Ramblin' with Roger

There was some discussions among Republicans recently about whether ex-felons should be able to vote. Rick Santorum favored allowing felons to vote after they’ve served their prison sentences. Mitt Romney said he didn’t think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again. You won’t hear me saying this much, but I agree with Santorum.

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Technically, I didn’t make any, in that I didn’t write any down. But probably not. Haven’t figured how to do more exercise without it feel like exercise. Probably played racquetball a half dozen times in 2011; used to play 200 times a year before the local Y closed, but dropping off the daughter at school then needing two buses (or a bike and a bus, if the weather’s decent) to get to work has made getting to play at Siena College difficult.

I keep threaten myself to stop blogging; what I HAVE done is blog (slightly) shorter, especially in December.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Anyway, someone called me up a few months ago and asked me if I wanted to run for school board. Last year, someone I knew told me that “people” were discussing having me run, but I never got a call. This year, I got a call from a local official who I knew before he was elected to his office. I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

It’s not that it’s an unpaid position that takes a lot of time. It’s more that school boards are handcuffed by No Child Left Behind/Race to the Top. Moreover, in the city Albany, the nine or ten charter schools, which are far less transparent financially than they ought to be, are paid for out of the school budget. In other words, I don’t know how to make the situation better, or even maintain the status quo.

A few years ago, I was also asked to run for the library board; THAT position I thought about for a while before declining for time reasons. Someday, I might run for that.

1. Have you ever thought of running for political office?
2. Have people requested that you run?
3. Have you run? For what office(s)?
4. Have you served in elected office?

I was in student government in high school, college, and grad school, but it’ll be a while before I try again.

Assuming this gets off the ground – Bloomberg and Clinton are on the record as not wanting the job – the way the US elections are stacked, they could not win. Theoretically, though, a third party could play a role as a spoiler. George Wallace in 1968, John B. Anderson in 1980, H. Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000 may have made a difference in their respective races.

I was talking about some of the candidates for President with my wife, and I was divvying them up between those with whom I merely oppose politically and those who I called “guano crazy”. I don’t know if I had made up that phraseology, or stole it from someone unconsciously, but I’ve become rather fond of it.

The question: among those who have announced that they are running, which candidates do you consider guano crazy? Democracy for America is running a poll, asking, among the Republicans: Who do you think would make the worst President? When I took the poll a few days ago, Rick Perry had a clear plurality of the votes cast, with over 40% of the vote, followed by Michelle Bachmann (c. 25%), Mitt Romney, and Herman Cain.