It's Friday

And since it's Friday, and the driving range is calling my name, I'll have a brief counterpoint to Sid Salter, the perspectives editor at the CL. Sid recently wrote that Mr. Franks sat "in the political catbird's seat" in the Lt. Governor's race. I guess having almost 50% of the population with no idea who you are is an advantage for a while, but that's mostly due to the fact that the press hasn't done much to let the folks around the state know about Mr. Franks and his 'efforts' for district 19, such as his failure to help volunteer firefighters in Dorsey/Friendship acquire equipment.



To describe Mr. Franks as "confident" is to describe how he usually is, until he's faced with an unreceptive audience. He's not an excellent public speaker, and at best when he's flustered by someone not sympathetic to his cause he's threatened to fight them and referred to them as "queers"-just ask Paul Gallo. He doesn't think on his feet well, which is why he usually avoids the courtroom in his lawsuits; his preferred manner is to win at the negotiating table through the threat of going to court. I want reporters to follow him to a meeting of medical personel, or small businessmen, a constituency that's not in the back pocket of his political party.



Finally, it's hard to imagine people voting for Haley Barbour-who's about as sure to be re-elected as I am to shank most of the bucket this afternoon-and cross over to vote for someone who not only has professed numerous times his hatred for Republicans in general and Barbour specifically. The main question in the Barbour campaign is how badly he'll beat John Arthur Eaves, and can he pull 60% in the election. Unfortunately for Mr. Eaves he's not doing any favors for his campaign by appearing in Mooreville with Mr. Franks. A number of Mr. Franks constituents came away making the statement that they'd planned to vote for Mr. Eaves, until he showed up with Mr. Franks.



Take it for what it's worth, Sid. By the way, you're also wrong on the Stem cells blog today. The executive order frees up research on the more promising adult pluripotent somatic cells-cells which can be reprogrammed into malleable forms, which can in turn be used in the same ways stem cells were, but with no cost to human life and with less uncertainty. You're about two years behind on the whole stem cell thing, anyway. Embryonic cells are so '05. Besides, if they were as 'hopeful' as people claim-having gone so far as to insist Christopher Reeve could walk with their help-then government funding wouldn't be necessary, because the private research sector would have already invested more than the necessary funds. It's similar to ethanol, another sham that's been taxpayer-subsidized for thirty plus years with little in the way of results.

Anyway, off to the swearing-I mean, driving range.