Hey kids! Governor Manchin here! Today I want to talk about the importance of consensus! When you run for public office, you have to tell voters what you believe in. But after you get elected, you have to reach consensus. Consensus is when you reach an agreement among people or groups who disagree. To do this, people have to be willing to compromise. Compromise means being willing to sacrifice a lot of what you believe in to reach a concensus. I know it sounds complicated, but it's really easy. In fact, it's so easy I do it all the time. And that's one reason I have lots of friends. I've gotten so good at building consensus through compromise that I hardly remember anything I used to believe in! And that's a good thing, because sticking to your beliefs just makes people mad at you. For example, I like to tell people I'm pro-life, which means I'm against abortion. But guess what? I have no trouble helping people who are pro-choice (that means they support the "right" to an abortion) get elected! That's called compromise! And I like to tell people I'm pro-business, but guess what? I have no trouble helping union candidates and trial lawyers get elected! Because I'm a good compromiser! So let's review. How do we get elected? By letting people know what we believe in! And after we're elected, how do we reach consensus and stay in office? By compromising what we believe in!
Any questions?
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
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'House' riveting TV, bad medicine
I didn't start watching "House" -- the Fox medical drama featuring a crabby doctor who's in constant physcial agony and addicted to pain pills but is, of course, a genius -- until this year. But it's fascinating television.
Every episode follows this general story arc: Patient checks into hospital with difficult to diagnose illness. House and his colleagues spend 50 minutes misdiagnosing said patient, very often drilling holes in his or her skull just before telling him or her that there's no hope and death is inevitable. Final 10 minutes, House clears his pill-addled brain long enough to experience an epiphany revealing the cause of the illness and bringing about a dramatic cure.
If I found myself in a hospital and saw House and his associates walking toward me, I'd jump out the nearest window and take my chances with a good home remedy book. But the whole thing is so well produced and acted that it's as addictive as House's handy handful of Vicodins.
McKinney, other chairs prepare for GOP debate tonight
West Virginia GOP Chairman Doug McKinney will be joining Republicans from around the country who are gathered in South Carolina for a series of meetings and to attend tonight's Republican presidential debate.
The big week got underway with the South Carolina party's annual Silver Elephant Dinner Monday night in Columbia. Fox News' Sean Hannity was the keynote speaker for the dinner.
Ten GOP hopefuls will debate tonight in an event carried live on Fox News from 9-10:30 p.m. Sen. John McCain has taken the lead in South Carolina in recent polls.
June table games votes in jeopardy
The scheduled June 9 election on table games will likely be scrapped in Kanawha and Hancock counties because proper legal notice was not given.
Kanawha County only recently caught its omission, while Hancock filed its legal notice about a week late.
The table games bill says, "The county commission of the county in which table games would be located shall give notice to the public of the election by publication of the notice as a Class II-0 legal advertisement in compliance with the
provisions of article three, chapter fifty-nine of this code and the publication area for the publication shall be the county in which the election is to be held. The date of the last publication of the notice shall fall on a date at least thirty days preceding the day of the election."
Pro-gambling forces are attempting to find reasons to justify holding the elections in spite of the failure to file proper legal notice, but to do so would be to ignore laws which have had to be followed for other elections.
