $5 million I would give him the day off. (he spent it holding a Paul sign down town.)

In my first diary I asserted that Ron Paul’s fans are about tapped out money wise and that his "Tea Party Sunday" would be a bust or at best only raise about the same amount as his Guy Fawkes day event. (and have about the same number of donors.) My second diary I claimed Dennis Kucinich would raise over $1 million for the Bill of Rights day.

Boy was I wrong on both counts.

[Edited, hopefully it's a better read now]

*because he is culturally blind to it.

I must admit I’m biased, but I like being in the Army. I’m a third generation Army Brat, my daughter is well on her way to being the fourth.  The Army is a different culture than the rest of America. If you have ever wondered why Soldiers don’t refuse in mass to go over, its because of the culture.

That was what one of the officers in my chain of command said two days ago. Now he’s a great guy. I know he was not saying that because he wanted me to stop supporting Kucinich. He was trying to give a word of advice to me.

My first diary went over ok. Meaning that it did not get banned and some people even responded to it. So here goes number two.

Dennis Kucinich is going to do very well on Saturday. (I hope he does better than Paul does with his "tea party Sunday". I don’t know though.) For those who missed the news in the MSM...rather the lack of coverage in the MSM, 15 December 2007 is the 216th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Oh sure it’s not popular these days, after all it’s old and quaint. Talking about old fashion ideas like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, warrants issued by judges, the right to trail by jury, and such.

To show support of the Bill of Rights, Dennis Kucinich’s supporters are holding a pledge drive. The goal is 100,000 pledges of $100 each. So far it has close to 1200 pledges for Saturday, many in the forums have said they plan on giving even more than the $100 pledge. It’s very likely that we could break $2 million in one day. It could be even more.

Much as been made about Ron Paul’s fundraising, his supporters, and his low poll numbers. I thought for my first try at a diary I would see if I could give an insight that some might find interesting. (Of course if I get the cricket treatment or the Kos version of the big hook I can at least learn from those mistakes.) One poster questioned if Paul’s fanatical supporters were being undercounted in the national polls where he shows up at 3% or so but sees yard signs and bumper stickers all over.

I have a soldier in my unit who is a Paul supporter. To be honest supporter is not strong enough. He’s a Paul fundamentalist fanatic. If Giuliani only says "noun, verb, 9/11" this Specilist 4 (Spc) is "noun, verb, Paul, MF." Our Platoon is a good mix of America, we have 33 assigned and only four are from the same state (CA). A wide variety of farmer kids, city kids, and a bit more suburbanites.  It’s 40% minority, most of that is Hispanic than any other. Ok, it’s not a scientific survey, but it works in most cases.