Now, as you pump your fist, I reminisce

Harrogate's right: let's celebrate this weekend before the tension slams back down next week.

Although I am going to avoid aiming at early-70s Adult Contemporary of Chicago V (and they have entire albums that sounded like that, man!).

GOP to Voters: We Will Either Rule the World or Destroy It

And so winds down the end of a big blog spree from Harrogate. But Harrogate needed to pass this along, a must-read for all Americans.

Apparently, John McCain sees the Democratic presidential candidate as not worth addressing by name. While McCain downgraded Obama's status to the subhuman "other" in the second debate, he refused to even acknowledge Obama's presence in their first meeting. This should strike viewers as quite disturbing, considering that the whole point of a debate is for each candidate to directly engage the other's issues and stances.

and

Increasingly, right-wing conservatives and Republican political leaders are issuing dire warnings to the American public that they – and only they – are the legitimate rulers of the United States and the world. This basic contempt for anything but one-party rule is manifested in a number of dire threats repeated by the party, with its members promising the end of Western civilization as we know it if they lose their dominant status in government.

And then for all you Nader sympathizers out there: Harrogate Truly Madly Deeply symathizes with ye. But hearken to these words before ye go splooge yer inviolable principles all over the voting booth:

The Democratic Party today may be morally bankrupt, spineless, and bland, but none of those are anywhere near as dangerous as the Republican Party's fundamentalist contempt for multi-party elections and bi-partisan politics.

Get Drunk and Vote for Moderate McCain; or, Politics According to Ann Coulter

The always-delightful Ann Coulter's recent column is a valuable read because it strikes at the heart of one of the major narratives competing for primacy this election season: John McCain is a Moderate.

Harrogate is with those who understand that McCain, like Bush, is perfectly representative of Republican orthodoxy. If in terms of ethos he is somewhat less of a social knuckledragger than the typical GOP politician, the difference is negligible at best when you start getting into policies. As for foreign policy, he's as extreme as it gets, belonging to the class of men who would choose no world at all over a world not run according to the ideological fancies to which he clings. Economically, there may not be any prominent Republicans left outside Huckabee and a few precious others, who in certain moods are not totally invested in facilitating corporate hegemony.

But alas, Harrogate's is not the only opinion that counts. Coulter's warrant matters because a lot of Democratic and Republican voters buy it. Harrogate thus wonders emphatically what you, Gentle Reader, think of her article, entitled McCain: Pump This!, which attacks the GOP nominee relentlessly, though also stating a promise to vote for him.

To that latter end she invites her devotees to get drunk on election day, as it will make pulling the lever for McCain more tolerable by far. Yea, the same day her article appeared, a website also appeared with the name Get Drunk And Vote 4 McCain. Wittily, the site uses martini glasses to indicate ratings for a given subject. Presumably, a particularly horrendous example of McCain's Moderation would render a "Five Martini Rating."


Finally, in honor both of Ann Coulter and John McCain, Harrogate posts the following Jimmy Buffet classic.