I’m not doing this every time someone drops out of the Presidential race. Well, maybe I will, particularly since I have an intense dislike for most of those candidates still in the running for the Democratic and Republican nominations. In most cases I might use a post for gloating purposes, but as far as Kucinich’s involvement in the Democratic race, there are a number of points of interest.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kucinich will announce he’s ending his Presidential bid tomorrow. There seems to be a number of reasons for this. First, his campaign has not really gotten the traction that many of his supporters had hoped. Second, it seems things are getting more urgent in his congressional re-election race. Third, he’s out of cash. This issue of campaign cash affects a lot more than just his campaign, but also the funding for the Democratic recount efforts in New Hampshire, which stopped today, according to a message posted on the New Hampshire Secretary of State website.

This year I tried doing something a little different with my support for Presidential candidates. I looked at having some level of support for the Democratic and Republican candidates closest to my beliefs as a Libertarian. The Republican side was easy since 1988 Libertarian Party candidate Ron Paul was seeking the Republican nomination. I was quite a bit more tossed up on the Democratic field, since I saw a lot of candidates who at least said they were going to bring an end to the war, and even some that attempted to open a dialogue on the issue of civil liberties — my two biggest issues other than economic and fiscal policy knowledge. No Democrat came even close to earning my full support on economics since Democrats tend to talk about such things as if they failed Economics 101. As far as the quick rundown on Democratic contenders that I was tossed up about:

- Obama: occasionally hinted at libertarian-esque concepts every once in a while, but I couldn’t think he was anywhere near close if he was considered a front-runner for the nomination.

- Richardson: a lot of people told me he was the closest to being a libertarian Democrat. I was aware of his efforts in pushing for less restriction on marijuana in New Mexico, which is good, but I would be hard pressed to define the majority of his policies.

- Dodd and Biden: were probably well prepared for a promotion, but they were kind of, errr boring. And since I have a touch of the ADD…

- Gravel and Kucinich: yeah, this is my neighborhood of the Democratic field. Again, they were never going to come close to understanding economics, but they might do something right in this regard by accident. Gravel supported the Fair Tax (a national sales tax with a cash back option for the poor) and Kucinich strongly opposed NAFTA and CAFTA (because he wrongly believed them to be agreements that advocate free trade).

No one saying they voted for the war before they voted against it or trying to claim they voted against the war but wrote the check (such as Clinton and Edwards) was even considered.

But very importantly because Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul share similar positions on the war and civil liberties, I had eventually (like, just a few days ago) officially half-committed to support Dennis Kucinich for the Democratic nomination. Oh well, I’ll work my way back up the list starting with Gravel and then Obama. But again, I’ll never support Clinton or Edwards for any reason.

In the end, though, I’ll be supporting the most libertarian candidate for the job. This will probably mean that I will be casting my vote for the nominee of the Libertarian Party. There are a number of candidates seeking to be the Libertarian Party’s Presidential nominee. As a Libertarian Party member and possible delegate to this year’s national convention, I will seek to support someone who is 1) philosophically libertarian AND 2) someone who is able to present libertarian solutions to the masses AND 3) raise the visibility of the party. While I’m perplexed by who this person may or may not be at this time, I’m sure a clear answer will come to me in due time. And if I don’t, the Libertarian Party always allows none-of-the-above (or NOTA) as one of the voting options.

I awoke this morning to a very disturbing dream. While this happens quite often, I’m thinking that each new bad dream that I have is getting a bit longer and more intense. Probably from all that experimentation I did with lucid dreaming and altered states when I was a psychology major in college, but I digress. This morning’s bad dream was something drawn straight out of the Dead Zone. Election 2008 had come about, and Hillary Clinton was elected President. Soon after, former President Bill Clinton became a U.S. Senator for New York. Then, all hell broke loose.

I saw the dirt all around me was blood red. I stood before a segment of a jet black slab of wall. No one was being allowed to go past the wall. I couldn’t tell why this was the case. I speculated it was a biological, nuclear, or even an illegal immigrant bomb. Then, I went back to the city. The streets were dark and empty. I was heading toward the closest  parking lot. The office buildings this parking lot were attached to had been renamed Progress Energy Mall, and it was to host a pro-state rally. Progress Energy must have been more focused on sponsoring Rollerball teams or something. The darkness created a scary and ominous walk through town with screams and sounds of scuffles coming from every alley. I wanted to run, but wasn’t able to since this new world led me to be messed up on opium every day.

This was one of those dreams that haunted me all day long. Hopefully it’s not a prophetic dream. Kind of makes me want to set up my own anti-Hillary 527 to get someone else in there. Then I can be blessed with Romney or McCain-inspired dreams. Oh, joy…

…But we knew that for awhile now, even if Fred Thompson (and his equally lazy supporters) wouldn’t admit it. I’m not sure if he even made an actual announcement that he actually showed up for — I mean, I’ve been watching the news for it, but I just haven’t seen it yet today. Now he’ll have more time to watch his trophy wife.

Yeah, let’s keep the lazy storyline going about this guy. It’s a good way to diminish the drubbings he took in most of the early states from Ron Paul. As we know it’s pretty hard to get beat by a candidate that allegedly only exists on the Internet — unless, of course, you are truly lazy. His low numbers certainly weren’t due to his scintillating ideas that helped him stand apart from what the media called the “leading candidates”. Can you name one idea? I surely can’t.

I heard a self-described libertarian supporting Thompson since he wouldn’t get much done — government can’t get bigger if you are too sleepy to sign bills into laws. That would definitely be a boon to the economy — definitely a lot better than those CYA stimulus package ideas that will make politicians look concerned. Outside the box thinking, but still not good enough for me to support Thompson.

While Thompson will be missed, I hope that next week after the Florida Republican primary we can talk about some of the broke candidates dropping out (probably Giuliani, but maybe even  Huckabee).

I spent most of today recovering from last night’s night out on the town. My friend and former co-worker from my college days, Neil, was in town for a week of training at Red Hat corporate headquarters.We started the evening off by visiting Neomonde, a Middle-Eastern eatery on Beryl street in Raleigh, North Carolina.

We then headed downtown for drinks. Originally, I thought that we might head to Tir-Na-Nog on Blount Street, but as we were driving back into the downtown area we passed a bar that I’ve wanted to go to for quite awhile — the Flying Saucer. I started out with a local brew called White Wolf Golden and we began chatting. Eventually, Neil called one of his colleagues who was also in town for training, Steve. Steve joined us shortly. It was kind of odd, they seemed to have worked together for awhile, but never actually met since both worked remotely. Neil worked from Colorado, while Steve worked from Massachusetts. This was a good opportunity to ask a lot of questions about life and culture in the Mountain West and the Northeast. I’ve never been to these parts of the country I’ve never visited, but felt these areas had a lot more in common with my personal and political views than the more authoritarian areas of North Carolina or the religiously conservative areas of the Midwest where I used to live.

I had a number of beers throughout the evening, but I knew that I was in trouble as soon as Neil opened up with a few rounds of shots. I wasn’t really down with the technical aspects of shots since I get confused with things pretty easily — you know, dropping a shot glass into a bigger glass and chugging. Shots soon led to darts. This seemed really dangerous, but I was too far gone to care.

There were a lot of high points during the evening. One of the crazy moments, though, was when Neil got the idea to call our old boss in Indiana. It was about 1pm and the fine folks at the Flying Saucer wanted us to leave. But we decided to do some drunk dialing anyway. Oddly enough, our boss picked up and talked for awhile. Neil and I decided that we’ll call him every time we get together at one of these bar outings.

I didn’t pass up the opportunity to take a few snapshots of the waitresses. Anyone who would so graciously put up with my drunken antics would definitely classify as a saint.

Tonight I braved the elements to visit the 42nd Street Oyster Bar in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. I was hoping to bump into folks I knew there. Hell, they might have been there. If they were I wouldn’t have known since I was running late, the bar was a lot larger than I would have expected, and I’ve realized for a few weeks that I really need to get new glasses. While I would have enjoyed company in this pursuit, everything was all good, as this type of activity was still consistent with my newfound quest to get out of the house more often.

I decided to find a place at the bar and make conversation with nearby persons while waiting for the band to get started. The bartender and the young lady next to me recommended one of the draft pilsners, so I had two of them. It had the oddest taste, kind of like peas. No, not pee (or piss); it tasted like peas. The odd veggie taste was a strange comfort since most beers taste like how I would imagine piss to taste.

I expected the band to start at 10:00pm, but they seemed to start somewhat earlier than that. They looked kind of like Weezer, but must have been some sort of southern rock band. Weird. Their first song was called Southern Cross, by Crosby, Stills & Nash. Part of the song goes like this:

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way.
‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small.
But it’s as big as the promise - The promise of a comin’ day.

That is where I started to notice things getting strange. Maybe things had been strange earlier in the day (like when presidential candidate Ron Paul came in second in the Nevada Republican primary), only this was my first realization of how strange they were. Last night Brien Barbour mentioned he would be performing Southern Cross at an upcoming audition (see my previous post from January 18th, “Brien Barbour at the Lotus Leaf Cafe“). Anyway, I decided to leave during the second song, the Marshall Tucker Band’s Can’t You See. I was almost inspired — about what, I can’t remember. But the spirits seemed to guide me nonetheless.

So I was out-and-about in downtown Raleigh, going to the store to pick up some snacks, the gas station to get lottery tickets (with one minute to spare), and finishing up by hitting the dollar menu at McDonald’s. Finally, I got home and pulled up the lyrics and began to reflect on Southern Cross, a song which with I really wasn’t too familiar. As I finished reading the lyrics, I got an email from Brien. Weird, huh? I hope this is a good omen for Brien’s upcoming performance.

I’m sure I’m missing something about the importance of this day. Even so, I just decided to fill my soul with thanks and open myself up to the experience. Maybe it’s all been teeny-tiny coincidences — or maybe it’s been mystical shit that’s screaming “Wake up!” at me. I’ll just pinch myself in case there’s something going on besides pea-beer intoxication.