Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller’s Personal Web Site

BRADENTON, FLORIDA — With 100% of all Florida ballots counted, insurgent Republican candidate Ron Paul captured a whopping 3% of primary votes here, while rivals Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and Alan Keyes each scored a statistical 0%. This victory proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ron Paul has what it takes to become the next Republican presidential candidate. To top off his victory, Paul also beat former candidate Fred Thompson, who got a mere 1% of the Florida vote.
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Originally published (and made for) Linux.com…

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One reason I voted for McCain is that he has been the least nasty of the Republican campaigners. Obama is less nasty — by a wide margin — than the Clintons on the Democratic side. Believe it or not, this endless election spectacle is going to end one day, and we’ll need to go back to all being Americans, all trying to improve this country together.

Obama and McCain represent different political points of view and different generations. But both of them seem to be willing to put public service and the good of the country as a whole above their personal ambitions, which I believe is an important quality in a president — and one we haven’t seen for several decades.

A general election contest between McCain and Obama would be a true referendum on where we want our country to go and how we want its affairs to be handled. Big government or little government? Try to fix our mess in Iraq or bring the troops home and let the Iraqis solve their own problems? And so on. The two men are very different from each other when it comes to how they would make our country better.

I don’t personally think either one can keep anywhere near all of his campaign promises or fail to compromise many of his beliefs once in office. For one thing, Congress and the courts still have a lot of power — in many cases more than a president. For another, most components of our economy are beyond a president’s — or, indeed the entire government’s — control. So no matter who ends up as president after November’s general election, a lot of Americans are going to be disappointed.

It is not hard to imagine John McCain as Secretary of Defense in Obama’s cabinet or to imagine Barack Obama as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in McCain’s. Both men have strong records of finding common ground across party and ideological divides.

I don’t see either Hillary Clinton or any of the Republican candidates besides McCain working in a truly bipartisan, non-vituperative, “what’s good for the country” manner.

I would be happy to see either Obama or McCain as president. Either one would be a good choice for all Americans, based on what I have seen of them and read about them.

I’ve been mixing rum and cranberry juice together for decades, and it’s not exactly an original idea. What shocks me is that no one had come up with a name for this tasty drink. So I did: the Yankee Pirate.
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I’ve already explained why I decided to re-register as a Republican for this primary election. Now I’ll tell you why I decided to vote for John McCain.
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I’d say H-Rod’s NH win had two causes: 1) The O-Man’s poor performance in the last debate, and 2) H-Rod finally showing emotion.

Hillary has campaigned with her game face on. Fine. She showed that she can be tough enough to play big-league poker or stare down a nasty dictator. But we Americans also like to think our leaders are passionate about our country and about us. Hillary finally displayed passion. Tears worked, but so does anger, a la John McCain, as long as it is in short bursts and is tempered, a la McCain, with wit and humor.
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The first one, from the Bradenton Herald, is headlined Medicare in crisis: Doctors poised to drop patients. The second one, from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, is under the headline, For international calls the doctor is in the house — and talks about “concierge medicine” available only to people who can afford to pay a retainer of $1400 or more per year to have a personal physician on call all the time. So we’re looking at better (or at least more service-oriented) doctoring for the rich, and less doctoring for the poor. I’m okay with that. In fact, back in 2004, I wrote a piece about how we can have affordable, universal health care while still giving The Rich all the fancy doctoring they want (and can afford). I think this is a good time to reprint that article, so here it is:
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