Messin’ with rural folks’ guns is ungodly

Hunting becomes spiritual

The Democratic presidential combatants have sunk to a new low in the battle of race and gender; they’ve started courting working-class white people in Indiana. Sen. Barack Obama dipped into the Sen. John McCain treasure trove by gaining support from a diehard Republican Vietnam veteran.

Obama mentioned David Taylor in his speech at Ball State University on Saturday. Taylor, a past Muncie city councilmember (and current delegate for the elephants), said, "There are a lot of disaffected Republicans. People are frustrated with the direction George Bush has taken this country."

Now that’s an astute observation from a Republican. Most would have thought Sen. McCain had Republican war vets locked and loaded.

It’s too soon for Obama to claim scoring a coup in Muncie, though. Muncie’s Republican Mayor Sharon McShurley snubbed Obama by not showing up at the event. Instead, she made profound statements to the press.

"I am disappointed in Obama and his anti-capitalist views." Did she just call the senator from Illinois a socialist" The mayor said capitalism needs to be "alive and well" for democracy to survive. Whew, somebody had to say it.

Let's hurt each other and ourself

Both candidates are in damage control mode. Obama punk'd folks in small-town Pennsylvania when he said last week that they were "bitter" and "cling to guns and religion." Start trashing their First and Second Amendment rights in rural communities, senator, and the ruralites will be up in arms.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was accused by her husband of being old. Careful Bill, it’s taken a long time for you to build pillow credibility after Monica. Now you’re going to say the missus had a senior moment when reminiscing sniper fire at a Bosnian airport?

In his explanation last week of Mrs. Clinton's slipped memory of the 1996 non-event in Bosnia, Bill attributed her fallacious recall to geezer fatigue. "Some of them [candidates], when they're 60, they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 o'clock at night, too," he said.

It's a good thing Hillary is awake at 3 a.m.

So much for courting the youth vote, eh, Bill? Never use your wife’s — or any other woman’s age — as a talking point. No good will come from this.

Now for a brief intermission

McCain has memory lapse

Meanwhile, St. John de Arizona is being chided by The Young Turks on Air America Radio and blogs for being wishy-washy in the old soldier department. It appears McCain's 100 years in Iraq commitment is ultra conservative to his more liberal stance when Bill Clinton ran the country.

The Young Turks compiled a stack of YouTube videos showing McCain insisting that U.S. troops be immediately withdrawn from Somalia and Haiti.

Perhaps not all elephants have good memories, it seems.