Contributed by Bill Hibler
Assuming I were to win the Democrat/Independent Primary on August 18th and make it to Congress, the first thing I would do (apart from calling up President Trump and asking him to pardon North Pole’s Schaefer Cox) is to make an appointment with Mitch McConnell and get some advice. While vilified by my progressive Democratic colleagues, if you view Washington DC from afar, McConnell is almost single-handedly holding the US Government from falling into an abyss.
On the one hand, he has the perpetually out-of-control President Donald Trump and on the other hand, hubristic Speaker Pelosi and smarmy Chuck Schumer with ‘Dog in the Manger’ attitudes that would starve even a dog. Despite all that, he manages to keep Congress going with sniping backbenchers in his own party and outright hostility from the Democrats. As for Trump, McConnell’s quote is still the gold standard on why impeaching Trump was the dumbest thing ever done by Congress, “You don’t remove a bull in the china shop by running a bulldozer through it.” As for Trump’s election, he nailed that too in 2016, “Donald Trump won the election the old fashioned way: by getting more votes than his opponent.” Enough said!
As for Trump, there is a certain utility in his out of control ways. In our cozy Birch Hill Nordic ski hut in Fairbanks, there is a Mario Andretti quote on the wall, “If you are always driving under control, then you’re just not driving fast enough.” Driving is crossed out and replaced by skiing with a picture of a skier caught in a tree. If you don’t take yourself too seriously, as liberal Democrats seem to these days, you can make the case that Trump as perhaps the ‘World’s most obnoxious Oracle’, is well worth listening to.
A case in point is voting by mail. As an Alaska Democrat, I oppose this because it will likely kill the Democratic Party in Alaska, and for that manner any minority party in all states. Getting your party’s registered voters out to vote with all the proper IDs is an age-old critical campaigning tool. If all you have to do is go around, knock on doors or wherever, collect mail-in votes from your voters and ignore those not leaning your way, then good luck to our great country. What we do need, however, is same-day voter registration for any US citizen that can walk, crawl or roll up to the voting location. Getting it verified is the State’s problem, but it counts! The right of any US citizen to vote should not be abrogated in any way, period.
William D. Hibler III, Emeritus Professor UAF
Democratic Candidate for US Congress (www.billhiblerforcongress.org)
