Here's a red-alert follow-up to my post on Governator Schwarzenegger (which Laurence Leamer adds some great context to in his post -- thank you, Laurence!):
Virginia is for Independent-Lovers. Tuesday was primary day in Virginia. One major paper took the opportunity, months before the November election, to come out and endorse the Independent candidate for governor, Russ Potts. Another paper you may have heard of (The Washington Post) has a column by Marc Fisher that says (among other nice things) "Potts is neither pro wrestler nor cyborg, but he may yet knock some sense into the robots on the ballot."You can read ‘em both (and weep, if you’re a Democrat or a Republican) at www.RussPotts.com.Potts needs enough money to reach critical mass to get his message out (maybe $4 million - $5 million in a state where Democrat Mark Warner spent tens of millions to win) -- and the two parties are working hard to make sure he doesn’t raise it -- but if he does, history is going to be made in the state that’s home to the oldest continuous legislative body in the Western hemisphere.
Your eyes should be upon Texas. Maybe you heard Kinky Friedman on Don Imus's show; maybe you didn't. But if you're interested in the future of politics in general (and independent politics in particular), you need to turn your eyes towards Texas.
In the midwest, where I live, you can literally sense a change in the weather before it happens. It's very still; then the atmosphere gets electric, the temperature drops, the wind begins to pick up, and you know you're about to be in for something sudden and dramatic. The winds of change are not just blowing down in Texas, they're whipping across the prairie. Texas is the most independent state in the union, and I'm telling ya -- it is smelling a lot like Minnesota in 1998 and California in 2003. 2006 is still a long ways off, Kinky has a lot of hurdles to get over to get on the ballot, and you can bet the two parties are going to do everything they can to keep him off it. But something is happening in Texas that's going to be very fun to watch.