Cooking Up a Democratic Landslide

Last week I went to an event at the Center for American Progress in downtown DC. I was quite impressed with their office.

I don't usually go to events hosted by progressive organizations, especially being a fiscal conservative. I usually start heading to the door when they start bringing up a "living wage" or "shoring up Social Security."

This event was different. It featured Charlie Cook, big-time political analyst with former Senator Tom Daschle, discussing the 2006 midterm elections. The event titled, "Conversations with Daschle" was sponsored by CampusProgress, an offshoot of the Center for American Progress, which bills itself as a progressive think-tank.

The event attracted mostly college types, with some capitol hill staffer types mixed in for good measure. Food was provided. It was sandwiches, Cape Cod potato chips (excellent), and soda. Of course some of the sandwiches were vegetarian. "We have to consider the animal's feelings." Now that I'm living on lean times, I took full advantage of the free offerings.

Back to the talk itself. Cook said that if the election was held today, the Republicans would lose at least 20 seats in the House. That was a conservative estimate.

Cook mentioned a very key point that has been somewhat overlooked by the mainstream media that spells doom for Republicans this November. In the last two elections the Republican Party has enthused volunteers who loved George W. Bush. These were the people who manned their formidable get-out-the-vote operation. Cook is predicting that many of these same people have beckoned disillusioned and will likely stay home this election. I believe this will make the Republicans lose close races they otherwise would have won in 2002 and 2004.

A Brother Can't Use His Haagen-Dazs Gift Certificate?

I'm writing this blog post as a public service to anyone out there who thinking about redeeming a Haagen-Dazs gift certificate.

I was in the Pentagon City Mall on last Saturday looking for some football gloves. I came up a Haagen-Dazs shop that was near the food court. I instantly remembered that I had a Haagen-Dazs gift certificate in my wallet that entitled me to a free pint of ice cream.

Now for a little background. I received this gift certificate as part of a "swag bag" at CEI's annual dinner back in May. Among the other goodies in the swag bag were candy, a minature Hummer, and a keyboard brush. Somehow all the goodies in the bag related to the free market. I start to digress.

I walk up to the counter at the Haagen-Dazs shop and show the guy who was working the counter my gift certificate, telling him I want a pint of vanilla ice cream. He looks at the gift certificate with a very puzzled look on his face, like I gave him a piece of paper with hieroglyphs on it. He immediately asks me where did I get it. I try to explain to him that I got it at a dinner I went to as part of a goodie bag.

Now this is the part which I don't understand. He says he's never seen this particular kind of gift certificate before. He says that he never "received a memo" and it wasn't mentioned "at the meetings." He refused to honor the gift certificate. I said, "this is a Haagen-Dazs shop, right?" The guy at the counter replied, "I have never seen it before. Sorry I can't honor it."

I can't believe that this guy needs a memo in order to honor a gift certificate that clearly has the Haagen-Dazs logo on it with a bar code. Does he think I printed out a fake gift certificate at home that just happened to be flawless? Unbelievable.