Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run away

So, it’s well known that Senators have to run away from their records as much as they can run on them. That’s perhaps inevitable, given the nature of legislating, and it’s also a function of the vicious anti-Washington nastiness that the Republican Party has fostered, or festered. Can you fester something? Anyway, every cycle, it seems, we have half-a-hundred Senators trying to be President and having to retract, explain and fumfer.

But does it seem to you, Gentle Reader, that the current crop of Republicans with executive experience are running away from their home states? I read the transcript of last night’s debate (I don’t recommend it, unless you like that feeling when the top of your head comes off) and what struck me was how little home feeling the candidates seem to have. Gov. Romney, of course, referred to Massachusetts as “the toughest of states” and said “you can't tell if it's blue or black,” leading me to wonder why he moved there in the first place, and then moved back in the second place. Mayor Giuliani talked about having to “secure” New York, and he talked about New York having been attacked, and he said that “If you can lower spending in New York City, Washington is easier than New York City to deal with.” Governor Huckabee said that he was “going along with” the citizens of his home state, Arkansas, when he raised gasoline taxes, but refused to “apologize for being a Republican governor in a very Democrat state and getting 94 different tax decreases”.

Digression: Not a Democratic state, a Democrat state. End Digression.

None of the candidates talked about how wonderful their home states or districts were, although Senator Brownback did mention “ethanol from Kansas or maybe Iowa would be a nice state, too, for it to come from.” I know they were in South Carolina, and it isn’t necessarily a great idea to waste the precious seconds you have in that ridiculous format on bragging on your home at the inevitable expense of your host. Still. They don’t want to seem like they’re ashamed of where they came from, either, do they?

And, of course, one of the virtues of the Willard “Mitt” Romney candidacy was that as a New England Republican, he would have a chance of carrying states that a Southern or Western candidate could not. He’s scarcely running as a New England Republican, though. And similarly, part of the appeal of Rudy Giuliani as a candidate is that he could win New Jersey or Pennsylvania (hahahahahahahaha), because he’s a New Yorker. And if the only thing he likes about New York is that a bunch of people were killed there, well, Your Humble Blogger hearts New York more than that.

So. A challenge for Gentle Readers who feel up to following the candidates. I’d like to see a quote from each candidate mentioning how proud they are of their home state/district/city and the people thereof. I’ll make it start today, and include the candidates of either the Republicans or Democrats. The last candidate standing without anything nice to say about the people who elected him (or her, but that should be quick and easy) will get the Golden Passport to claim residency in, say, Wyoming. The first Gentle Reader to buzz in with a correct answer for any announced candidate (counting Governor Richardson and Governor Huckabee as having “announced” for the purposes of this challenge) will get, um, one year’s free subscription to this Tohu Bohu. Or even better, a year off. Actually, make up a prize YHB can supply cheaply and without undue embarrassment and it’s yours.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.